Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcasts. Another court defeat
Speaker 1: for President Trump and his effort to prevent migrants along
Speaker 1: the southern border from being released into the country. A
Speaker 1: federal judge in Seattle has blocked the plan to jail
Speaker 1: immigrants seeking asylum and denied them bail if they crossed
Speaker 1: into the US border without permission. Joining me is Cardike Marotra,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News legal reporter. So Cardike start by telling us
Speaker 1: about Trump's plan. So this is actually Attorney General William
Speaker 1: Barr's plan. What happened was, over the course of this administration,
Speaker 1: asylum applicants have been incarcerated for extended periods of time.
Speaker 1: It's not explicitly unique to this administration. The Obama administration
Speaker 1: did something similar. But these plaintiffs had sought a pulmonary
Speaker 1: injunction requiring the administration to give them bail hearings, and
Speaker 1: this court had won. Then in April, a G. Bar
Speaker 1: Um issued a notice stating that there is no requirement
Speaker 1: that asylum applicants who seek asylum within the United States,
Speaker 1: not at the border, be given a prompt bail hearing
Speaker 1: uh and ultimately this judge said that that is actually unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: She also set forward some specifics for the hearings ahead.
Speaker 1: What did she say has to happen. So what happens
Speaker 1: is in the process of applying for asylum, the applicants
Speaker 1: have to demonstrate a credible fear of being forced to
Speaker 1: return to their home countries, and if they do demonstrate that,
Speaker 1: then they are eligible for asylum. However, that's just one
Speaker 1: step in the process. And so this judge has said
Speaker 1: that if they are granted that credible fear and they
Speaker 1: will proceed in the asylum process, then the immigration judge
Speaker 1: must hold a bail hearing within seven days of a
Speaker 1: request for a bail hearing, and if they do not
Speaker 1: grant a bail hearing immediately, that applicant must be released. Also,
Speaker 1: immigration courts must, I guess, be more transparent in the
Speaker 1: way that they are conducting these hearings, and so transcripts
Speaker 1: and audio recordings of proceedings must be made available. So
Speaker 1: apprehensions of prospective asylum seekers have more than doubled in
Speaker 1: the last year, according to Customs and Border Protection. Would
Speaker 1: this order by bar have just added more people to
Speaker 1: the overcrowded facilities. Uh? Yes, yes, it would ensure that
Speaker 1: folks who are incarcerated will remain incarcerated until the US
Speaker 1: government resolves their asylum application. One could presume that if
Speaker 1: the government is willing to consider these bail hearings and
Speaker 1: actually release applicants unbailed, that it would release the pressure
Speaker 1: on on facilities where they are being incarcerated, where we've
Speaker 1: read quite a lot about conditions being quite poor. White
Speaker 1: House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham criticized the ruling and attacked the judge,
Speaker 1: as Trump has done before with the decisions and immigration.
Speaker 1: No single district judge has legitimate authority to impose his
Speaker 1: or her open border views on the country. Does this
Speaker 1: refer to the president who appointed this judge? Being democratic? Likely?
Speaker 1: It has been part of the Trump administrations and President
Speaker 1: Trump's attacks on judges across the country in the past.
Speaker 1: We frequently see them labeled as Obama activists. Judges. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think the administration believes that and Uh.
Speaker 1: They've argued in court repeatedly that they have the ultimate
Speaker 1: authority to determine the country's border and immigration policy, and
Speaker 1: any judge, be it an Obama pointed drudge or or
Speaker 1: a Bush appointed judge or anyone else, cannot interfere. They
Speaker 1: do not have the judicial authority to to overrule the
Speaker 1: the executive And so that that argument will again be
Speaker 1: tested as this case is litigated in higher courts. That
Speaker 1: was my next question. Has the White House said or
Speaker 1: the Justice Department said, if they're going to appeal this Uh.
Speaker 1: They have not yet, but it is quite likely because
Speaker 1: the U. S. Supreme Court ruled last year the applicants
Speaker 1: at the border are not entitled to bail hearing. So
Speaker 1: if you stand in line for days, seek asylum and
Speaker 1: are detained, you do demonstrate a credible fear. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: no guarantee that you will receive a prompt uh hearing. Now,
Speaker 1: this case involves individuals who have entered the US through
Speaker 1: other means, waiting over water, crossing over mountains to get
Speaker 1: into the United States, and then you see an immigration
Speaker 1: officer or border patrol agent elsewhere. Um uh. And so
Speaker 1: in that earlier case, the Supreme Court said that there
Speaker 1: is no eligibility for our constitutional right to an asylum
Speaker 1: hearing in this case, we're likely to see the Trump
Speaker 1: administration use that ruling to appeal up the chain. Is
Speaker 1: this the so called catch and release that President Trump
Speaker 1: complains about, saying that once you once they have the
Speaker 1: the immigrants, and then they release them, they don't come
Speaker 1: back for further court hearings. Exactly. The Trump administration's concern
Speaker 1: is that if you offer bailuh to an asylum applicant,
Speaker 1: you've released them into the interior. And so there's question
Speaker 1: as to whether um, these individuals will will come back
Speaker 1: for their um their asylum hearings because you've you've released
Speaker 1: them to United States. There's data that indicates that that
Speaker 1: that premise is simply not true. And um Cardi case.
Speaker 1: If you know, do many do most immigrants get bail?
Speaker 1: I mean they don't. They don't have You would suspect
Speaker 1: that they're they're coming here, they're they're poor and they
Speaker 1: don't have much money. Do they are they make bail?
Speaker 1: You know? The question first is whether they have a
Speaker 1: credible fear, and if they do demonstrate that credible fear,
Speaker 1: then the most applicants. Uh, if they do get their
Speaker 1: bail hearing, do receive bail? Yes? Okay, So, um, let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about some of the other things
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration has tried and failed as far
Speaker 1: as stopping immigrants at the border. What other legal what
Speaker 1: other legal avenues have been closed to them? Sure, well
Speaker 1: they've They've started by by metering applicants uh, and that
Speaker 1: still continues. But their effort to effectively shut down the
Speaker 1: asylum program or or force individuals to wait in Mexico
Speaker 1: have been litigated and relitigated. Um. Currently returned to Mexico
Speaker 1: is allowed. That's one of the few wins the Trump
Speaker 1: administration has enjoyed. But they have effectively been prohibited from
Speaker 1: from broadly shutting down the program altogether and and and
Speaker 1: turning people away simply for requesting asylum. Right, Thanks so much, Cardike.
Speaker 1: It is continuingly a news item there as far as
Speaker 1: these different uh immigration plans by the Trump administration. That's
Speaker 1: Cardke Morotra, Bloomberg News Legal Reporter. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and listen to
Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: Com slash Podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg