WEBVTT - Trial Over Trump Targeting Pro-Palestinian Student Activists 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:07.000 This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:13.600 Columbia graduate student and pro Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil has 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:17.119 become a symbol of the Trump administrations cracked down on 0:00:17.320 --> 0:00:22.520 international students at several American universities. Khalil was the first 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.400 target of Trump's effort to deport non citizen students with 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:31.000 pro Palestinian or anti Israeli views. He spent one hundred 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:35.280 and four days in federal immigration detention before being released 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:36.080 last month. 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:42.040 They tried to portray me as a violent person. They 0:00:42.080 --> 0:00:48.320 tried to portray me as a terrorist, as some lunatic, 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:52.600 but not presenting any evidence, not presenting any shred of 0:00:53.760 --> 0:00:55.320 credibility to their claims. 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:59.640 Until this week, legal proceedings have focused on the detentions 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:04.080 of individual students, but now a federal judge in Boston 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.720 is holding the first trial challenging the Trump administration's policy 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:13.920 of revoking visas, arresting, detaining, and deporting non citizen students 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:19.160 and faculty who engage in pro Palestinian advocacy. Groups representing 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:23.440 university professors say the policy is chilling free speech on 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.280 campuses in violation of the First Amendment, but lawyers for 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:31.600 the government argue that no such policy exists. My guest 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.000 is immigration law expertly on Fresco, a partner at Holland 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:37.160 and Knight Leah, and there have been lots of orders 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.600 by judges over these arrests of non citizen students, but 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.560 this is the first trial. Explain how we got to 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:45.119 this point. 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.880 The Trump administration has been trying to crack down on 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:53.800 what it believes is excessive protests on university campuses by 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.320 foreign students. And it thinks that there are some number 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.280 of students that are coming to the United States that 0:01:59.320 --> 0:02:03.600 are not coming for legitimate academic reasons, but are instead 0:02:03.640 --> 0:02:07.760 coming to rabl rouse or cause trouble or otherwise create 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:11.359 anti Semitic activities in schools. And so what it's been 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:15.280 doing is it's been revoking visas, and it's been revoking 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:18.400 them in a number of matters. It's been actually either 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:21.600 just saying to students they can't re enter if they leave. 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:26.240 Sometimes it's been actually terminating them from the student visa database, 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.520 and in other times for people who are actually lawful 0:02:29.560 --> 0:02:35.000 permanent residents, it's actually revoked their lawful permanent residence status, 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.200 and all under a provision in the Immigration Code which 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.320 says that the Secretary of State can revoke either lawful 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:46.720 permanent residency or a student visa, either one any immigration 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.840 status that's not citizenship. The Secretary of State can revoke 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:54.480 that status if the Secretary of State believes that doing 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.120 so is necessary because the foreign national is acting contrary 0:02:58.240 --> 0:03:01.600 to the interests of the foreign policy of the United States, 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:06.519 And so in other cases involving specific individuals like Mahmoud 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.600 Khalil or other individuals, the judges have just taken these 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.720 claims at face value and said, Okay, I'm going to 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.880 rule on the legality of the question of whether what 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.160 Secretary of Rubio is doing violates the First Amendment or not. 0:03:20.760 --> 0:03:25.320 And that statute is unconstitutional either on its face or 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:28.400 in the way it's being applied, such that these foreign 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:31.680 students are not being allowed to express themselves under the 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.440 First Amendment. But in this case, this particular judge, who's 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:38.920 known for basically not taking any claims at face value, 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.160 has decided that he would actually bring this to a trial. 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:44.520 So what's the main issue in the trial. 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.320 So what he's having a trial on is whether the 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:52.560 Secretary of State Marco Rubio is actually revoking these visas 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:55.880 in good faith because he's concerned about the foreign policy 0:03:55.880 --> 0:04:00.440 of the United States, or whether it's being done as 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.240 a pretext to violate the First Amendment rights of these 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.320 foreign national students. Now, the problem is, there are a 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.160 lot of precursor issues in this case, like whether this 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:12.600 judge even has jurisdiction to be doing any of this, 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.440 whether this should be done in a removal process, whether 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:19.359 this statute doesn't even permit any judicial review of any kind. 