WEBVTT - Lawsuits Over Building Collapse 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:02.880 While it likely will be months before the cause of 0:00:02.920 --> 0:00:06.600 the deadly building collapse and Surf Side, Florida is determined, 0:00:06.800 --> 0:00:09.640 more than a dozen lawsuits have already been filed on 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:13.200 behalf of the victims and their families against any person 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:16.680 or entity who might be responsible for the Champlain Tower 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.759 South condo collapse. Joining me is David Prager, a managing 0:00:20.800 --> 0:00:24.040 director on the head of the US restructuring advisory practice 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:28.040 at Kroll David lawsuits have been filed against a host 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:33.080 of defendants, including the condominium association, the engineering firm that 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.720 inspected the building, the architects who designed it, the city 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:40.720 of Surf Side, and building officials. Is this just an 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:45.600 attempt to cover anyone, any person or entity who might 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:49.440 be responsible for the building collapse. Well, that's that's a 0:00:49.440 --> 0:00:52.400 great question. I think there's a number of factors going 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:55.400 on here. One is your right. This is a fishing 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.120 expedition to try to figure out who knew what and 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.800 when and can you impute that knowledge onto other people. 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:05.399 But at the same time, I think it's also a 0:01:05.520 --> 0:01:08.399 race to figure out where the deep pockets and to 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:11.640 make sure you're trying to hit at those deep pockets 0:01:11.680 --> 0:01:14.280 as soon as possible. You know, people who unfortunately have 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:18.720 lost everything. The obvious place to go for recoveries here 0:01:19.160 --> 0:01:22.000 would be to go to the buildings in the building association. 0:01:22.000 --> 0:01:25.280 That's where the insurance was supposed to be held. That's 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.520 about the approximate cause of failure. But there's not much 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:32.280 left there. As you look at the insurance proceeds, they're 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:36.679 really minimal. I think there's fifteen million dollars in property 0:01:36.720 --> 0:01:39.840 insurance in another eight or so. Reliability insurance really was 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:44.920 designed to cover minor incidents relative to this, so you 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.160 have to look somewhere else. You can't look really to 0:01:47.200 --> 0:01:49.960 the board than those pockets aren't gonna be terribly deep 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.160 relative to the hundreds of affective lives here. So then 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:57.080 you are going to those further steps. The engineering firms 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.000 the city anywhere you can to try to find money, 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.840 and appears the plants are just trying to raise to 0:02:02.920 --> 0:02:06.960 get to that money as quickly as possible. The engineering 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:12.680 firm released a statement saying it's report detailed significant cracks 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.320 and breaks in the concrete which required repairs to ensure 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:19.120 the safety of the residents and the public, and there 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:21.720 was a letter written by the president of the condo 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:26.160 association asking residents to fund more than fifteen million dollars 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:30.240 in repairs. How does that play into liability here? Well, 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:33.880 a lot of this goes, I think to the question 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.600 of what is standard in practice, who is responsible for 0:02:37.639 --> 0:02:41.400 reviewing those reports, and who is responsible for understanding exactly 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:44.040 what is in there? And frankly, was the board and 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.160 the management company well equipped to understand the level of 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.760 disclosure that was being made by the engineering firm. If 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.560 you look through the two report, the notices that have 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.959 been in the popular press here and are blazoned all 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.000 over the lawsuits are somewhat buried in the reports. You 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:04.680 have to read down, I think on stage six or seven, 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:06.720 and you know at the end of the section and 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.200 says it's somewhere is it written in big blazing letters 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:14.480 warning there's an eminent threat to life here? So who 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.160 was responsible for understanding that? I think certainly if the 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.600 board was responsible for taking upon them selves to understand that, 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:24.600 I would think that the engineer would have also been responsible. 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.360 But the engineer isn't really a fiduciary to the building 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.399 residents or to the building owners, and so then you'd 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:33.920 have to look at what their contractual liabilities are and 0:03:34.120 --> 0:03:38.080 does this amount to a gross negligence claim or willfulness 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:42.360 conduct claim or is there some other claim and torque 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:46.200 that connects this engineer back to having a legal obligation. 