Speaker 1: While it likely will be months before the cause of
Speaker 1: the deadly building collapse and Surf Side, Florida is determined,
Speaker 1: more than a dozen lawsuits have already been filed on
Speaker 1: behalf of the victims and their families against any person
Speaker 1: or entity who might be responsible for the Champlain Tower
Speaker 1: South condo collapse. Joining me is David Prager, a managing
Speaker 1: director on the head of the US restructuring advisory practice
Speaker 1: at Kroll David lawsuits have been filed against a host
Speaker 1: of defendants, including the condominium association, the engineering firm that
Speaker 1: inspected the building, the architects who designed it, the city
Speaker 1: of Surf Side, and building officials. Is this just an
Speaker 1: attempt to cover anyone, any person or entity who might
Speaker 1: be responsible for the building collapse. Well, that's that's a
Speaker 1: great question. I think there's a number of factors going
Speaker 1: on here. One is your right. This is a fishing
Speaker 1: expedition to try to figure out who knew what and
Speaker 1: when and can you impute that knowledge onto other people.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think it's also a
Speaker 1: race to figure out where the deep pockets and to
Speaker 1: make sure you're trying to hit at those deep pockets
Speaker 1: as soon as possible. You know, people who unfortunately have
Speaker 1: lost everything. The obvious place to go for recoveries here
Speaker 1: would be to go to the buildings in the building association.
Speaker 1: That's where the insurance was supposed to be held. That's
Speaker 1: about the approximate cause of failure. But there's not much
Speaker 1: left there. As you look at the insurance proceeds, they're
Speaker 1: really minimal. I think there's fifteen million dollars in property
Speaker 1: insurance in another eight or so. Reliability insurance really was
Speaker 1: designed to cover minor incidents relative to this, so you
Speaker 1: have to look somewhere else. You can't look really to
Speaker 1: the board than those pockets aren't gonna be terribly deep
Speaker 1: relative to the hundreds of affective lives here. So then
Speaker 1: you are going to those further steps. The engineering firms
Speaker 1: the city anywhere you can to try to find money,
Speaker 1: and appears the plants are just trying to raise to
Speaker 1: get to that money as quickly as possible. The engineering
Speaker 1: firm released a statement saying it's report detailed significant cracks
Speaker 1: and breaks in the concrete which required repairs to ensure
Speaker 1: the safety of the residents and the public, and there
Speaker 1: was a letter written by the president of the condo
Speaker 1: association asking residents to fund more than fifteen million dollars
Speaker 1: in repairs. How does that play into liability here? Well,
Speaker 1: a lot of this goes, I think to the question
Speaker 1: of what is standard in practice, who is responsible for
Speaker 1: reviewing those reports, and who is responsible for understanding exactly
Speaker 1: what is in there? And frankly, was the board and
Speaker 1: the management company well equipped to understand the level of
Speaker 1: disclosure that was being made by the engineering firm. If
Speaker 1: you look through the two report, the notices that have
Speaker 1: been in the popular press here and are blazoned all
Speaker 1: over the lawsuits are somewhat buried in the reports. You
Speaker 1: have to read down, I think on stage six or seven,
Speaker 1: and you know at the end of the section and
Speaker 1: says it's somewhere is it written in big blazing letters
Speaker 1: warning there's an eminent threat to life here? So who
Speaker 1: was responsible for understanding that? I think certainly if the
Speaker 1: board was responsible for taking upon them selves to understand that,
Speaker 1: I would think that the engineer would have also been responsible.
Speaker 1: But the engineer isn't really a fiduciary to the building
Speaker 1: residents or to the building owners, and so then you'd
Speaker 1: have to look at what their contractual liabilities are and
Speaker 1: does this amount to a gross negligence claim or willfulness
Speaker 1: conduct claim or is there some other claim and torque
Speaker 1: that connects this engineer back to having a legal obligation.
Speaker 1: Certainly in retrospect, it seems that the moral obligation there
Speaker 1: was a shortcoming all along the way, and that seems
Speaker 1: to them the most recent board seems to have been
Speaker 1: trying to clear that up and to clear up their
Speaker 1: legal obligations just a little bit too late, and as
Speaker 1: you're going to look back, too little too late was
Speaker 1: tragic here, but probably leads to some level of culpability.
