Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law, with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: We the jury in the above ententitled matter as to
Speaker 1: count one unintentional second degree murder while committing a felony
Speaker 1: fying the defendant guilty. This verdict agreed to this twentieth
Speaker 1: day of April PM, and as that guilty verdict for
Speaker 1: the murder of George Floyd was read in the Minneapolis
Speaker 1: courtroom and broadcast to the country. Former police officer Derek
Speaker 1: Chauvin showed no reaction to his conviction, but outside the
Speaker 1: heavily fortified and guarded courthouse, the crowd erupted and cheers
Speaker 1: at the announcement of guilt on all three charges, and
Speaker 1: there was uniform praise for the verdict from people in
Speaker 1: all walks of life. From George Floyd's brother, Felonis Gustus
Speaker 1: bad Me freedom fall, to the President of the United
Speaker 1: States as he saw in this trial. From the fellow
Speaker 1: police officers who testified most when men and women aware
Speaker 1: the Badge served their communities honorably, but those few who
Speaker 1: failed to meet that standard must be held accountable, and
Speaker 1: they were. Today. Chauvin is facing up to forty years
Speaker 1: in prison. And the Minneapolis Police Department is facing a
Speaker 1: sweeping federal investigation. Joining me is David Harris, a professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Pittsburgh Law School and author of
Speaker 1: A City Divided, Race, Fear, and the Law in Police confrontations. David,
Speaker 1: isn't an inflection point that at this trial a number
Speaker 1: of police officers, including the chief of police, testified against Chauvin,
Speaker 1: one of their own. Is this the crumbling of the
Speaker 1: so called blue wall. It was very significant because usually,
Speaker 1: as you say, this idea, the blue wall of silence
Speaker 1: is that police officers never turn on and certainly don't
Speaker 1: testify against their own in these kinds of cases, that
Speaker 1: they always back each other up no matter what. And
Speaker 1: here you had three police officers from the Minneapolis Police
Speaker 1: Department to current high ranking officers, including the chief himself,
Speaker 1: testifying against Chauvin. Now, this is very significant on two levels.
Speaker 1: Number one is on the level of the case itself.
Speaker 1: It served to cut off the defense argument that somehow
Speaker 1: Chauvin was acting within his training, that his actions were
Speaker 1: within policy and so forth, And all three of the
Speaker 1: officers said, oh no, definitely not. And therefore that crippled
Speaker 1: the argument that the defense did make. But the larger
Speaker 1: question is whether this shows that that blue wall will
Speaker 1: crumble more generally. I think the jury has to be
Speaker 1: out on that at this point. Certainly, seeing this right
Speaker 1: out in front of the whole country gives an indication
Speaker 1: of how important it is for police officials to say
Speaker 1: out and direct no, this was wrong. But whether this
Speaker 1: becomes some kind of a trend that we see in
Speaker 1: a lot of other cases, I think still remains to
Speaker 1: be seen. There is still a very strong current of thinking, well,
Speaker 1: this Chauvin, he was just one bad guy in an
Speaker 1: otherwise good department, in an otherwise good profession. Chauvin is
Speaker 1: facing a maximum of forty years in prison and a
Speaker 1: minimum of twelve and a half. Floyd's family and activists
Speaker 1: are calling for the maximum sentence. How likely is that, Well,
Speaker 1: in any sentencing, you look at both the crime and
Speaker 1: the convicted descendant. The Chauvin's lawyers will no doubt argue
Speaker 1: that he's been a policeman with a relatively good record
Speaker 1: for nineteen years, and you know, there can be some
Speaker 1: argument about whether that's true of his record, but they'll
Speaker 1: argue that he should get the minimum sentence because this
Speaker 1: is something that nobody could have foreseen he's not a
Speaker 1: repeat offender. I don't think that's realistic, because the crime
Speaker 1: itself showed what are called in Minnesota aggravating circumstances, and
Speaker 1: that would be especially just the outright cruelty of what
Speaker 1: happened out there in public. This was a situation where
Speaker 1: a man did not need to die. This was not
Speaker 1: a case in which the police officer could make and
Speaker 1: we didn't hear it any argument. You know, he was
Speaker 1: in fear for his life, like we often hear in
Speaker 1: such cases. You often wonder looking at that video, is
Speaker 1: this guy waiting in line for a sandwich at subway?