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:50.400 Certainly in retrospect, it seems that the moral obligation there 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.040 was a shortcoming all along the way, and that seems 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:55.960 to them the most recent board seems to have been 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:58.680 trying to clear that up and to clear up their 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.680 legal obligations just a little bit too late, and as 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:06.160 you're going to look back, too little too late was 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:11.160 tragic here, but probably leads to some level of culpability. 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:13.600 We do this all the time at Krolom, were in 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.039 a station as an expert, being in a financial matter 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:19.760 or otherwise, you look at the known or noable standards. 0:04:19.880 --> 0:04:22.839 Was there fraud being committed based on what was known 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:26.360 at the time or knowable based on information that was 0:04:26.400 --> 0:04:29.160 available in the public record or in your private records. 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:32.440 And as we're now going through these reports, you're seeing 0:04:32.480 --> 0:04:37.240 that it was available to the board, it was available 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:39.719 to the management, and should have been available to the 0:04:39.800 --> 0:04:44.479 condo owners had they made do inquiry. And there's going 0:04:44.560 --> 0:04:48.120 to be I think, unfortunately for for those effected. There 0:04:48.160 --> 0:04:51.520 may be some level of apportionment of blame here to 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.320 go back and say, you know, these condo owners really 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:58.240 pushed back. They didn't take the actions that are required 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.120 for self help by doing things like paying assessments or 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:06.720 borrowing to pay those assessments and exercising to care immediately. 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:09.840 That's going to be weighed against the boards for do 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:12.719 you share responsibilities? Because the board is the one that 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:16.560 most informed, The board is the one with professionals, and 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.679 the boarders the one who has volunteered in this case 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:23.440 to take it upon themselves to take responsibility for everyone 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.600 around them, and that can't be aggregated by making a 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:32.040 blanket statement to your stakeholders. There were about a hundred 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:36.400 and sixty thou condominium buildings in the US, and right 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.839 about now condo boards may be asking what they should 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.279 do to prevent anything like this from happening to their buildings. 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:46.080 I think the first step for board is to look 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:49.720 around themselves and to say, are we positioning ourselves to 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:55.200 assess risk fully and completely? Is there enough diversity on 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.359 my board? And while we talk about diversity oftentimes in 0:05:59.360 --> 0:06:03.800 the sense that demographic retroversity and that certainly is important 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:08.279 in making sure you receive all all sides of views, 0:06:08.400 --> 0:06:13.160 but also professional diversity and skill set diversity. And that's 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.280 really what you need when you're putting together a board 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:20.040 for something like a condo or even a corporation. And 0:06:20.080 --> 0:06:24.400 when we work with boards, we're always saying to them, Okay, 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:27.599 let's make sure if you're enough financial restructuring, which is 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:29.920 a lot of what I deal with that corral. Uh. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.040 We we say to them, you know, hey, let's make 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.400 sure we have the right financial professionals um on the 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:39.600 on the board. And at the same time we say, okay, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:41.719 if you're dealing with a building, make sure you have 0:06:42.440 --> 0:06:46.160 engineering professionals or architectural professionals. Think you also want to 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.200 make sure you're using your outside experts in the way 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:53.520 that they're intended. And that doesn't mean receiving a blank 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:56.840 email with an attachment and letting that go to your 0:06:56.920 --> 0:06:59.360 end box. Means opening it up and reading it with care, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.240 and since sitting down with your professional thing, Okay, what 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:07.680 does this really mean? How bad are things really? It'd 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:09.880 be nice to have all those people on the board, 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:12.360 but a lot of times it's hard to find anybody 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:14.400 to be on a board. They just don't want to 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.520 do it, to take the time involved. So you may 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.440 not have the ability to do that. Well, certainly it's 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.280 a thankless job, particularly a volunteer board, and particularly when 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.000 you're living amongst your neighbors and going to have to 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.720 make unpopular decisions. Those are exactly the people you need 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:35.800 to step up, people who have the courage and the 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:39.560 integrity and the fort toe to make those hard decisions. 