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.359 And so the judge is sort of skipping all of 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:24.839 those steps, and it is saying, yes, I have jurisdiction, I 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:27.359 can review all of this, and it is just basically trying 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.000 to get to the end of the book first and 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.279 say I'm going to actually just get to the merits 0:04:32.279 --> 0:04:35.960 of this. What is the administration doing? Is it illegal? 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.599 And then leading to the courts all of these questions 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.160 later the threshold questions about whether he even had jurisdiction 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:45.760 to do any of this in the first place, where 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.480 these cases are supposed to be brought, et cetera. 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.520 So Leon, the judge said that the trial's likely to 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:56.520 center on the question of whether non citizens lawfully present 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.000 in the country have the same free speech rights as citizen. 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:02.640 Is there case law on that? 0:05:03.279 --> 0:05:05.480 Well, there actually is case law on that, and that 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.440 case law is pretty bad. There's a case called Haresiatis 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:13.039 versus Shaughnessy from the nineteen fifties, and it dealt with 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.560 actual lawful permanent residents of the United States, so not 0:05:17.040 --> 0:05:20.880 non immigrant visa holders like student visa or visitor visa holders. 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.400 These were actual lawful permanent residents. And many of them 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:29.120 in that case had US citizens spouses and US citizen children. 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:32.400 Some had US citizen grandchildren. And the issue was there 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.440 was a statute that said not just current communists, but 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:40.400 even former members of the Communist Party could be deported 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.960 if they were just identified for deportation. And this was 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:46.920 in the height of the Cold War, and these folks argued, 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.960 wait a second, I'm not even in the Communist Party anymore. 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:54.760 I've renounced my affiliation with the Communist Party. And they 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:57.600 said the courts shouldn't be able to deport me, because 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.520 even if I was a Communist, what differ what it 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.719 make if I wasn't actually violently seeking to overthrow the government, 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:06.919 if I was just some sort of communists who just 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:10.120 was an economic person not trying to overthrow the government. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.880 Why would I be deported for my First Amendment values? 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:17.920 And that court in nineteen fifty two said no, in 0:06:18.000 --> 0:06:22.800 these statutes involving non citizens, the First Amendment does not 0:06:23.240 --> 0:06:27.640 overcome the security concerns, the legitimate security concerns of the government, 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:30.480 even if the person is a lawful, permanent residence. So 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:36.320 if the Supreme Court actually upholds that doctrine here again 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.880 in twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six, whenever it 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:41.760 gets this case, then it will remain the same, which 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:44.600 is that when you're not a citizen of the United States, 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.920 your First Amendment right are not superior to the rights 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.160 of the government to be able to deport you for 0:06:51.360 --> 0:06:55.200 conduct that they feel is deportable conduct. We shall see, 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:56.480 and the judge. 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.839 Is also going to consider whether the Secretary of State 0:07:00.160 --> 0:07:02.719 is revoking these visas in good faith. 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:05.440 The other issue that they're trying to get at in 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.800 this trial is, yes, first, what First Amendment rights do 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.840 the non citizens have? But then number two, the judge 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.640 may say, well, fine, that's all fined in dandy. But 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.120 if the adjudications here are pretextual and I can find 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:23.440 that they're completely pretextual, meaning there actually is no threat 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.440 to foreign policy of any kind. I can still halt 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:31.440 these deportations because fine, maybe the statute does allow a 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.280 deportation when there's conduct that's a threat to the US 0:07:34.360 --> 0:07:37.360 foreign policy. So, for instance, the number one version of 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.760 this would be that sub dictator gets a visitor visa 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:43.440 and comes to the United States, and nobody likes that 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.640 this dictator is being given safe haven to visit the 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:50.280 United States, So that would be the number one version 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.480 of this. But at the end of the day, that 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.480 might also be something that's not subject to judicial review. 