Speaker 1: We do this all the time at Krolom, were in
Speaker 1: a station as an expert, being in a financial matter
Speaker 1: or otherwise, you look at the known or noable standards.
Speaker 1: Was there fraud being committed based on what was known
Speaker 1: at the time or knowable based on information that was
Speaker 1: available in the public record or in your private records.
Speaker 1: And as we're now going through these reports, you're seeing
Speaker 1: that it was available to the board, it was available
Speaker 1: to the management, and should have been available to the
Speaker 1: condo owners had they made do inquiry. And there's going
Speaker 1: to be I think, unfortunately for for those effected. There
Speaker 1: may be some level of apportionment of blame here to
Speaker 1: go back and say, you know, these condo owners really
Speaker 1: pushed back. They didn't take the actions that are required
Speaker 1: for self help by doing things like paying assessments or
Speaker 1: borrowing to pay those assessments and exercising to care immediately.
Speaker 1: That's going to be weighed against the boards for do
Speaker 1: you share responsibilities? Because the board is the one that
Speaker 1: most informed, The board is the one with professionals, and
Speaker 1: the boarders the one who has volunteered in this case
Speaker 1: to take it upon themselves to take responsibility for everyone
Speaker 1: around them, and that can't be aggregated by making a
Speaker 1: blanket statement to your stakeholders. There were about a hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty thou condominium buildings in the US, and right
Speaker 1: about now condo boards may be asking what they should
Speaker 1: do to prevent anything like this from happening to their buildings.
Speaker 1: I think the first step for board is to look
Speaker 1: around themselves and to say, are we positioning ourselves to
Speaker 1: assess risk fully and completely? Is there enough diversity on
Speaker 1: my board? And while we talk about diversity oftentimes in
Speaker 1: the sense that demographic retroversity and that certainly is important
Speaker 1: in making sure you receive all all sides of views,
Speaker 1: but also professional diversity and skill set diversity. And that's
Speaker 1: really what you need when you're putting together a board
Speaker 1: for something like a condo or even a corporation. And
Speaker 1: when we work with boards, we're always saying to them, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's make sure if you're enough financial restructuring, which is
Speaker 1: a lot of what I deal with that corral. Uh.
Speaker 1: We we say to them, you know, hey, let's make
Speaker 1: sure we have the right financial professionals um on the
Speaker 1: on the board. And at the same time we say, okay,
Speaker 1: if you're dealing with a building, make sure you have
Speaker 1: engineering professionals or architectural professionals. Think you also want to
Speaker 1: make sure you're using your outside experts in the way
Speaker 1: that they're intended. And that doesn't mean receiving a blank
Speaker 1: email with an attachment and letting that go to your
Speaker 1: end box. Means opening it up and reading it with care,
Speaker 1: and since sitting down with your professional thing, Okay, what
Speaker 1: does this really mean? How bad are things really? It'd
Speaker 1: be nice to have all those people on the board,
Speaker 1: but a lot of times it's hard to find anybody
Speaker 1: to be on a board. They just don't want to
Speaker 1: do it, to take the time involved. So you may
Speaker 1: not have the ability to do that. Well, certainly it's
Speaker 1: a thankless job, particularly a volunteer board, and particularly when
Speaker 1: you're living amongst your neighbors and going to have to
Speaker 1: make unpopular decisions. Those are exactly the people you need
Speaker 1: to step up, people who have the courage and the
Speaker 1: integrity and the fort toe to make those hard decisions.
Speaker 1: Let's also look around them and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: I want to be on this board, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to sit on a board with four people just likely,
Speaker 1: so either I should take a step back and let
Speaker 1: you know, someone else with with a better set of
Speaker 1: qualifications to come forward, or I should say nominating committee
Speaker 1: or exist board who's acting a nominating committee. Why don't
Speaker 1: we get some more diversity around us. Let's recruit people.
Speaker 1: Let's not wait for the person who raises their hands.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that's the person you need. Oftentimes that's just an
Speaker 1: echo chamber of the members who are already there. So
Speaker 1: let's be aggressive in recruitment. But also you're right, you
Speaker 1: can you may not be able to recruit, particularly a
Speaker 1: smaller building, or particularly in a building with with more
Speaker 1: animosity amongst its residents, it might be hard to recruit members.