Speaker 1: Is he trying to make a point to these people
Speaker 1: who are yelling at him that he can do whatever
Speaker 1: he wants. So I would expect the sentence to be
Speaker 1: above the minimum. The system and the sentencing will respond
Speaker 1: to the circumstances of the crime and the sendant. You
Speaker 1: can make an argument that the crime was so cruel
Speaker 1: and outrageous that it deserves the maximum sentence, but I
Speaker 1: think there's going to be debate about that. I don't
Speaker 1: expect the judge to give the minimum, but I would
Speaker 1: be surprised if he gave the absolute maximum that was
Speaker 1: out there. Chauvin's lawyer has been making a record for
Speaker 1: his appellate case throughout the trial. What will some of
Speaker 1: the appellate issues be. There will be appeals about jury issues.
Speaker 1: We saw multiple times that Chauvin's lawyer asked that the
Speaker 1: case be moved out of Hennepin County, multiple requests for
Speaker 1: mistrial concerning information that was out in the public sphere,
Speaker 1: particularly the announcement during jury selection that the family of
Speaker 1: Mr Floyd was going to receive a very large settlement,
Speaker 1: And we saw Judge Cahill actually take a couple of
Speaker 1: the juror who had already been selected off the jury
Speaker 1: panel when they told him they weren't sure that they
Speaker 1: could stay on the jury and be fair. There are
Speaker 1: also multiple issues about the admission of certain pieces of
Speaker 1: evidence that will be contested by the defendant on appeal.
Speaker 1: Once you're convicted, it becomes hard to overturn a conviction
Speaker 1: at every stage of the system. The higher up you
Speaker 1: go and the farther along ago once you're convicted, the
Speaker 1: harder it is to overturn a verdict. The three other
Speaker 1: officers at the scene will be tried in August. Does
Speaker 1: the conviction in this case have any impact on that trial?
Speaker 1: Not directly. It doesn't say foreclosed the possibility that they
Speaker 1: could be acquitted. They are charged with aiding and abetting
Speaker 1: Derek shown, which in legal theory is the same as
Speaker 1: being the main actor. But juries always have a sense
Speaker 1: of proportion in my experience. They will know, for instance,
Speaker 1: that one officer was standing up on the sidewalk blocking
Speaker 1: people from what they fear might have been interference, though
Speaker 1: he is an aider and a better allegedly under the
Speaker 1: legal theory of the case, and therefore bears the same
Speaker 1: responsibility of as the person who did the actual act.
Speaker 1: Juries want a sense of proportional justice, and if they
Speaker 1: think the system is reacting too harshly to a person
Speaker 1: with a role that is not the same, the jury
Speaker 1: may be more reluctant to convict for the same charges,
Speaker 1: and prosecutors know this, so I wouldn't be surprised to
Speaker 1: see some movement towards a plea agreement with these three defendants.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation with Professor David
Speaker 1: Harris of the University of Pittsburgh Law School, and we'll
Speaker 1: talk about the new Justice Department investigation into the Minneapolis
Speaker 1: Police Department Date Right, life mad Date Wright Life, Merit.
Speaker 1: The trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is over,
Speaker 1: but still to come is the trial of another former
Speaker 1: police officer for the killing of Dante Wright, a twenty
Speaker 1: year old black man shot during a traffic stop on
Speaker 1: April eleven in suburban Minneapolis, and that city's police department
Speaker 1: will now be the subject of a sweeping investigation by
Speaker 1: the Justice Department. Here's Attorney General Merrick Garland. The investigation
Speaker 1: I am announcing today. We'll assess whether the Minneapolis Police
Speaker 1: Department engages in a pattern or practice of using excessive force,
Speaker 1: including during protests. I've been talking to David Harris, a
Speaker 1: professor at the University of Pittsburgh Law School. How significant
Speaker 1: is this pattern and practice investigation? I think it's very important. Uh.