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.240 And that's what the Court of Appeals, the District Court, 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.520 and the Supreme Court are going to need to decide, 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.040 is is this issue about whether the Secretary of State 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:07.880 is actually acting in good faith in a particular case 0:08:08.240 --> 0:08:11.160 something that a judge actually can review in the first place. 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:13.520 And none of this is settled law, none of this 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:15.920 is established. All of this is being made up at 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.800 the beginning now as issues of first impression. I think 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:21.080 this judge is going to say he has jurisdiction, which 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:23.760 is why he's going through a trial. But we're going 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:26.160 to have to see where the First Circuit ultimately goes 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.240 down on this, and also where the Supreme Court actually 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.160 says at the end of the day, what actually happens. 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.640 What is the procedure that needs to be followed when 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:38.679 the Secretary of State decides that someone is acting contrary 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.400 to the foreign policy interests of the United States. Can 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:43.720 it be challenged in the district court? Does it have 0:08:43.800 --> 0:08:47.000 to be challenged in the administrative removal proceeding? And then, 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:50.760 depending on which court, what is the nature of the challenge. 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.960 Can you actually prove this is pretextual or does the 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:57.960 administration get enough deference that you really can't even challenge 0:08:57.960 --> 0:08:59.880 it at all? And so those are going to be 0:08:59.880 --> 0:09:01.960 the questions we're going to be deciding in the next 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:02.520 year or so. 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.040 Let's move from the First Circuit to the Fifth Circuit, 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:10.040 the most conservative circuit in the country, and it upheld 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:15.120 an injunction that that stops a Texas anti immigration law 0:09:15.240 --> 0:09:18.960 from being enforced in a victory for immigrants rights. Is 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:20.920 that a surprise coming from the Fifth Circuit? 0:09:21.320 --> 0:09:22.319 Well, it is a surprise. 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:24.320 In the center was a two to one decision, with 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:28.560 one of the Republican judges taking the side that the 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:33.440 statute from Texas was unconstitutional. If you recall what happened 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.520 in this This was during the Biden administration when the 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.439 State of Texas was saying that there was an inundation 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.520 of people coming into the United States. The Biden administration 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.880 didn't want to do anything about it, so it needed 0:09:44.920 --> 0:09:47.560 to act, and the State of Texas passed the law 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:50.960 basically saying we can do three things that have never 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.480 been done before. Number One, we can actually deport people 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:59.280 ourselves to the border of Texas and Mexico. Maybe we 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.040 can't bring them into Mexico, but what we can do 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.320 is take them to the US side of the actual 0:10:05.320 --> 0:10:07.880 physical border. And what we can say to them is 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:10.120 if you try to come back into the interior, if 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.480 you don't actually then take the next step yourself and 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:17.560 go into Mexico, then we're going to prosecute you for 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:19.440 a crime. And if we do it a second time, 0:10:19.440 --> 0:10:23.319 it'll be an even worse crime. And so from that perspective, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:26.680 the question was is that violate federal law. There was 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.000 a district court injunction that said that yes, this violate 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.760 federal law under the Arizona versus the United States case 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.600 that came during the Omama administration in twenty twelve. That 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:41.160 was the Arizona Law, where Arizona said, We're going to 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.880 basically take matters into our own hands and enforce immigration 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.040 law and ask people for their papers, and if they're 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:50.000 not here legally, we will arrest them and prosecute them 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.719 for a misdemeanor. That was rule to be unconstitutional. So 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:56.920 this is further than that. And in a two to 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:01.280 one decision, the Court of Appeals upheld in a permanent 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:05.320 way the stay that it had issued that had prevented 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.720 this Texas Statute from going into effect in the first place. Now, 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.200 what's interesting about this is the factual backdrop, and we're 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:14.560 going to be talking about factual backdrops a lot today, 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.840 but the sexual backdrop of this case is completely different 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.240 now than it was back when the Biden administration was 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:24.920 in office and there were these concerns about the amount 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:28.000 of people streaming in to the state of Texas. Now 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:31.120 pretty much everyone would admit I would think that there 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.240 are anybody streaming into the state of Texas anymore. That 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:38.200 this traffic has stopped in its entirety. And so the 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.000 question is, what is this emergency that Texas is claiming 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:45.280 is necessary now in order to have a law like this, 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.480 and I think that's going to be its biggest problem 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:49.959 if it tries to move forward to the Supreme Court 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:51.040 coming up next. 