Speaker 1: That's when you're professional advisors can come into place. That's
Speaker 1: when you're your law firm, your financial advisor, your counter,
Speaker 1: your professional engineer, et cetera. You want to bring them
Speaker 1: to the table. But it's also still important to figure
Speaker 1: out who amongst the board members will take responsibility, take
Speaker 1: ownership of the relationship with that professional. You know, I
Speaker 1: oftentimes when I'm advising a board, we'll figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the board member or two whose most act
Speaker 1: and the ones that are attentive to my issues. It
Speaker 1: may not be the chairman who's dealing with overarching business
Speaker 1: um issues when I'm dealing with a balance sheet restructuring,
Speaker 1: so I might deal with I don't know that the
Speaker 1: chairman of the audit committee or something like that. Similarly,
Speaker 1: if you're an engineer, you want to figure out who
Speaker 1: on that board. If you're the professional retained engineer, figure
Speaker 1: out who on the board is your most direct line,
Speaker 1: the one who's most concerned. And as a professional, it's
Speaker 1: also very hard you want to actually find the board
Speaker 1: member who's going to challenge you the most, because that's
Speaker 1: how you as a professional and the board and its
Speaker 1: fiduciary duties are going to do the best work to
Speaker 1: have a challenging but professional interfaith where you can say,
Speaker 1: as a professional, this is a problem and board you
Speaker 1: need to address it or the board can stay to
Speaker 1: you professionally, you need to give me more complete and
Speaker 1: more directed by and so there's a push pull there
Speaker 1: between the um, the board leadership and the professional leadership.
Speaker 1: They need to work together and they need to supplement
Speaker 1: each other, but very critically have to have an open
Speaker 1: line of communication. So now in Florida there is a
Speaker 1: forty year requirement. Tell us about the requirement in Florida
Speaker 1: and what the board should do if the city doesn't
Speaker 1: have that. It's interesting this borda requirement which I gather
Speaker 1: is every four building over forty years and then every
Speaker 1: ten years thereafter has to reinspect itself. But that should
Speaker 1: just be a baseline. Anytime you have a regulation would
Speaker 1: do this this. Oftentimes, this is where you've seen a
Speaker 1: company like Lehman Brothers get into trouble or an end
Speaker 1: around get into trouble if they were going to follow
Speaker 1: the strict rules of our regulations. Use an accounting regulation
Speaker 1: or building regulation will follow the strict rules and if
Speaker 1: it's not required, we won't do it. Regulations should be
Speaker 1: a starting point, not an ending point. You think it's
Speaker 1: You often feel like it's burdensome to have to comply.
Speaker 1: So that's what you don't understand the reasons why regulations
Speaker 1: were put into place. And so in this case, I'm
Speaker 1: sure there were many buildings who said, oh, it's the
Speaker 1: forty year per inspection, No big deal. We know our building,
Speaker 1: we know it's in good shape. We know we have
Speaker 1: builded elevator banks and shining floors. Everything must be great,
Speaker 1: and so we're going to skimp on our on our reinspections.
Speaker 1: That's exactly the opposite approach of what you need. You
Speaker 1: need to be using this to remind you that, oh,
Speaker 1: what do your buildings have to be looking out for this? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm twenty five years I'm fifteen years before that. Let
Speaker 1: me start thinking at it a dance. Let me remember
Speaker 1: that there's this product, you know called consulting engineers that
Speaker 1: are out there, and let me be talking to them
Speaker 1: all of the time. Let me make sure that I'm
Speaker 1: ahead of the game. Because the other thing that happened
Speaker 1: here is they waited too long to start the process
Speaker 1: of the repairs and it ended up a problem that
Speaker 1: was seems to have been four decades in the making,
Speaker 1: came to be a very large bill at the very end,
Speaker 1: and then you ended up with protests over how can
Speaker 1: you possibly assessed me the market value of my unit?
Speaker 1: And support? Have been proactive, have been thinking about these
Speaker 1: things all along, had not been differring maintenance and deferred
Speaker 1: maintenance is a liability and should be recognized as such.
Speaker 1: So the boards need to be active in advance and
Speaker 1: to go above and beyond the regulation as we've seen now. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we're dealing with lives here, whether it's dealing with lives
Speaker 1: or livelihoods where you often see in the financial context.
Speaker 1: In either event, the stakes are extremely high, So why
Speaker 1: would you try to save a penny here and there?
Speaker 1: Thanks for being on the Bloomberg Land Show, David. That's
Speaker 1: David Prager, a managing director and head of the US
Speaker 1: restructuring Advisory practice at Kroll. This is Bloomberg Law with
Speaker 1: June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio. The Biden administration is moving
Speaker 1: to allow migrants crossing the US border to make their
Speaker 1: cases for asylum before Department of Homeland Security officials rather
Speaker 1: than judges. This applies to people who claim they have
Speaker 1: a credible fear of persecution at home. The new approach
Speaker 1: would represent a wholesale change to the way asylum claims
Speaker 1: are treated and would mark an about face from former
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump's efforts to tighten asylum requirements. Joining me
Speaker 1: is Leon Fresco, a partner at Holland and Knight. Tell
Speaker 1: us what happens now when someone arrives at the border
Speaker 1: requesting asylum. So it's de pays as we speak, because
Speaker 1: there are multiple layers of this. But first of all,
Speaker 1: if you arrive at the border seeking asylum as one
Speaker 1: human being without any family members, what's the ever At
Speaker 1: the moment, you're currently blocked from seeking asylum because of
Speaker 1: something called Title forty two of the Public Health Code,
Speaker 1: which the which the Trump administration first activated and the
Speaker 1: Biden administration has kept, which says, because of COVID, we
Speaker 1: are excluding people and not allowing them into the country. Now,
Speaker 1: assuming that that is removed at some point, or assuming
Speaker 1: you're coming with a family, which is you know, there's
Speaker 1: an adult and there's a child, those individuals are being
Speaker 1: allowed into the United States, and when that happens, they
Speaker 1: have to at the moment satisfy a immigration official that
Speaker 1: they have a credible fear of persecution in their home country,
Speaker 1: meaning they will be persecuted on the basis of their race,
Speaker 1: their religion, their national origin, their political opinion, or their
Speaker 1: social group. And so you have to show that. If
Speaker 1: you can't show that, then you can do one appeal
Speaker 1: to an immigration judge to try to show that. But
Speaker 1: if you can't show that in neither of those two phases,
Speaker 1: you are excluded from the United States under something called
Speaker 1: expedited removal. But if you can show that, then you're
Speaker 1: allowed into the United States, whereby you can wait and
Speaker 1: make your claim, your full asylum case before an immigration court.
Speaker 1: And the criticism is that that process has taken many
Speaker 1: years and that a lot of people don't then show
Speaker 1: up the courts when it's their time to finally show
Speaker 1: up the court. What would this change by the Biden
Speaker 1: administration do. So, the change the Biden administration would do
Speaker 1: is it would try to adjudicate a lot of these
Speaker 1: asylum planes up front before ever waiting the many many
Speaker 1: years to go to the immigration court. They would actually
Speaker 1: take officers from U S c I S the U
Speaker 1: S ship an immigration service and see if they can
Speaker 1: at least get the meritorious planes out of the bunch
Speaker 1: and adjudicate them up front, so we can see who
Speaker 1: actually can win right up front and not make them
Speaker 1: have to wait many years, and then take the rest
Speaker 1: of the pile who then don't have the meritorious planes,
Speaker 1: and you can move them through a much more expedited
Speaker 1: immigration court pocket that would be dedicated to their cases
Speaker 1: that would not take four years to resolve. So that
Speaker 1: would be the idea would sort of creates an initial
Speaker 1: layer of reviews that could say, we're not going to
Speaker 1: have a group that fails because their case takes four years,
Speaker 1: and they don't drop the court in the meantime. If
Speaker 1: they have a meritorious case, let's get their asylum claim
Speaker 1: adjudicated immediately. And if we don't think they have a
Speaker 1: meritorious case, let's move them into an immigration court proceeding
Speaker 1: that's more rapid, and let's try to get them through
Speaker 1: this system quickly so that we don't have an incentive
Speaker 1: for people to come in just so that they can
Speaker 1: wait here for many years while the case is pending.
Speaker 1: Solely on what kind of proof can they offer. So
Speaker 1: it depends on the type of asylum claim you're making.
Speaker 1: But let's take the two asylum claims that are typical
Speaker 1: for Central America. So Central America, there's two typical cases
Speaker 1: you see, and both of these are right at the
Speaker 1: gray area of immigration law. But the Trump of illustration
Speaker 1: had issued some decisions saying neither of these were asylum cases.
Speaker 1: And the Biden administration has already canceled those decisions, but
Speaker 1: they haven't supplemented it with exactly what you have to show.
Speaker 1: And so the case, so the cases are as followed.
Speaker 1: For men who seek asylum, it usually takes the path
Speaker 1: of I was approached by gang members to join the gang.
Speaker 1: I was told if I didn't join this gang, I
Speaker 1: would be murdered. I went to the police for help.
Speaker 1: The police did not help me, and so I come back.
Speaker 1: The gang will murder me. And so in those situations,
Speaker 1: if you can show hospital records that show you were attacked,
Speaker 1: if you could provide affidavit from witnesses who saw things
Speaker 1: about you being attacked in those countries, if you can
Speaker 1: provide any kind of, you know, evidence of a police
Speaker 1: report that you filed in that country those things. The
Speaker 1: more of that sort of circumstantial evidence that you can provide,
Speaker 1: the stronger it makes your asylum case. And then on
Speaker 1: the on the female front, typically what you see is
Speaker 1: a case where someone is alleging domestic violence, that they
Speaker 1: went to the police and the police wouldn't do anything
Speaker 1: about the domestic violence since some of they returned home
Speaker 1: they were likely to be killed, that they were fleeing
Speaker 1: domestic violence. And so again here, if you had hospital records,
Speaker 1: if you had a police report, those would be persuasive
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence that you could provide for these plans
Speaker 1: to be blunt. Does anyone ever arrive at the order
Speaker 1: and say, you know, I'm here to improve my life.
Speaker 1: I want better economic opportunities. So some people believe it
Speaker 1: or not do Even at the height of the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: where we had the biggest ways of people coming through,
Speaker 1: you still have ten percent of people who would literally
Speaker 1: say just past and subject themselves to expedite and removal.
Speaker 1: They literally said that. But you did have people saying
Speaker 1: that they had some fear of persecution. Both you never
Speaker 1: had zero, like you said, but it's very it's very rare.
Speaker 1: So at the height of how many people were getting expedited,
Speaker 1: remove on how many people were getting credible fear. During
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, it was in that situation. So yes,
Speaker 1: people were saying persecution based playing and the law is
Speaker 1: very generous at the upfront stage. What the law says
Speaker 1: is you have to have a significant possibility of being
Speaker 1: able to assert a favorable asylum claim. And so basically
Speaker 1: that is considered something less than a ten percent chance
Speaker 1: of winning. But if you have lessons, if you can
Speaker 1: show that you have something like a little less than
Speaker 1: ten percent chance of winning your claim, they're supposed to
Speaker 1: let you say in the United States, so that you
Speaker 1: can make this claim. And it's only if your claim
Speaker 1: has completely no credibility or you're not saying that you
Speaker 1: have this fear that you don't get to stay in
Speaker 1: this situation. So, now is there any downside for immigrants
Speaker 1: to have this new rule? Well, so the idea is
Speaker 1: this The criticism that it's been getting in the press
Speaker 1: is that if you don't articulate a new standard by
Speaker 1: which people with the domestic violence or gang based claim
Speaker 1: can make their plane, or if you don't provide them
Speaker 1: counsel to a system to get the evidence that they
Speaker 1: need to make these planes. That all this will do
Speaker 1: is have them lose, and so you don't want them
Speaker 1: losing faster because you didn't change the standard or because
Speaker 1: you didn't provide legal existence to do it. So that's
Speaker 1: the concern that the immigrants rights community is setting forth is, Hey,
Speaker 1: this could be a very very positive change if people
Speaker 1: have some assistance to work through the system, or if
Speaker 1: the standard can articulate a clear and articulable basis. But
Speaker 1: that's what they're waiting for the language to see on
Speaker 1: how someone with a domestic violence based claim or a
Speaker 1: gang based plane can actually gain or pylom And so
Speaker 1: that's the issue, and so they want to they want
Speaker 1: their waiting for the regulatory language, the specific word for
Speaker 1: word language to figure out does this regulation lay out
Speaker 1: how you win one of these planes? And if it
Speaker 1: does and it seems fair and it provides access to
Speaker 1: some legal assistance to do it, then they would say
Speaker 1: they're satisfied with that regulation. So that will be what
Speaker 1: everyone looked up for to determine whether the immigrants rights
Speaker 1: community at least is satisfied with it. But but rid large,
Speaker 1: this is an improvement because For most people, this just
Speaker 1: gives them an extra chance of winning. While it does
Speaker 1: expedite the potential of laws for some people. It does
Speaker 1: that in a way which is fair, which is, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you've been given now a
Speaker 1: second bite at the apple that you wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: originally win. So if you have any time, you get
Speaker 1: an extra byte at the apple to win your case.
Speaker 1: Rid large, it is a benefit for the people going
Speaker 1: through the system. The Biding administration previously said they're going
Speaker 1: to advance this through a fast track process, and now
Speaker 1: they're going to do it through I guess the regular
Speaker 1: rule process. Is there a reason for that change, Yes,
Speaker 1: because when you expedite a process, the problem is, first
Speaker 1: of all, number one, you make it much more subject
Speaker 1: to lawsuits, and so they've been getting suited by lots
Speaker 1: of states government and they don't want to have it
Speaker 1: subject to that. But I think number two, if we're
Speaker 1: being practical about it, I think that they're going to
Speaker 1: be keeping with the delta variants. This title forty to
Speaker 1: authority in place for at least two months three more months,
Speaker 1: and because of that, there's no need to do an
Speaker 1: emergency order because you can actually get the new changes
Speaker 1: in place before you end up lifting this title forty
Speaker 1: two exclusion authorities. So I think that the need for
Speaker 1: the speed is not as high if they're not going
Speaker 1: to lift the title forty two authority because of the
Speaker 1: delta varreas and just explain the title forty two authority.
Speaker 1: The title forty two authorities. What I've spoken about a
Speaker 1: little earlier, which is this public health law that allows
Speaker 1: the administration to simply say, we're not even gonna consider
Speaker 1: don't even talk to us. You're trying to come in
Speaker 1: a country your banned because of public health reasons. And
Speaker 1: so you never even get to this discussion about whether
Speaker 1: someone has a credible fear or not because they can
Speaker 1: never make that discussion because the band has been put
Speaker 1: in place for public health reasons. So, now, how much
Speaker 1: is the Biden administration doing to change Trump policies. There's
Speaker 1: a new policy that they won't detain or arrest people
Speaker 1: who are pregnant or nursing. Well, I think there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of changes. There's a lot of changes in
Speaker 1: the population of who's being detained. You're seeing no one
Speaker 1: who's being detained essentially in our defension facilities from the
Speaker 1: interior of the United States, meaning someone who's actually been
Speaker 1: in the country and now they're being placed in removal proceedings.
Speaker 1: The ICE removal facilities are basically composed entirely of people
Speaker 1: who have shown up at the border and they're not
Speaker 1: from Mexico or Central America such that they can be
Speaker 1: removed very quickly back across instead of these people from
Speaker 1: Ecuador or Brazil or places all around the world that
Speaker 1: Mexico won't allow us to just place these individuals back
Speaker 1: into Mexico because they're not Mexican and they're not from
Speaker 1: anywhere near Mexico, And so for those individuals, we're having
Speaker 1: to detain them in order to remove them back to
Speaker 1: their specific nation. But that's it. Those are the only
Speaker 1: people who you're seeing for the most part in ICE facilities,
Speaker 1: And so it is a dramatic change. You're seeing much
Speaker 1: more usage of prosecutorial description. And now is this regulation
Speaker 1: You're gonna see an articulation that is much more generous
Speaker 1: in terms of these domestic violence and gang related asylum
Speaker 1: based claims and you had seen in the prior administration.
Speaker 1: So how is that transformed into numbers? Are there more
Speaker 1: immigrants being allowed in, so the numbers are higher in
Speaker 1: terms of people presenting themselves into the border, the numbers
Speaker 1: are you know, we're seeing total around a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: individuals a month trying to cross the southern border, and
Speaker 1: so you know that's over and you or do that
Speaker 1: over the course of a year, you're seeing like one
Speaker 1: point two million people apprehended, which is higher than it's
Speaker 1: been in the recent path. And so the question is
Speaker 1: once this Title forty two authority is removed and so
Speaker 1: that anybody who claims asylum and has a credible fear
Speaker 1: will be permitted inside, the question is will not open
Speaker 1: an exponential increase in the number of people getting into
Speaker 1: the United States or will it just continue with the
Speaker 1: one point two million per year, which is still higher
Speaker 1: than it's been. It's not higher than it used to
Speaker 1: be in the nineties and the early two thousands, but
Speaker 1: for the range of I would say between two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight and two thousand twenty, it would be in
Speaker 1: the high range. And so the question is is that rage,
Speaker 1: which Republican view is unacceptably high, gonna get higher if
Speaker 1: some of these changes are made. And that's theming needs
Speaker 1: to be something that we will see, and I think
Speaker 1: it will depend a great deal on how quickly the
Speaker 1: system actually works to remove people who don't have valid
Speaker 1: plais in the United States. If that system works quickly,
Speaker 1: then I think you will see eventually the numbers participate.
Speaker 1: But if the system does that work quickly, then most
Speaker 1: likely you will see a higher demand for access to
Speaker 1: the States. Is there an inconsistent message from the Biden
Speaker 1: administration and that you know, they're trying to rebuild the
Speaker 1: asylum process here and provide a legal path for undocumented immigrants,
Speaker 1: but they're pushing for border enforcement southward, and they're enlisting
Speaker 1: the Mexican, the Guatemalan, and the Honduran authorities to try
Speaker 1: to militarize their southern borders. And Vice President Harris has
Speaker 1: focused on diplomacy to improve conditions in the region. So
Speaker 1: is there a mixed message or are they just trying everything? Well,
Speaker 1: I think it's complicated, because I do think they're trying
Speaker 1: and we will see if they can succeed to have
Speaker 1: a framework where if you're from Central America, you could
Speaker 1: actually make this claim for asylum in your home country,
Speaker 1: whether it be in Savado or Guatemala or under it
Speaker 1: and then if you win, you would just a visa
Speaker 1: that you can then use a refugee visa to enter
Speaker 1: into the United States. And we will have to see
Speaker 1: in the regulations if they do that and if they
Speaker 1: actually formalize the process that allows that, in which case,
Speaker 1: if you don't follow that process, you would reach a
Speaker 1: militarized response in whatever border you were trying to crawl.
Speaker 1: So I think if you had both of those things
Speaker 1: in place, then they are consistent and they can work together,
Speaker 1: and that is ideal. But it's to the extent that
Speaker 1: you don't have a cohesive system in place, that's when
Speaker 1: it's odd because then you can't tell someone who's a
Speaker 1: legitimate refugee don't come, because that's not something you would
Speaker 1: say to a legitimate refugee and be that's not something
Speaker 1: that would deter a legitimate refugee. Anyone who fears for
Speaker 1: their life is going to come, regardless of whether a
Speaker 1: politician is saying don't come. But if it's an economic migraine,
Speaker 1: then that response is actually appropriate and then you can
Speaker 1: actually say don't comment. You can have a militarized border,
Speaker 1: but you would only know that if you had an
Speaker 1: interaction with someone that would allow you to determine that.
Speaker 1: And so the question is cando's interactions be made closer
Speaker 1: to where people are than at our southern border, and
Speaker 1: so that's the question of conduct. Coherent policy be built
Speaker 1: so that that's permitted and that people can make these
Speaker 1: claims closer to where they are than at our southern border. Thanks.
Speaker 1: That's Leon Fresco of Hollanden Knight. And that's it for
Speaker 1: this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. I'm June Grasso,
Speaker 1: and you're listening to Bloomberg