Speaker 1: Here's why. A case like Chauvin's case, or the cases
Speaker 1: of the other three officers, those are criminal actions against
Speaker 1: individual people for particular acts that they did. In a
Speaker 1: case like that, you're looking at individual facts to pursue
Speaker 1: individualized justice, even though we are all looking at it
Speaker 1: as a kind of referendum on police conduct. They are
Speaker 1: fundamentally individual cases about individual actions on a particular day.
Speaker 1: What the Justice Department has the authority to do is
Speaker 1: under a federal statute called the Pattern or Practice Statute,
Speaker 1: to go to a local police department and to say,
Speaker 1: we will now be investigating you, uh for allegations that
Speaker 1: your department, not Derek Schouve, not one of the other
Speaker 1: three options, but your department is engaged in a pattern
Speaker 1: of violating your citizens constitutional right. Now, a number of
Speaker 1: important things are packed in there. Number one, the national
Speaker 1: government in this country does not have authority to regulate
Speaker 1: local policing. Our policing in this country is hyper localized.
Speaker 1: The best that they have is the authority to see
Speaker 1: that the constitution is obeyed, and that's what this statute
Speaker 1: is based on. So they can go in and look
Speaker 1: for violations of constitutional rights. The statute limits them to
Speaker 1: looking for patterns, to looking for regular practices of violations.
Speaker 1: In other words, even a terrible incident like the death
Speaker 1: of George Floyd at the hands of Derek Chauvin wouldn't
Speaker 1: be enough under this statute. It can't be one incident,
Speaker 1: even one very bad one. It must be a pattern
Speaker 1: of this that goes on all the time. Under that statute,
Speaker 1: the Justice Department can come in do an investigation to
Speaker 1: look for those patterns in anything that might impact constitutional rights,
Speaker 1: so that can be used. Of course, it can be
Speaker 1: search and seizures of other kinds like stopping frisk, like
Speaker 1: traffic stops. It can be any number of things that
Speaker 1: might violate people's constitutional rights. And if it finds those patterns,
Speaker 1: it then goes to the city and the police department says,
Speaker 1: here's what we found. We think you're violating your citizens
Speaker 1: constitutional rights, and we propose that you make the following changes,
Speaker 1: and if there is agreement, that agreement is then put
Speaker 1: into something a document called a consent decree, which is
Speaker 1: signed off on by a federal judge. Now, the real
Speaker 1: importance of this is that instead of addressing one incident,
Speaker 1: and addresses the full scope of police actions that are
Speaker 1: found to be in violation of the constitution in that department.
Speaker 1: In other words, it's targeted at the system at the
Speaker 1: institutional level. Right, So if they find a pattern of
Speaker 1: use to force violations, they will uh, they will uh
Speaker 1: say we want you to retrain all your officers. We
Speaker 1: want this to be the new standard within your police department.
Speaker 1: It will have the following details and you will monitor
Speaker 1: it in these ways. So these are systemic level changes
Speaker 1: and it's the best and really only tool out there
Speaker 1: that the federal government has for making those kind of changes.
Speaker 1: So it is entirely appropriate to follow the Chawbn trial
Speaker 1: with this kind of investigation to see is this the
Speaker 1: problem of one person, as some people are saying, well,
Speaker 1: he was a bad apple, or is this a department
Speaker 1: wide problems. In the last few years, there have been
Speaker 1: as many as seven fatal shootings by police in the
Speaker 1: Minneapolis area, So is it likely the feds will find
Speaker 1: a pattern and practice? And I suspect they're going to
Speaker 1: find that department wide pattern because data that was public
Speaker 1: even at the time of George Boyd's death showed that
Speaker 1: the Minneapolis police used force way disproportionately against people of
Speaker 1: color and all kind of force, not just deadly forced,
Speaker 1: but you know, using tasers, using fists or pepper spray
Speaker 1: or clubs or whatever. So this is the right thing
Speaker 1: for them to do to look into this, and it
Speaker 1: is a signal that the Justice Department is going to
Speaker 1: pick up this tool after letting it go and abandoning
Speaker 1: it entirely. Under the Trump administration and under Attorney general
Speaker 1: sessions have consent degrees changed police practices in past cases. Yes,
Speaker 1: they worked, not all of them worked, and not all
Speaker 1: of them had staying power. But I do think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say that they were the best tool we had,
Speaker 1: and often a very effective tool to go in and
Speaker 1: address some of the worst police departments and get others
Speaker 1: back on track. You know, they had to go into
Speaker 1: the New Orleans Police department, not once, but twice. Here
Speaker 1: in Pittsburgh where I am based, was the very first
Speaker 1: consent to free back to two thousands and two, and
Speaker 1: it transformed this police department, and it was a better
Speaker 1: department for some years. But you know, as in all
Speaker 1: police departments, city administrations changed, a new mayor comes in,
Speaker 1: a couple of police chiefs. Down the line, the commitment
Speaker 1: is not there, and a lot of the things that
Speaker 1: were put into place a kind of atrophied didn't stick.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't always work and fully transformed departments. But
Speaker 1: there are many places where it has. I mean, a
Speaker 1: good example is Cincinnati, which had a terrible set of
Speaker 1: riots after the killing of Timothy Thomas back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. And that's still a different department. Remember
Speaker 1: that there are knock on effects too. So when the
Speaker 1: Justice Department comes into a police department in say Baltimore, Chicago,
Speaker 1: or New Orleans or whatever, you've got police departments all
Speaker 1: over that same region and all over the country saying,
Speaker 1: you know what, I don't really want the eight hundred
Speaker 1: pound guerilla in my office telling me they're gonna take
Speaker 1: all my files. What do I have to do to
Speaker 1: get better? How can I manage up to a better
Speaker 1: standard so I don't have that. Everybody knows the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice can't investigate all police departments. I think during
Speaker 1: the entire Obama administration they did twenty five of these.
Speaker 1: And you know, we have eighteen thousand police departments in
Speaker 1: this country, so you're only going to get a small franction,
Speaker 1: and hopefully they're the ones that really needed. That's Professor
Speaker 1: David Harris of the University of Pittsburgh Law School coming up. Well.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court curb green card applications. This is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law with June Brush from Bloomberg Radio. In oral arguments
Speaker 1: this week, the Supreme Court suggest that it would block
Speaker 1: green card applications of thousands of immigrants who entered the
Speaker 1: country illegally but then secured temporary legal status because their
Speaker 1: home nations are in crisis, like the Salvadoran couple in
Speaker 1: the case, federal law requires Green card applicants to have
Speaker 1: been quote inspected and admitted into the country, and some
Speaker 1: of the justices appeared doubtful about whether the plaintiffs could
Speaker 1: be considered admitted. Here are Justices Clarence Thomas and Elena
Speaker 1: Kagan in the case of oppetitioners, how does that work?
Speaker 1: Because they clearly were not admitted at the borders? So
Speaker 1: is that a fiction? Is it metaphysical? What is it?
Speaker 1: I mean? The section says the admission to the United
Speaker 1: States of any alien is a non immigrant, But why
Speaker 1: does that suggest that admission is something that all non immigrants?
Speaker 1: Ket and Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the plaintiffs at an
Speaker 1: uphill climb. We need to be careful about tinkering with
Speaker 1: the immigration statutes has written, particularly when Congress has some
Speaker 1: such a primary role. Here joining me is Leon Fresco,
Speaker 1: a partnered Hollandon Knight. Leon explain what temporary protected status is.
Speaker 1: So that's actually a statute that Congress passed that says
Speaker 1: that when there is a natural disaster or something like
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen pandemic or the hurricane or political war,
Speaker 1: et cetera, that the United States and the President in
Speaker 1: this case in particular, has the ability to say, I
Speaker 1: AM going to protect people here in America from those
Speaker 1: countries from deportations and give them something called temporary protective
Speaker 1: status that allows them to remain here legally for eighteen
Speaker 1: months increments during the quote unquote duration of the crisis,
Speaker 1: and then when that quote unquote crisis is over, then
Speaker 1: theoretically these individuals are supposed to then returned back to
Speaker 1: their country. So the Salvadoran couple came here in the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, when did they acquire temporary protected status? The
Speaker 1: status that they accrued actually did occur in the nineties
Speaker 1: due to natural disasters and hurricanes that occurred in Al Savador.
Speaker 1: The point is that that status was extended. This is
Speaker 1: one of the criticisms that people give about temporary protective
Speaker 1: status is once it's extended, it never goes away. Because
Speaker 1: America feels badly about deporting people that had legal status.
Speaker 1: So these were individuals that had for eighteen month increments
Speaker 1: at a time been getting their silent remaining in the
Speaker 1: United States. But we're concerned, like many people were, that
Speaker 1: when President Trump came into office, his goal was to
Speaker 1: end this temporary protective status and not let anyone remain
Speaker 1: on it anymore. And so many people started to try
Speaker 1: to figure out are their ways I can get a
Speaker 1: green card in order to remain here in the United States.
Speaker 1: And that is the crux of what the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: was debating. The issue for the justices, though, was that
Speaker 1: they came here illegally. Correct they came here illegally, and
Speaker 1: so what happens is in order to get temporary protective status,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter whether you came here legally or illegally.
Speaker 1: It just matters that you're in the United States on
Speaker 1: the day that the status is created. So let's say
Speaker 1: there's a hurricane on March one, and on March eighth,
Speaker 1: the President says, we're gonna say that everybody who was
Speaker 1: here on March one, the day of the hurricane, gets
Speaker 1: temporary protective status. Then anybody here could apply whether they
Speaker 1: were here illegally or legally, and more importantly, whether they
Speaker 1: came illegally or legally, The question for them was whether
Speaker 1: those individuals who had entered here illegally could be treated
Speaker 1: as being admitted here now that they had temporary protective
Speaker 1: status such that they're permitted now to apply for green
Speaker 1: card because the condition of a green card is that
Speaker 1: you had to have been admitted into the United States.
Speaker 1: What were the justices main concerns during oral arguments? There
Speaker 1: were three being concerns. One there was there was well,
Speaker 1: there was a prudential concern, a textual concern, and then
Speaker 1: sort of the main concern in the case. But so
Speaker 1: I'll start first with the prudential concerns because that's the
Speaker 1: easiest to understand. The first was, look, Congress decided this
Speaker 1: thing as a temporary relief. And so if Congress decided
Speaker 1: this thing as a temporary relief, then Congress didn't want
Speaker 1: this thing to be used by people to stay here permanently.
Speaker 1: So there's no way that's could have been. They're intent
Speaker 1: to give people a way to be able to sneak
Speaker 1: ely earn lawful permanent residents. So you heard Justice Kavanaugh said,
Speaker 1: Justice Coney Barrett talk about this. Justice Kevana was also concerned, Hey, look,
Speaker 1: Congress is currently debating giving green cards to people here
Speaker 1: with temporary protective status. So just let that debate happen,
Speaker 1: and when they can win it, they win it, and
Speaker 1: they get the green cards. And if not, why should
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court be involved in this? The second was
Speaker 1: there was this very arcane and I thought a bit
Speaker 1: confusing because I think they were trying to be too
Speaker 1: cute by half. All of the justices asking whether a nonimmigrant,
Speaker 1: which is someone who's coming here temporarily, and so nonimmigrants
Speaker 1: are student visas, visitor visas, temporary work visas, religious work,
Speaker 1: or visas, all of these things are called non immigrant visas,
Speaker 1: whether there's any kind of nonimmigrants who hasn't been admitted
Speaker 1: into the United States. Because the key up to this
Speaker 1: case is that the statute says that if you have
Speaker 1: temporary protective status, you're being you're being treated as a
Speaker 1: non immigrant, And so they were getting to this debate,
Speaker 1: is there any kind of of non immigrants who hasn't
Speaker 1: been admitted to the United States? And the actual answer
Speaker 1: that question is no. And for some reasons that did
Speaker 1: not come out in the oral argument yesterday, you can't
Speaker 1: the whole point, even if it's not said in the
Speaker 1: code that in order to be a nonimmigrant, you have
Speaker 1: to be admitted into the United States. It's like if
Speaker 1: you don't say in the code, in order to be alive,
Speaker 1: you have to be breathing. It's just an obvious point
Speaker 1: because what happens is the way you get non immigrant
Speaker 1: status in America is you enter a port of entry,
Speaker 1: you present that VIVA, and a CDP person stamps you,
Speaker 1: and that's your admission. And that's every nonimmigrant in America
Speaker 1: that there's nobody who's not like that. And so because
Speaker 1: of that, the the court got off on this tangent
Speaker 1: of well, maybe not every non immigrant is admitted, but
Speaker 1: they didn't come up with an example. They didn't ask
Speaker 1: for an example. Nobody provided an example. Because though example
Speaker 1: was available, and the Justice has asked a lot of
Speaker 1: questions about what the word admitted means, tell us about
Speaker 1: the third concerns. Then the third thing they were arguing
Speaker 1: about was, well, there's two requirements in order to get
Speaker 1: a green card. First you have to be admitted, and
Speaker 1: second you have to be in legal status when you apply.