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.920 A judge blocks the administration from denying all asylum claims 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.320 at the southern border. You're listening to Bloomberg. A DC 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:04.880 federal judge has barred the Trump administration from expelling asylum seekers, 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:10.720 saying President Trump overstepped his legal and constitutional authority. Judge 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:15.360 Randolph Mass said portions of Trump's January twentieth executive order 0:12:15.800 --> 0:12:20.240 violate the Immigration and Nationality Act and the US constitutions 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:24.640 separation of powers. The US Constitution can't be read to 0:12:24.720 --> 0:12:28.880 grant the President or his delegees authority to adopt an 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:34.000 alternative immigration system which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted. 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.720 I've been talking to immigration attorney Leon Fresco of Holland 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:43.960 and Knight. Has the Trump administration been denying asylum claims? 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:47.200 Correct? What has happened since the Trump administration has taken 0:12:47.400 --> 0:12:51.240 power in January of twenty twenty five is they tightened 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:55.040 a regulation that was already being challenged through the Biden administration. 0:12:55.080 --> 0:12:58.319 What the Biden administration was saying was you can't come 0:12:58.400 --> 0:13:02.040 across the border illegal and ask for asylum. You have 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.040 to make an appointment using the CBP one app and 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:09.160 go to a port of entry and ask for asylum 0:13:09.240 --> 0:13:11.320 at the port of entry. But if you try to 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.840 go in between the ports of entry, you are not 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:16.880 going to be allowed asylum. You're going to be pushed 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.640 back into Mexico because you're going to be banned. So 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:23.680 that was a provision that the Biden administration has. When 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.640 Trump comes into power, he then says, not only will 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.360 you be pushed back, not only will there be this band, 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:31.439 but there's not going to be a legal way to 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:33.960 come into the port of entries. We're closing the CDP 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.120 one app, We're closing the parole programs that allow you 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.040 to apply to come in legally. And so there's no 0:13:40.080 --> 0:13:44.040 way in period. There's no asylum, there's no requesting it 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:47.120 at the ports of entry, there's no requesting paroles, nothing, 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:50.720 there's no way to ask for refugee status. If you're 0:13:50.760 --> 0:13:53.640 just basically trying to arrive to the United States to 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:57.160 ask for a refugee status aka asylum, there's no way 0:13:57.200 --> 0:14:00.720 to do that. And so when that happened. There literally 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:02.880 is a provision in the law that you can challenge 0:14:02.880 --> 0:14:06.679 that in the District Court for the District of Columbia, 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.840 and that's what people did. They first challenged the Biden administration. 0:14:10.440 --> 0:14:13.560 That case never got to a decision, so it got 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:17.400 converted into a challenge to the Trump administration's policies. And 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.560 now after a lot of excessive briefing back and forth, 0:14:20.880 --> 0:14:25.760 because the Supreme Court had issued doctrines earlier in the 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:30.320 Biden administration saying you can't get preliminary injunctive relief like this. 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:33.560 You can only basically get summary judgment, and then that 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:35.480 has to go all the way up to the Supreme 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.600 Court before something like this can be stopped. So they 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.040 were saying that district courts and circuit courts, on their 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:47.480 various statutory regimes, don't have the jurisdiction to enjoin these 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:52.120 kinds of asylum programs. They can only enter a final 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.080 judgment saying that they think it's illegal, and then that 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:56.840 has to work its way up to the Supreme Court, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.600 who then has to decide whether it's illegal or not. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.920 So that's what's happened here. A district judge from the 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:06.200 District of Columbia has said this is illegal. You have 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:09.440 to provide some way for people who are outside of 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:11.840 the United States who when they arrive at the United 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.840 States are able to apply for asylum. You can't just 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.880 have a wholesale ban on people applying for asylum. And 0:15:18.920 --> 0:15:22.360 that that's what's basically happened here, and so that the 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.480 executive orders and regulations that have been issued by the 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:32.120 Trump administration banning asylum are declared illegal. Now that declaration 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.440 won't go into effects again unless and until the Supreme 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:38.640 Court allows it to go into effect. But nevertheless, if 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.160 the Supreme Court agrees that there has to be some 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:45.600 way for people to apply for asylum, then the numbers 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.920 will eventually change from the zero numbers that we have now. 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.440 I mean they may not change immediately because there will 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.320 be this game of sort of you know, touching the 0:15:54.400 --> 0:15:57.200 stove and seeing what happens when you touch the stove, etc. 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:01.120 But once people touch the stove enough to see that no, 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.400 the government does indeed have to let them in and 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:06.280 then let them apply for asylum, then you will see 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:07.480 people doing this again. 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.560 I mean, asylum is a pretty basic concept in this 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.840 country through our history. What do you think the Supreme 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.120 Court will do well. 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:19.560 It's difficult because if you're actually going to look at this, 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.600 and I always try to use the either AI judge 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.000 or the robot judge, or the judge that has no 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.400 political sentiment of any kind, it's hard to read the 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:32.840 statutory framework which says that regardless of how you enter 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.960 the United States, if you're in the territory of the 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.040 United States, you're permitted to apply for asylum, which is 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.480 what the statute literally says, and then say, well, there's 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:45.480 no way to apply for the asylum because what's happening 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:49.800 is the administration is using a second statute which says 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:55.840 that they can pick places or reasons, discretionary reasons why 0:16:55.880 --> 0:16:59.040 people cannot get asylums. So, for instance, let's say there's 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:02.000 some new AI crime that nobody thought of when they 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:05.000 read the statute. They can say, anybody who's committed this 0:17:05.119 --> 0:17:09.439 AI crime can't get asylum. Okay, fine, nobody thought of 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:12.200 that when there was a statute, fair enough, But people 0:17:12.359 --> 0:17:16.119 did think of the fact that if you came illegally 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.840 you could apply for asylum, because that's literally what it 0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:22.120 says in the statute. So can that be a reason? 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:25.320 Is that really a permissible reason that you can use 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:29.080 your discretion for to not allow people to get asylum, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.840 because that's literally one that's covered in the statute. It's 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.440 not like AI where it would be a brand new 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.920 thing nobody thought about, which was the whole point of 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:42.760 Congress giving this authority to add new discretionary reasons why 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:46.960 somebody couldn't get asylum. This is one that was already contemplated. 0:17:47.359 --> 0:17:51.760 So I do think if you have a disinterested, non political, 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:56.000 computerized judge, it would seem to me that that judge 0:17:56.040 --> 0:17:58.480 would say, yeah, there has to be some way you 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:01.440 can apply for asylum if you enter the United States. 0:18:01.680 --> 0:18:03.720 But we're going to see what the Supreme Court does. 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.080 Because the Supreme Court may just say I get all that, 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:08.919 and that's fine and dandy, but I don't want to 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:14.000 return to the state of affairs in the Biden administration 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.000 where there were hundreds of thousands of people coming each 0:18:17.080 --> 0:18:20.399 month across the border, and so they may just say 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.359 too bad. We'll really just have to see where the 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:26.840 Supreme Court will go down. As I sit here now, 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.800 I cannot make a good faith prediction because of other 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.160 cases we'll talk about in a second, where I would 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:34.119 never have guessed the Supreme Court would have ruled the 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:36.439 way it did. And I think the Supreme Court is 0:18:36.520 --> 0:18:41.520 just tired of interventions that don't allow the Trump administration 0:18:41.600 --> 0:18:45.480 to enforce immigration laws. And so they may just say, look, 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:47.960 if the Congress wants to do something, that's great, But 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:50.080 if the Congress isn't going to do anything, we're not 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:54.480 going to recap the president's ability to enforce immigration law. 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:58.600 Yeah, I mean on the emergency docket. The Supreme Court 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:03.959 has basically given Trump everything he asks for regarding immigration, 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:10.040 including last Friday where they said he can deport people 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:11.399 to third countries. 