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:41.920 Let's also look around them and say, you know what, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.320 I want to be on this board, but I don't 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:47.920 want to sit on a board with four people just likely, 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.720 so either I should take a step back and let 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.120 you know, someone else with with a better set of 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:58.920 qualifications to come forward, or I should say nominating committee 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.720 or exist board who's acting a nominating committee. Why don't 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:05.680 we get some more diversity around us. Let's recruit people. 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:08.720 Let's not wait for the person who raises their hands. 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.080 Sometimes that's the person you need. Oftentimes that's just an 0:08:12.080 --> 0:08:15.680 echo chamber of the members who are already there. So 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.960 let's be aggressive in recruitment. But also you're right, you 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:22.680 can you may not be able to recruit, particularly a 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.800 smaller building, or particularly in a building with with more 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:29.840 animosity amongst its residents, it might be hard to recruit members. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.360 That's when you're professional advisors can come into place. That's 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:37.800 when you're your law firm, your financial advisor, your counter, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.760 your professional engineer, et cetera. You want to bring them 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.160 to the table. But it's also still important to figure 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.320 out who amongst the board members will take responsibility, take 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:52.200 ownership of the relationship with that professional. You know, I 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:56.760 oftentimes when I'm advising a board, we'll figure out, Okay, 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.920 this is the board member or two whose most act 0:09:00.640 --> 0:09:03.920 and the ones that are attentive to my issues. It 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:08.120 may not be the chairman who's dealing with overarching business 0:09:08.240 --> 0:09:11.439 um issues when I'm dealing with a balance sheet restructuring, 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:13.920 so I might deal with I don't know that the 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:17.280 chairman of the audit committee or something like that. Similarly, 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:19.880 if you're an engineer, you want to figure out who 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:23.200 on that board. If you're the professional retained engineer, figure 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:25.280 out who on the board is your most direct line, 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:28.920 the one who's most concerned. And as a professional, it's 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:32.319 also very hard you want to actually find the board 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:36.040 member who's going to challenge you the most, because that's 0:09:36.040 --> 0:09:38.640 how you as a professional and the board and its 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.719 fiduciary duties are going to do the best work to 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:47.240 have a challenging but professional interfaith where you can say, 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.320 as a professional, this is a problem and board you 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:52.280 need to address it or the board can stay to 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.800 you professionally, you need to give me more complete and 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.920 more directed by and so there's a push pull there 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:03.560 between the um, the board leadership and the professional leadership. 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.480 They need to work together and they need to supplement 0:10:06.520 --> 0:10:10.360 each other, but very critically have to have an open 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.319 line of communication. So now in Florida there is a 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:18.440 forty year requirement. Tell us about the requirement in Florida 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.520 and what the board should do if the city doesn't 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:25.319 have that. It's interesting this borda requirement which I gather 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.280 is every four building over forty years and then every 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:32.360 ten years thereafter has to reinspect itself. But that should 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:36.040 just be a baseline. Anytime you have a regulation would 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.160 do this this. Oftentimes, this is where you've seen a 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.520 company like Lehman Brothers get into trouble or an end 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:44.800 around get into trouble if they were going to follow 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:49.000 the strict rules of our regulations. Use an accounting regulation 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:53.199 or building regulation will follow the strict rules and if 0:10:53.200 --> 0:10:56.880 it's not required, we won't do it. Regulations should be 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:00.600 a starting point, not an ending point. You think it's 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:03.480 You often feel like it's burdensome to have to comply. 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.760 So that's what you don't understand the reasons why regulations 0:11:07.760 --> 0:11:10.840 were put into place. And so in this case, I'm 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:13.280 sure there were many buildings who said, oh, it's the 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:17.040 forty year per inspection, No big deal. We know our building, 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.640 we know it's in good shape. We know we have 0:11:19.800 --> 0:11:24.560 builded elevator banks and shining floors. Everything must be great, 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:28.880 and so we're going to skimp on our on our reinspections. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:33.000 That's exactly the opposite approach of what you need. You 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:35.280 need to be using this to remind you that, oh, 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.720 what do your buildings have to be looking out for this? Well, 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.480 I'm twenty five years I'm fifteen years before that. Let 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.920 me start thinking at it a dance. Let me remember 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:47.080 that there's this product, you know called consulting engineers that 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.040 are out there, and let me be talking to them 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.760 all of the time. Let me make sure that I'm 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.120 ahead of the game. Because the other thing that happened 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:58.600 here is they waited too long to start the process 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:01.120 of the repairs and it ended up a problem that 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.880 was seems to have been four decades in the making, 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.480 came to be a very large bill at the very end, 0:12:07.920 --> 0:12:10.320 and then you ended up with protests over how can 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:15.640 you possibly assessed me the market value of my unit? 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:19.319 And support? Have been proactive, have been thinking about these 0:12:19.320 --> 0:12:23.360 things all along, had not been differring maintenance and deferred 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.199 maintenance is a liability and should be recognized as such. 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:29.800 So the boards need to be active in advance and 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:34.719 to go above and beyond the regulation as we've seen now. Unfortunately, 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:38.920 we're dealing with lives here, whether it's dealing with lives 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:42.400 or livelihoods where you often see in the financial context. 0:12:43.200 --> 0:12:49.320 In either event, the stakes are extremely high, So why 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.280 would you try to save a penny here and there? 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.120 Thanks for being on the Bloomberg Land Show, David. That's 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.800 David Prager, a managing director and head of the US 0:12:56.920 --> 0:13:06.360 restructuring Advisory practice at Kroll. This is Bloomberg Law with 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:11.920 June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio. The Biden administration is moving 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.480 to allow migrants crossing the US border to make their 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:20.160 cases for asylum before Department of Homeland Security officials rather 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.320 than judges. This applies to people who claim they have 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.640 a credible fear of persecution at home. The new approach 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:30.559 would represent a wholesale change to the way asylum claims 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.520 are treated and would mark an about face from former 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:37.880 President Donald Trump's efforts to tighten asylum requirements. Joining me 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.680 is Leon Fresco, a partner at Holland and Knight. Tell 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.760 us what happens now when someone arrives at the border 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.400 requesting asylum. So it's de pays as we speak, because 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:52.240 there are multiple layers of this. But first of all, 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:56.760 if you arrive at the border seeking asylum as one 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.920 human being without any family members, what's the ever At 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:05.160 the moment, you're currently blocked from seeking asylum because of 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.240 something called Title forty two of the Public Health Code, 0:14:08.520 --> 0:14:12.280 which the which the Trump administration first activated and the 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.600 Biden administration has kept, which says, because of COVID, we 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:21.520 are excluding people and not allowing them into the country. Now, 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:27.120 assuming that that is removed at some point, or assuming 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:29.680 you're coming with a family, which is you know, there's 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.480 an adult and there's a child, those individuals are being 0:14:33.480 --> 0:14:37.440 allowed into the United States, and when that happens, they 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:43.440 have to at the moment satisfy a immigration official that 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:48.600 they have a credible fear of persecution in their home country, 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:51.400 meaning they will be persecuted on the basis of their race, 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:56.400 their religion, their national origin, their political opinion, or their 0:14:56.680 --> 0:15:00.840 social group. And so you have to show that. If 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:04.040 you can't show that, then you can do one appeal 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.760 to an immigration judge to try to show that. But 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.080 if you can't show that in neither of those two phases, 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.080 you are excluded from the United States under something called 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.840 expedited removal. But if you can show that, then you're 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:22.720 allowed into the United States, whereby you can wait and 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:27.200 make your claim, your full asylum case before an immigration court. 