Speaker 1: This is for employment based green cards, which is what
Speaker 1: they were talking about in this case. And so they said,
Speaker 1: why doesn't this just mean the second thing, which is
Speaker 1: that you're currently in legal status, but it doesn't fix
Speaker 1: the first thing, which is that you were admitted. And
Speaker 1: that's really the central question in the case. And there
Speaker 1: is where I think the government, if they have the
Speaker 1: stronger area of the argument, it would be there, which
Speaker 1: is that it was meant to cover just the issue
Speaker 1: of whether you're currently in loveful status, but it was
Speaker 1: not meant to fix the issue of whether you had
Speaker 1: been admitted here in the first place. And so it's
Speaker 1: only meant to give a green card the people who
Speaker 1: came here llegally. It's not meant to give a green
Speaker 1: card to people who came here illegally, and so that's
Speaker 1: I think most likely where you're going to see the
Speaker 1: court go. But what's very fascinating about this case is
Speaker 1: the Biden administration Solicitor General did not want the court
Speaker 1: and was very adamant about this, to say that this
Speaker 1: interpretation had been foreclothes that you could get a green
Speaker 1: card while they were on TPS. They simply wanted to
Speaker 1: be a reasonable interpretation of the statue because it's possible
Speaker 1: that they may issue a regulation later that does allow
Speaker 1: people with temporary protective status to get green cards because
Speaker 1: you can choose between two reasonable interpretation. But if the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court says there's only one reasonable interpretation, and it's
Speaker 1: that you cannot get a green card, then no regulation
Speaker 1: will be possible. Listen to what Chief Justice John Roberts
Speaker 1: told the Joice Department lawyer about the Biden administration not
Speaker 1: being more forceful in their arguments. Mr Houston, I was
Speaker 1: struck by the extent to which your brief um under
Speaker 1: soldier position. Throughout it you said things like the text
Speaker 1: doesn't foreclose your position. The court was not required to
Speaker 1: accept the petitioners reading. Is that because of the difference
Speaker 1: in the way the Biden administration views this and the
Speaker 1: way the Trump administration viewed it correct that's the huge differences.
Speaker 1: The Trump administration wanted a decision that foreclosed permanently the
Speaker 1: ability for anybody who would enter here illegally to be
Speaker 1: able to get a green card using temporary protective plant,
Speaker 1: and the Biden administration is instead, And I think this
Speaker 1: was because they didn't really have time. The case was
Speaker 1: already in the middle, and they didn't want to change
Speaker 1: their position. They instead are trying to defer to this
Speaker 1: minimalist position, which is to say this argument isn't wrong.
Speaker 1: We're not saying it's the only correct argument. We're just
Speaker 1: saying that the Trump administration's interpretation wasn't a bad interpretation.
Speaker 1: So you should say this interpretation is reasonable enough for now,
Speaker 1: and then you can always change it later if you
Speaker 1: want to. And so that's where the bid that administration
Speaker 1: retreated to. So where do you think the court is
Speaker 1: going to come out on this? I could see some
Speaker 1: sort of consensus being reached on the reasonableness of the
Speaker 1: interpretation that would then allow the Biden administration to come
Speaker 1: back and ensue a regulation and change how it interprets
Speaker 1: this statute. That way, sort of the position that people
Speaker 1: on the conservative side think exists here can prevail in
Speaker 1: the litigation. But at least if you provide this consensus opinion.
