Speaker 1: The massive flood from Hurricane Harvey isn't the only news
Speaker 1: out of Texas. A federal judge in San Antonio on
Speaker 1: Wednesday at least temporarily blocked core parts of a state
Speaker 1: law that would crack down on so called sanctuary cities
Speaker 1: and force greater cooperation with federal immigration officials. Judge Orlando
Speaker 1: Garcia said much of the measure probably violates the Constitution
Speaker 1: and federal immigration law. Garcia bill Clinton appoint He said
Speaker 1: the provisions will erode public trust and make many communities
Speaker 1: in neighborhoods less safe. The state's largest cities, including Houston,
Speaker 1: were among the challengers, and Texas has vowed to appeal.
Speaker 1: Our guests to sort this out and explain its significance.
Speaker 1: Are Rick Sue He's a professor at the University of
Speaker 1: Buffalo Buffalo School of Law. And Leon Fresco, a partner
Speaker 1: at Holland and Night. Rick. Welcome to you both, Rick, Uh,
Speaker 1: Let's start at kind of at a general level here,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of specific provisions, and we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get into some of the specifics. But why did
Speaker 1: Texas pass this measure? What did it say it was
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish? Um. More specifically, it's trying to go
Speaker 1: after a so called sanctuary cities. And of course this
Speaker 1: issue of sanctuary cities, though not necessarily knew, has really
Speaker 1: sort of taken on front stage and the immigration debates
Speaker 1: in recent years. UM. What precipitated directly was the actions
Speaker 1: in the policies passed by Travis County, which is compasses Austin,
Speaker 1: which really raised the ire of the governor and many
Speaker 1: of the state legislatures. And as the court case notes,
Speaker 1: UH much of us before was directed towards attacking particular
Speaker 1: local officials UH and with with with certain number of
Speaker 1: penalties for not participating in immigration enforcements. Leon. The law
Speaker 1: was so divisive that one Democratic legislator even pushed a
Speaker 1: Republican legislator on the final day of the session. So
Speaker 1: how much of a blow is this to Texas Republicans
Speaker 1: and the Trump administration that backed it. Well, I would
Speaker 1: say this is a commendous setback. The standpoint that all
Speaker 1: across the country the issue of local law enforcements being
Speaker 1: litigated in various different flora, whether it's removing d o
Speaker 1: J grant money from localities that don't want to create
Speaker 1: immigration enforce someone who enactim in grace and enforcement policies
Speaker 1: to UM to this case in Texas, which is a
Speaker 1: state driven initiative, to other cases where the cities themselves
Speaker 1: are challenging provisions of the of the of what the
Speaker 1: federal government is trying to do. So all of the
Speaker 1: all of the different litigation that's happening across the country
Speaker 1: can take this signal about the restraints that the courts
Speaker 1: are now saying are going to be placed on any
Speaker 1: effort to deputize from buying either the federal government or
Speaker 1: now the state government to deputize localities to engine immigration enforcement. Rick,
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the specifics of this ruling.
Speaker 1: What would you say is the most important part of it. Uh,
Speaker 1: What's vital to recognize is the degree to which the
Speaker 1: court really called out uh S before, which is the
Speaker 1: state law that we're talking about in this case, for
Speaker 1: how extraordinary it actually is, and there are various components
Speaker 1: that I think really made it a strong case, at
Speaker 1: least in the eyes of the judge in this case. UH.
Speaker 1: The degree to which this particular penalty goes after individual
Speaker 1: policymakers and lawmakers and these jurisdictions with civil penalties, criminal penalties,
Speaker 1: and removal from office, along with the fact that UH
Speaker 1: it really removes a lot of discretion and gets us
Speaker 1: back into the debate of whether or not the local
Speaker 1: and state governments have the power to enforce civil immigration laws,
Speaker 1: especially in light of the fact that many of the
Speaker 1: requests made by the federal government lack um UH probably
Speaker 1: cause to issue a warrant, which is traditionally the constitution
Speaker 1: requirement for local law enforcement to arrest and then detain
Speaker 1: someone in custody. LEON talk specific about detain a requests
Speaker 1: and how they work and what cities are doing with them. Sure,
Speaker 1: so the in the ideal world of how this administration
Speaker 1: would want to run immigration enforcement, what they would want
Speaker 1: is whenever any human being in the United States is
Speaker 1: a resid that individual's fingerprints are taken, those fingerprints are
Speaker 1: set to an FBI database, and p I actually shares
Speaker 1: those fingerprints with ICE as part of an arrangement that
Speaker 1: the FBI has with Immigration Customs Enforcements. And so from
Speaker 1: that fingerprint sharing, I determine that there are individuals with
Speaker 1: fingerprints they're receiving that they want to go and try
Speaker 1: to find when they get released from these facilities. But
Speaker 1: what happens is ICE isn't in all the thousands of
Speaker 1: counties across America, and so they need time to get
Speaker 1: to the facilities before individuals are released. And so what
Speaker 1: I want to do is to be able to tell
Speaker 1: all of these local jails to leave hold onto these individuals.
Speaker 1: That's what a detainer is. That the piece of paper
Speaker 1: that says, please all about to these individuals for forty
Speaker 1: eight more hours than what you would ordinarily hold on
Speaker 1: to them for to give us time to get them
Speaker 1: and place them into immigration custody. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: ruling by a federal judge in San Antonio on Wednesday
Speaker 1: that at least temporarily blocked much of a Texas law
Speaker 1: that would crack down on so called sanctuary cities. And
Speaker 1: our guests are Leon Fresco of Holland Knight and Rick
Speaker 1: Seu of the University of Buffalo School of Law. Rick
Speaker 1: a moment ago Leone was talking about this notion of
Speaker 1: of detaining UH undocumented immigrants and and sort of explaining
Speaker 1: that what ICE wants federal immigration authorities, what they want
Speaker 1: sometimes is, because they can't be everywhere, is for local
Speaker 1: authorities to hang on to somebody for maybe forty eight hours,
Speaker 1: so that federal officials have time to get there and
Speaker 1: detain the person. UH. This law that was blocked would
Speaker 1: have required local officials to do more to cooperate with ICE.
Speaker 1: What did the judge find was wrong with that provision?
Speaker 1: So with regards to the particular detainer issue, it it
Speaker 1: gets back to a bigger issue that's been litigating lots
Speaker 1: of courts. As was mentioned before, it has to do
Speaker 1: with whether or not the local lawforcement agencies actually had
Speaker 1: the power to detain these particular individuals passed the time
Speaker 1: in which UH any local cause to detain them has expired. UM,
Speaker 1: and there actually has been in many lawsuits that have
Speaker 1: risen out of this UH precisely because the detainer requests
Speaker 1: itself doesn't require probable cause or that actually the individual
Speaker 1: is an a document immigrant. And the reason why many
Speaker 1: counties pulled away from following federal detainer requests was because
Speaker 1: of a number of lawsuits in which United States citizens
Speaker 1: who have been detained because of incorrect information from the
Speaker 1: federal government ended up suing the counties themselves UH, and
Speaker 1: the counties were held liable because the court said it
Speaker 1: was your decision to follow the detainers. The detainer was
Speaker 1: inappropriate and in this case it is your liability to
Speaker 1: pay for those damages. Leon Latino and civil rights groups
Speaker 1: called this is show me your Papers law that echoes
Speaker 1: the one that was enacted by Arizona. In George Garcia
Speaker 1: partially upheld that. Tell us what he ruled right, Well,
Speaker 1: the judge sort of split it up and he said
Speaker 1: that the part that the Supreme Court allowed in Arizona,
Speaker 1: he's also allowed in Texas, which is the requirement that
Speaker 1: local officials not be banned from sharing information with ICE.
Speaker 1: A usure of sharing information has continued to be an
Speaker 1: area where courts have not wanted to restrict UH the
Speaker 1: ability of people of local law enforcement to share information
Speaker 1: with ICE. And so the court said that that provision
Speaker 1: as before is fine. The one that required the UH
Speaker 1: that that that banned locality from saying you can't share information.