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.840 And the criticism is that that process has taken many 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:33.800 years and that a lot of people don't then show 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.760 up the courts when it's their time to finally show 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.720 up the court. What would this change by the Biden 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:44.960 administration do. So, the change the Biden administration would do 0:15:45.360 --> 0:15:49.080 is it would try to adjudicate a lot of these 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.480 asylum planes up front before ever waiting the many many 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.480 years to go to the immigration court. They would actually 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.080 take officers from U S c I S the U 0:15:59.160 --> 0:16:02.520 S ship an immigration service and see if they can 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:07.760 at least get the meritorious planes out of the bunch 0:16:08.360 --> 0:16:10.800 and adjudicate them up front, so we can see who 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:14.160 actually can win right up front and not make them 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:17.160 have to wait many years, and then take the rest 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.640 of the pile who then don't have the meritorious planes, 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:23.640 and you can move them through a much more expedited 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:27.680 immigration court pocket that would be dedicated to their cases 0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.920 that would not take four years to resolve. So that 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:33.960 would be the idea would sort of creates an initial 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:37.960 layer of reviews that could say, we're not going to 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:40.880 have a group that fails because their case takes four years, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.160 and they don't drop the court in the meantime. If 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.640 they have a meritorious case, let's get their asylum claim 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.120 adjudicated immediately. And if we don't think they have a 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:54.360 meritorious case, let's move them into an immigration court proceeding 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.920 that's more rapid, and let's try to get them through 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.200 this system quickly so that we don't have an incentive 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:03.800 for people to come in just so that they can 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:06.639 wait here for many years while the case is pending. 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.480 Solely on what kind of proof can they offer. So 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:13.800 it depends on the type of asylum claim you're making. 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.800 But let's take the two asylum claims that are typical 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:22.240 for Central America. So Central America, there's two typical cases 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.199 you see, and both of these are right at the 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.600 gray area of immigration law. But the Trump of illustration 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:31.240 had issued some decisions saying neither of these were asylum cases. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.280 And the Biden administration has already canceled those decisions, but 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:38.520 they haven't supplemented it with exactly what you have to show. 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.440 And so the case, so the cases are as followed. 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:46.040 For men who seek asylum, it usually takes the path 0:17:46.240 --> 0:17:51.399 of I was approached by gang members to join the gang. 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:53.960 I was told if I didn't join this gang, I 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.800 would be murdered. I went to the police for help. 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:00.720 The police did not help me, and so I come back. 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.280 The gang will murder me. And so in those situations, 0:18:04.359 --> 0:18:07.960 if you can show hospital records that show you were attacked, 0:18:08.480 --> 0:18:13.960 if you could provide affidavit from witnesses who saw things 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:17.480 about you being attacked in those countries, if you can 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:21.440 provide any kind of, you know, evidence of a police 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.760 report that you filed in that country those things. The 0:18:24.800 --> 0:18:27.960 more of that sort of circumstantial evidence that you can provide, 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:30.920 the stronger it makes your asylum case. And then on 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.480 the on the female front, typically what you see is 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:38.000 a case where someone is alleging domestic violence, that they 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.399 went to the police and the police wouldn't do anything 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.640 about the domestic violence since some of they returned home 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:45.719 they were likely to be killed, that they were fleeing 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:50.080 domestic violence. And so again here, if you had hospital records, 0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.480 if you had a police report, those would be persuasive 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.959 pieces of evidence that you could provide for these plans 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:00.320 to be blunt. Does anyone ever arrive at the order 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.320 and say, you know, I'm here to improve my life. 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:07.240 I want better economic opportunities. So some people believe it 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:11.040 or not do Even at the height of the Obama administration, 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:15.359 where we had the biggest ways of people coming through, 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:18.600 you still have ten percent of people who would literally 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:22.440 say just past and subject themselves to expedite and removal. 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:27.439 They literally said that. But you did have people saying 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.920 that they had some fear of persecution. Both you never 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:35.080 had zero, like you said, but it's very it's very rare. 