Speaker 1: I have one to James, and I am back with
Speaker 1: Austin and Jake to discuss ICE's Alternatives to two detention
Speaker 1: program today. If you didn't listened to yesterday's episode on
Speaker 1: CBP one and a little bit of at D, then
Speaker 1: I'd suggest starting there because there's a lot of context
Speaker 1: that you might be missing in today's episode. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about alternatives to detention a bit. That's this is a
Speaker 1: this is a once inside the US system, right, so
Speaker 1: it's a little different. It's people who've managed to get
Speaker 1: through the significant hurdles posed by CBP one. What happened
Speaker 1: to them? Then? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So you know ICE has the option of detaining people
Speaker 2: at immigrant detention facilities. This includes people who are facing deportation,
Speaker 2: most people who are facing deportation.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that the title eight thing, because people
Speaker 1: might not be for I've tried to explain that before,
Speaker 1: but I'd love you to explain that again, just so
Speaker 1: people are clear regards detention, well regarding like finding an
Speaker 1: offensive asylum application and why people might be doing that,
Speaker 1: like a post like the post title forty two sort
Speaker 1: of paradigm for processing asylum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, okay, so title forty two which we talked
Speaker 2: about earlier, has gone away, which means now Title eight
Speaker 2: is not like Title forty two. It's the part of
Speaker 2: the US law which is about immigration. Title eight never
Speaker 2: went away, but it is now the dominant, you know,
Speaker 2: a section of code that is shaping border enforcement and
Speaker 2: immigration processing. When someone comes through CBP one and they
Speaker 2: get an appointment, they go to their interview for the entry.
Speaker 2: Then they come into the United States. They have not
Speaker 2: made an asylum application yet, so they still have to
Speaker 2: do that. In the US. The United States has two
Speaker 2: options at this point. There's two agencies that can make decisions.
Speaker 2: Can receive assylum applications and make decisions USCIS, which is
Speaker 2: historically the primary one. US Citizenship and Immigration Services. They
Speaker 2: have what are called asylum officers whose job it is
Speaker 2: to adjudicate assylum applications, interview people, and so forth. Or
Speaker 2: the United States can file removal proceedings deportation cases effectively
Speaker 2: against these individuals and put them into immigration court, where
Speaker 2: an immigration judge can accept an assiled application and adjudicate
Speaker 2: the assigled application. The major difference here is that in
Speaker 2: the court room in the immigration court system, that individual
Speaker 2: is going in front of a judge and has an
Speaker 2: ICE officer, an enforcement related kind of attorney effectively arguing
Speaker 2: against them in court. Technically, they're not supposed to be
Speaker 2: arguing against them per se, they're supposed to be finding
Speaker 2: the right outcome, but effectively they're arguing against them like they're,
Speaker 2: you know, trying to apply for asylum in immigration court
Speaker 2: or in like a criminal court setting. Almost not really,
Speaker 2: but almost right. So here's the two main differences when
Speaker 2: those individuals. You know, Historically, when people have been put
Speaker 2: into the immigration court system, ICE does have the option
Speaker 2: of detaining them or at least detaining them for an
Speaker 2: early part of that process until they meet some certain tolds.
Speaker 2: The Biden administration has decided largely at this point not
Speaker 2: to go that route. That has not been true in
Speaker 2: the past. The Trump administration's detention numbers were up well
Speaker 2: over sixty thousand people detained the day at one point.
Speaker 2: Right now, it's about half that it's up from the
Speaker 2: beginning of the year, but it's about almost thirty thousand
Speaker 2: people are in detention now, and people seem to be
Speaker 2: moving through even when they are detained relatively quickly. This
Speaker 2: is where alternatives to detention come in. We should not
Speaker 2: think of alternatives to detention as alternatives detention. In fact,
Speaker 2: ICE itself has said on their website and in testimony
Speaker 2: before Congress, alternatives to detention is not an alternative to detention.
Speaker 2: It is an alternative to unsupervised release. So it's what
Speaker 2: it really is is an electronic monitoring program that allows
Speaker 2: the agency to effectively keep track of everyone that they
Speaker 2: want to keep track of. Now, the number of people
Speaker 2: in this alternatives to detention program is an extremely small
Speaker 2: fraction of the number of asylum systems in court. It
Speaker 2: is nowhere near, you know, saturating the total number of
Speaker 2: people that they could be. One wonders whether they consider
Speaker 2: five percent monitoring some kind of massive success when you know,
Speaker 2: when most people are actually not monitored. But one major
Speaker 2: change has happened, which is in addition to the smartphone
Speaker 2: app that migrants use to even try to seek asylum,
Speaker 2: now migrants also have to download an app called smart Link.
Speaker 2: Yeah that is now. This one is not built in house.
Speaker 2: This is contracted out from an organization called BI that
Speaker 2: effectively mostly contracts with the criminal justice system, but they
Speaker 2: also contract with ICE. So they have to download an
Speaker 2: app on their phone and they have to check in
Speaker 2: regularly using a similar but different kind of facial technology.
Speaker 2: They can communicate with deportation officers, they can get alerts
Speaker 2: about their immigration court here, all this stuff, But the
Speaker 2: crucial part of that is under threat of detention or redetention,
Speaker 2: redetaining migrants have to check in on their smartphone. So
Speaker 2: it means that that same phone that one you know,
Speaker 2: struggled with on the periphery of Renosa trying to just
Speaker 2: even get into the United States to pursue what is
Speaker 2: their legal right to pursue asylum, now they're glued to
Speaker 2: their smartphone, worried that if they don't respond to you know,
Speaker 2: a text message or an alert or a being on
Speaker 2: their phone, they could be redetained and you know, potentially
Speaker 2: to put in some way. So that's currently how this is.
Speaker 2: So it's not for everyone. It's not as if everyone
Speaker 2: follows this exact same path, but it is true, and
Speaker 2: I think this is the big takeaway. It is true
Speaker 2: that asylum seekers today will start interacting with the US government,
Speaker 2: may start interacting with the US government on their smartphone
Speaker 2: as far south as Mexico City, and then continue to
Speaker 2: have their primary contact and interaction with the US government
Speaker 2: on their smartphone all the way through the border and
Speaker 2: to Columbus, Ohio, New York City, Seattle, Washington. So the
Speaker 2: smartphone has become effectively this kind of what I am
Speaker 2: trying to think of and conceptualize as a kind of
Speaker 2: mobile border. They never where, migrants never really arrive, and
Speaker 2: they never really leave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of not to get too sort of
Speaker 1: I guess, not contiratory. It's their own word. But like
Speaker 1: since two thousand and one, the border has come to
Speaker 1: you more and more and more right, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to go to the border for the border to
Speaker 1: suit value. And we can see this in hundreds of ways.
Speaker 1: Can we backtrack a little bit, just because our listeners
Speaker 1: will be familiar with some of the human stories that
Speaker 1: surrounded the end of title forty two. Some of those people,
Speaker 1: to my understanding, entered the United States I'm doing heavy
Speaker 1: air quotes between ports of entry under Title forty two,
Speaker 1: but then were detained. That it is fairly obvious they
Speaker 1: thought they were being detained. It looked very much like
Speaker 1: they were being detained. They weren't allowed to leave. CBP
Speaker 1: apparently would argue that they were not detained because the
Speaker 1: conditions were wofully inadequate by their own detention policies, which
Speaker 1: don't exactly provide for luxurious conditions to begin with. And
Speaker 1: so what would the situation be for those people because
Speaker 1: they haven't They were trying, at least some people I
Speaker 1: spoke to, to make CBP one appointments from a place
Speaker 1: of detention, which I don't think one can do. Maybe
Speaker 1: one can if one's not on a list or something,
Speaker 1: but you still have to get there right and you
Speaker 1: can't leave south or north to access.
Speaker 2: You have to be in Mexico to schedule an appointment
Speaker 2: on CBP one.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, these guys were in betweens.
Speaker 2: As Jake knows better than I do. I mean the
Speaker 2: issue with being along the border, and James, you know
Speaker 2: this because I mean you're there, which cell tower you're
Speaker 2: on if you're close to the border. Oh yeah, tricky,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: I got so I use T mobile that's a free
Speaker 1: buzz marketing. But they I have free roaming on my
Speaker 1: phone right, very useful in the work I do. But
Speaker 1: I remember in twenty eighteen I was in Mexico a lot,
Speaker 1: and then I was obviously also just ride my bike
Speaker 1: a lot in places along the border, and they were like,
Speaker 1: you've been in Mexico every day this month. You don't
Speaker 1: live in America. We're going to cancel your phone contract.
Speaker 1: I had been in Mexico like some days, but they
Speaker 1: had all just think, oh, you're pinging Mexican celtos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well I was on a bike ride like in East County,
Speaker 1: San Diego. I wasn't in Mexico, but my phone thought
Speaker 1: I was, so Yeah, the same thing can happen in reverse, right,
Speaker 1: your phone camping American cell towers when you're in Mexico.
Speaker 1: So those people might appear to be in the US
Speaker 1: when they're not. But in that situation, they couldn't make
Speaker 1: a CBP un appointment, So I guess they're assumed to have.