Speaker 1: So that's part continued. But the part where the local
Speaker 1: officials are prevented to be deputized to actually engage in
Speaker 1: immigration enforcement was viewed by the judge as excessive and
Speaker 1: violence is both preempted by the Immigration and Nationality Act
Speaker 1: because there is a provision for how you get decide
Speaker 1: local law enforcement and also potentially violated of the process.
Speaker 1: So that's part where they're sort of an active immigration
Speaker 1: enforcement component by the localities. That part was actually banned. Rick.
Speaker 1: One other provision I want to ask you about, I
Speaker 1: think you alluded to it earlier. Are these penalties that
Speaker 1: could have been imposed both civil and criminal, on local
Speaker 1: officials who didn't comply with parts of the law. Tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about that. Is that a novel
Speaker 1: requirement that Texas was trying to impose? And what did
Speaker 1: Judge Garcia say about them? Yeah, so the penalties are
Speaker 1: relatively novel. There has been other cases with regard to
Speaker 1: politicize issues like gun control, where state legislations are moving
Speaker 1: to individually penalize officials who are involved in this, but
Speaker 1: none go as far or as extreme as this particular law. Um,
Speaker 1: the penalties themselves were part of a broader ruling, and
Speaker 1: what the court essentially said is because of the standard
Speaker 1: of conduct that the law requires is so broad and vague,
Speaker 1: you can endorse a policy and maybe speak out on
Speaker 1: behalf of a policy that might limit in immigration enforcement,
Speaker 1: uh materially limit pattern practice that to have such a
Speaker 1: strong penalty attached to vague prohibitions would restrict in many ways, uh,
Speaker 1: most under, on the one hand, the First Amendment rights
Speaker 1: of these individuals to advocate for certain policies. UH. And
Speaker 1: also another concern was just that they were vague, that
Speaker 1: the individuals were not unnoticed with regard to what they
Speaker 1: should or should not do, and it may have a
Speaker 1: chilling effect on what local policymakers do. Both of these
Speaker 1: are really novel that they're often not seen in state
Speaker 1: efforts to let's say, mandate a uniform policy in a state. UH.
Speaker 1: These seem to be directly attacking individual policymakers themselves. And
Speaker 1: the court noted that Rick, and we just about have
Speaker 1: a minute left. Tell us what you think about the
Speaker 1: chances for appeal. The state Attorney General says they're going
Speaker 1: to appeal it to the Fifth Circuit, which is known
Speaker 1: as a conservative circuit. Yeah. So it's slightly different in
Speaker 1: this case because it has to deal with the state
Speaker 1: involved in an immigration enforcement UH. And it's the previous precedents,
Speaker 1: I've mostly talked about federal power, and in this case
Speaker 1: this is a slightly different. I do think that some
Speaker 1: of the things that George Garcia noted, and like I
Speaker 1: said before, the extremity and the unprecedented nature of this
Speaker 1: particular law itself may raise the ire of the Fifth
Speaker 1: Circuit as well. Uh, They're just very unique, even if
Speaker 1: you take out the immigration politics of it all. Uh,
Speaker 1: they're very unique and what they're trying to do and
Speaker 1: does raise constitutional concerns well. At case almost certainly will
Speaker 1: go up on appeal to the Fifth Circuit, which is
Speaker 1: based in New Orleans. Attorney General Ken Paxton has said
Speaker 1: that he intends to appeal. He's also said that one
Speaker 1: of his issues with this ruling, interestingly was that, uh
Speaker 1: it was decided in San Antonio instead of Austin. Austin,
Speaker 1: ken Paxton said in a statement, is where the people's
Speaker 1: representatives passed the law. State business is conducted in Austin.
Speaker 1: The plaintiffs have no reason to litigate this case in
Speaker 1: San Antonio, So that may also be one of the
Speaker 1: issues that goes up to the Fourth to the Fifth
Speaker 1: Circuit when, as expected, the state appeals. I want to
Speaker 1: thank our guests, Rick SU's, professor at the University of
Speaker 1: Buffalo School of Law, and Leon Fresco, a partner at
Speaker 1: Holland and Knight, talking to US about the new ruling
Speaker 1: out of a federal district judge on Texas sanctuary city law.