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:14.760 Correct. So in this case, here's what happened. You had 0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:17.920 eight individuals from all over the world, the notorious sort 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:22.040 of countries. We can't deport people to Cuba, Allos, Cambodia, 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.320 et cetera. And so what the Trump administration is basically 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.919 trying to accomplish as it's basically saying, look, I think 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:33.560 these countries are acting in a pretextual manner not allowing 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.520 us to deport their citizens back to their countries. If 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.359 we actually make things onerous enough and difficult enough, they'll 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:44.920 eventually start taking their people back. Whether it's directly or 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:49.400 if we deport them to very strange places, then those 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.240 individuals will starve to death unless those countries accept them back. 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:56.199 So they will eventually give them a travel permit to 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.560 go back to Cambodia or Loos or Cuba or something, 0:19:59.560 --> 0:20:01.359 because they're that's just going to let people start to 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:04.639 death in the middle of some strange country. So it 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:07.720 tried to test out this theory in South Sudan. It 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:11.480 tried to deport people from Cuba and Laos and Cambodia 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:14.520 and other places, eight people to South Sudan. But in 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.359 the process of trying to do that, it didn't allow 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:20.679 these individuals to raise a claim that they would be 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.760 subject to torture if they were deported to South Sudan. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:26.760 And so there was a district judge who said stop that, 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:30.640 you can't continue this process. And the problem was by 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.359 the time that order was entered, the individuals were already 0:20:34.440 --> 0:20:37.200 in Djibouti. And I think this is another issue of 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:40.520 bad facts make bad laws, because now there was eight 0:20:40.560 --> 0:20:44.399 people in Djibouti where the US basically was stuck. What 0:20:44.480 --> 0:20:46.760 was it supposed to do with these people? You know, 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:49.320 do you do trials for whether they're going to be 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.440 torture or not. Who are these Americans having to take 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:55.560 care of these people in Djibouti? You know they can't 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:58.159 go home now. It was a big mess, and so 0:20:58.240 --> 0:21:01.000 I think the Supreme Court was worried about just this 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.560 logistical nightmare of having at least a month or two 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.760 or maybe more of hearings and trials for these eight 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:11.200 individuals to may claims about whether they would face torture 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.679 in South Sudan, and so basically threw its hands up 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.040 and said, you know what, we're done with this. Allow 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:20.000 these people to be sent to South Sudan. But in 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:24.000 the meantime, that's created a president now where the Trump 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:27.960 administration will be able to send anybody to South Sudan 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.080 or Libya or any other country it wants to. You 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.399 won't have an opportunity to be able to raise a 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:36.159 claim that you would be tortured in that country. You 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:38.880 can only raise a claim that you will be tortured 0:21:38.960 --> 0:21:42.560 in your country a citizenship. But they'll say, fine, okay, 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.240 so you'll be tortured in your country a citizenship, whatever 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:48.960 that may be. But who cares, We're now going to 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.480 send you to Libya or South Sudan or some other country, 0:21:52.880 --> 0:21:55.840 and so I did not expect the Supreme Court to 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:59.280 not allow for some due process to be able to 0:21:59.280 --> 0:22:02.280 make these claims. But that is where we are, and 0:22:02.400 --> 0:22:05.040 so at the moment, unless the Supreme Court comes back 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.680 and revisits this later, which by the way, it has 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:10.600 done in other issues. There were some times during the 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:14.440 Biden administration where it lets certain things go into effect 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.560 that then it later said, this makes no sense, why 0:22:17.600 --> 0:22:20.880 did that happen, and then it actually enjoined them. And 0:22:20.960 --> 0:22:24.160 so this could and maybe even probably would happen later 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:27.760 moving on in the future, especially depending on if the 0:22:27.880 --> 0:22:31.280 news starts getting really stark and people start actually dying, 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.080 you know, if they get deported to certain places, then 0:22:34.480 --> 0:22:37.400 the facts may get bad enough that the Court does 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:40.800 revisit this, and maybe more quickly than not. But at 0:22:40.800 --> 0:22:43.680 the moment, the current state of affairs is the Trump 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:48.000 administration can deport any foreign national to any country it 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.240