Speaker 1: It's the same as if they crossed the fence somewhere
Speaker 1: else and been detained ten miles inside the United States, right,
Speaker 1: what would their process be?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think if we're talking about right now,
Speaker 3: this is actually really important. Is that the new rule
Speaker 3: called circumvention of Lawful Pathways that replaced Title forty two
Speaker 3: supposed to happen like three years ago. Yeah, and it
Speaker 3: finally got passed. Basically there were a number of court
Speaker 3: challenges in which Red States tried to keep Title forty
Speaker 3: two in place. The same states, mind you, who were
Speaker 3: very critical of COVID protections, were extremely worried about lifting
Speaker 3: the ban on people in the southern border coming in
Speaker 3: because of COVID concerns. Part of what that rulemaking did
Speaker 3: was it worked a fundamental change in the way that
Speaker 3: asylum seekers work, and so, like just context, claiming asylum
Speaker 3: is a human right, is a right guaranteed by international law,
Speaker 3: is the right guaranteed by US law. That you can
Speaker 3: show up and say, hey, I am not safe in
Speaker 3: the country that I'm coming from and I need asylum
Speaker 3: in the States, and you have a right to do that,
Speaker 3: and for the US or whatever country you arrive in
Speaker 3: to process your claim and decide if it's valid or not.
Speaker 3: So one of the changes in this rule making was
Speaker 3: that they are applying what's called the government is applying
Speaker 3: a presumption of ineligibility to people seeking asylum, which means
Speaker 3: that if you did not show up in a proper
Speaker 3: manner the United States. That means if you did not
Speaker 3: use the CBP one app to claim asylum before you
Speaker 3: got to the border, and if you did not apply
Speaker 3: for asylum in every country that you traveled through along
Speaker 3: the way. If you traveled from Guatemala and you did
Speaker 3: not pay for apply for asylum in Mexico before you
Speaker 3: got to the border, you are automatically deemed ineligible and
Speaker 3: your asylum claim will be denied with no hearing, with
Speaker 3: no opportunity to say, hi, I'm here because like my
Speaker 3: husband is a police officer somewhere in Guatemala and he's
Speaker 3: trying to kill me, and I can't stay in the country, right,
Speaker 3: And so that is a fundamental change in the way
Speaker 3: the law works. And that's the starting point of someone
Speaker 3: who has frost illegally not used CBP one and then
Speaker 3: is picked up's and that's new in the law in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so they would immediately be filing like a
Speaker 1: defensive asylum application to prevent that removal.
Speaker 3: Yes, And basically at that point you're trying to argue
Speaker 3: for one of a tiny subset of exemptions, yes, which
Speaker 3: there is virtually no guidance on how to implement those exemptions. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: one thing you can claim is that you cross without
Speaker 3: a CVP one appointment, because you couldn't use the app
Speaker 3: The idea of trying to prove to someone at the
Speaker 3: Customs of Border Protection that you were technologically enabled to
Speaker 3: use an app seems basically impossible, given that the only
Speaker 3: proof that you have is that you didn't get the
Speaker 3: appointment right, that you weren't able to submit it. That's
Speaker 3: not a strong record that a lawyer would like to
Speaker 3: argue on, I will tell you as a lawyer. And
Speaker 3: so the result is basically that people who have certainly
Speaker 3: legitimate asylum claims are likely to be turned away because
Speaker 3: they didn't comply with the proper process us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even people we heard Dalegle I can't remember where
Speaker 1: it was now where Customs of officials in Mexico have
Speaker 1: been threatening to detain people for longer than it so
Speaker 1: they couldn't make it in time for their CPP one
Speaker 1: appointment right that they had already made. They're gone through
Speaker 1: that arduous and bias process, made the appointment, and then
Speaker 1: people were being detained unless they paid a bribe. And
Speaker 1: then then if those people had crossed like legally in
Speaker 1: between ports of entry, that would be very harder than
Speaker 1: to prove that they could that that had happened at all, Right,
Speaker 1: Like what had caused them to do that. So those
Speaker 1: people are in an even more difficult scenario if people then,
Speaker 1: through any of these processes find themselves in a ATD
Speaker 1: alternative to detention. There are numerous ways it could be surveilled.
Speaker 1: Alston mentioned that the phone app, which I think is
Speaker 1: the perhaps the most recent and most common one. Another
Speaker 1: one is to ankle monitors, Right, you can get like
Speaker 1: a a parole kind of ank style of ankle monitor
Speaker 1: And I know that, Jake, you've written a little bit
Speaker 1: about some of the consequences as those Do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about that. Yeah, So, first of all, an
Speaker 1: overview of the ATV program is that there are different
Speaker 1: levels of monitoring and all of them are I think
Speaker 1: should functionally be viewed as incarceration, which is to say
Speaker 1: that you are not you've not been released from custody,
Speaker 1: just the location of your custodity has been moved from
Speaker 1: a prison to somewhere out in the world where you're
Speaker 1: being surveilled and your movements are potentially tracked. But you
Speaker 1: are still in many ways as vulnerable as you would
Speaker 1: be if you're actually in a jail or a prison.