Speaker 1: A it's better for courts always to provide a consensus opinion,
Speaker 1: but be it then provides the ability for the Biden
Speaker 1: administrations to change how it interprets the statute and actually
Speaker 1: permit green cards. I think there will probably be a
Speaker 1: concurring opinion by Justice Thomas and Justice Alito and maybe
Speaker 1: Justice Corsage saying no, no, no, we don't agree with
Speaker 1: the Chevron difference concept, but we don't believe in that,
Speaker 1: and we think there's only one way to interpret the statute.
Speaker 1: But I could see a consensus judgment that just upholds
Speaker 1: the decision but doesn't foreclose the Biden administrations from changing
Speaker 1: its interpretation of the statutes. That would be my prediction.
Speaker 1: Does this illustrate the problem the Biden administration has with
Speaker 1: immigration issues? Where here it's at odds with Democratic lawmakers.
Speaker 1: There are nine Democratic members arguing against it and progressive yes.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was the exact perfect storm where perhaps
Speaker 1: if this whole issue had arisen during the Biden administration
Speaker 1: from beginning to end, you might have seen a different
Speaker 1: resolution all throughout. But because this case was part of
Speaker 1: the Trump administration and was carried over into the Biden's
Speaker 1: administration after the Supreme Court had already granted tertiary, the
Speaker 1: Biden administration was in a very tough position because it
Speaker 1: didn't have the ability to do all of the changes
Speaker 1: that it needed to do. It ordered to change its
Speaker 1: position in this case. It didn't want to take a
Speaker 1: lawless position in this case because there had already been
Speaker 1: binding authorities from this body called the Board of Immigration
Speaker 1: appeals that had bound the administration to this case. So
Speaker 1: what they just are trying to do for now is
Speaker 1: minimized the damage by saying, look, all of these binding
Speaker 1: decisions that we have, now, let's just say they're reasonable,
Speaker 1: But give us the opportunity to undo all of these
Speaker 1: decisions using the mechanisms that are available under administrative law.
Speaker 1: And I could foresee in a year or two this
Speaker 1: process being concluded to permit people who enter here illegally
Speaker 1: to be able to obtain Green card. So far, the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court the Biden administration on immigration issues has been
Speaker 1: mostly rescinding Trump policies that the justices had been planning
Speaker 1: to consider. For example, the Court's dismissed cases over Trump's
Speaker 1: porter of Wall, his remained in Mexico policy for asylum keepers,
Speaker 1: and his tough test for screening out Green card applicants
Speaker 1: who might become dependent on government benefits. Is this the
Speaker 1: first immigration case that's been argued by the administration. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the reason this one has to move forward and
Speaker 1: the other ones didn't have to move forward was because
Speaker 1: there was actual administrative law decision that had already binded
Speaker 1: the government, and you couldn't overturn those you either had
Speaker 1: to do something which I think the Biden administration was
Speaker 1: uncomfortable doing, which was not defending decisions that the government
Speaker 1: made through the regular order of the government decisions, or
Speaker 1: they're doing what they're doing here, which is this minimalist
Speaker 1: defense of the decision. For the border wall, they could
Speaker 1: decifically say we're gonna move this out by not building
Speaker 1: any more border wall, or for the public charge, they
Speaker 1: consistually saying we're gonna move this out by accepting an
Speaker 1: injunction from the lower course. But the problem with the
Speaker 1: sense as cases, it was a challenge to an administrative decision,
Speaker 1: and so there's no way to mood out at administrative decisions,
Speaker 1: or there is, but it was gonna take much longer.
Speaker 1: It would have required the Attorney General to issue a
Speaker 1: new case, a new briefing process, etcetera. And none of
Speaker 1: that was on the table where the Attorney general has
Speaker 1: just recently been confirmed. There was not an ability to
Speaker 1: get to this case in time. Thanks Leon. That's Leon
Speaker 1: Fresco of hond and Knight, and that's it for the
Speaker 1: edition of the Bloomberg Lan Show. I'm June Grosso and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Bloomberg,