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:40.360 So at the height of how many people were getting expedited, 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:42.760 remove on how many people were getting credible fear. During 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:47.480 the Obama administration, it was in that situation. So yes, 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:54.280 people were saying persecution based playing and the law is 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.600 very generous at the upfront stage. What the law says 0:19:57.720 --> 0:20:01.760 is you have to have a significant possibility of being 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:06.520 able to assert a favorable asylum claim. And so basically 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:10.320 that is considered something less than a ten percent chance 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.000 of winning. But if you have lessons, if you can 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.000 show that you have something like a little less than 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.320 ten percent chance of winning your claim, they're supposed to 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:23.199 let you say in the United States, so that you 0:20:23.280 --> 0:20:26.200 can make this claim. And it's only if your claim 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:30.520 has completely no credibility or you're not saying that you 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.679 have this fear that you don't get to stay in 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:39.080 this situation. So, now is there any downside for immigrants 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.639 to have this new rule? Well, so the idea is 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.480 this The criticism that it's been getting in the press 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.960 is that if you don't articulate a new standard by 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.359 which people with the domestic violence or gang based claim 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:59.200 can make their plane, or if you don't provide them 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:03.040 counsel to a system to get the evidence that they 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.240 need to make these planes. That all this will do 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:09.320 is have them lose, and so you don't want them 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.680 losing faster because you didn't change the standard or because 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:16.760 you didn't provide legal existence to do it. So that's 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.760 the concern that the immigrants rights community is setting forth is, Hey, 0:21:20.880 --> 0:21:24.080 this could be a very very positive change if people 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.920 have some assistance to work through the system, or if 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:33.199 the standard can articulate a clear and articulable basis. But 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:35.960 that's what they're waiting for the language to see on 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:40.119 how someone with a domestic violence based claim or a 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:43.960 gang based plane can actually gain or pylom And so 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:46.400 that's the issue, and so they want to they want 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:50.760 their waiting for the regulatory language, the specific word for 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:54.560 word language to figure out does this regulation lay out 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:57.240 how you win one of these planes? And if it 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.480 does and it seems fair and it provides access to 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.000 some legal assistance to do it, then they would say 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:08.040 they're satisfied with that regulation. So that will be what 0:22:08.080 --> 0:22:12.240 everyone looked up for to determine whether the immigrants rights 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.159 community at least is satisfied with it. But but rid large, 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.280 this is an improvement because For most people, this just 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.720 gives them an extra chance of winning. While it does 0:22:22.880 --> 0:22:27.320 expedite the potential of laws for some people. It does 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:29.479 that in a way which is fair, which is, at 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:32.159 the end of the day, you've been given now a 0:22:32.280 --> 0:22:34.520 second bite at the apple that you wouldn't have had 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.720 originally win. So if you have any time, you get 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:39.760 an extra byte at the apple to win your case. 0:22:40.480 --> 0:22:43.200 Rid large, it is a benefit for the people going 0:22:43.240 --> 0:22:47.600 through the system. The Biding administration previously said they're going 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:51.320 to advance this through a fast track process, and now 0:22:51.359 --> 0:22:53.760 they're going to do it through I guess the regular 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:58.440 rule process. Is there a reason for that change, Yes, 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:02.840 because when you expedite a process, the problem is, first 0:23:02.840 --> 0:23:05.440 of all, number one, you make it much more subject 0:23:05.480 --> 0:23:08.280 to lawsuits, and so they've been getting suited by lots 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:10.399 of states government and they don't want to have it 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.320 subject to that. But I think number two, if we're 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:16.240 being practical about it, I think that they're going to 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.159 be keeping with the delta variants. This title forty to 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:23.920 authority in place for at least two months three more months, 0:23:24.040 --> 0:23:26.280 and because of that, there's no need to do an 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:31.240 emergency order because you can actually get the new changes 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:34.840 in place before you end up lifting this title forty 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:38.359 two exclusion authorities. So I think that the need for 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:42.000 the speed is not as high if they're not going 0:23:42.040 --> 0:23:44.359 to lift the title forty two authority because of the 0:23:44.400 --> 0:23:47.960 delta varreas and just explain the title forty two authority. 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:50.720 The title forty two authorities. What I've spoken about a 0:23:50.720 --> 0:23:54.600 little earlier, which is this public health law that allows 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:57.760