Speaker 1: And so ICE has the option to decide at their
Speaker 1: discretion which level of monitoring you get. The levels of monitoring,
Speaker 1: the highest level is an ankle bracelet, a will shackle
Speaker 1: that is a GPS device that is battery power, has
Speaker 1: potentially only a few hours of charge on it, you
Speaker 1: might get a day of charge off of it, and
Speaker 1: is constantly monitoring your location and sending that location back
Speaker 1: to both ICE and to the contracting staff of BI Industries.
Speaker 1: This prison technology company, who ICE, has hired as case managers,
Speaker 1: basically people who are providing support for ICE on keeping
Speaker 1: track of the usually eight to ten thousand people who
Speaker 1: are on the ankle monitor system. If you don't get
Speaker 1: quite that high level, or if you get de escalated
Speaker 1: over time, you applied ICE and you say, hey, I've
Speaker 1: been on my ankle bracelet for like three months, I've
Speaker 1: not straight outside the area I'm supposed to go. I've
Speaker 1: always responded to check in, then they might bump you
Speaker 1: down to the smart link app, also provided by the industry,
Speaker 1: is on an extremely lucrative contract. Their last contract is
Speaker 1: like two point two billion dollars, and that smart link
Speaker 1: app is either going to be loaded on your smartphone
Speaker 1: if you have a smartphone that can handle it, or
Speaker 1: you'll be given a smartphone buy ICE and told to
Speaker 1: use that smartphone to check in. You will be required
Speaker 1: to check in on a sort of regular schedule. I
Speaker 1: don't have a strong sense for how often that is.
Speaker 1: Could be daily, could be less. To check in, you're
Speaker 1: going to open the app up. It's going to ping
Speaker 1: your GPS location, send a DICE, and then you're going
Speaker 1: to take official recognition photograph. That photograph will be compared
Speaker 1: to make sure that you're actually you. That photograph is
Speaker 1: also potentially capturing your surroundings, the people you live with,
Speaker 1: whoever's like in the frame, and then you can communicate
Speaker 1: with your case manager on the app. You can potentially
Speaker 1: find information on when your immigration court hearings are. That
Speaker 1: type of thing.
Speaker 3: It's the middle level of monitoring. The lowest level of
Speaker 3: monitoring is voice print based. So basically, every once in
Speaker 3: a while, whatever your dedicated check in time is, you're
Speaker 3: going to call into ICE on your phone. You're gonna
Speaker 3: say Hi, I'm Jake Wiener, I'm checking in, and ICE
Speaker 3: will run a voice print analysis and make sure that
Speaker 3: you are the person who say you are and confirm
Speaker 3: your location at any point if that system screws up,
Speaker 3: you are potentially you were then in violation of the
Speaker 3: terms of your release, and at any point ICE, if
Speaker 3: you've there's been an error, an ICE officer can show
Speaker 3: up and take you right back to jail.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about that. You've mentioned BI. Right,
Speaker 1: You've both mentioned BI. This is not a government agency,
Speaker 1: this is a contractor. But potentially they have access to
Speaker 1: your photograph, details of your asylum case, and we are
Speaker 1: we very clear on Like certainly with the ICE issued phones,
Speaker 1: people seem to have concerns like what is being monitored
Speaker 1: and what isn't being monitored on the phone? Right, Like
Speaker 1: is it only when they have the app open? Is
Speaker 1: everything on their phone now subject to a review by
Speaker 1: ICE and potentially also by this third party contractor? Right, So,
Speaker 1: how are those contractors vetting their personnel? How are they're
Speaker 1: making sure that these this very sensitive information is secure
Speaker 1: and private like it should be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have no idea how they're vetting their staff.
Speaker 3: They're not exactly forthcoming. One aspect of the surveillance that
Speaker 3: I think is worth noting is that both ICE and
Speaker 3: BI don't just have your whether you're on the smartphone
Speaker 3: or if you're on the ankle monitor, they don't just
Speaker 3: have your last GPS ping, they have your historical movements,
Speaker 3: which means if you're on an ankle monitor, they have
Speaker 3: a record of every single place you went for the
Speaker 3: entirety of the time since you've been on that ankle monitor,
Speaker 3: and they also know where you are right now a
Speaker 3: little more limited on a smartphone, but that's information that's
Speaker 3: highly sensitive. Your location and especially your historical location information
Speaker 3: and tell you all kinds of things like what church
Speaker 3: this person goes to, have they been to Planned Parenthood
Speaker 3: or recently, who do they associate with? Like what houses
Speaker 3: are they visited? And for ICE, that information is very
Speaker 3: valuable because most migrants don't live alone. They live in
Speaker 3: community with other people. Some of those people may be undocumented,
Speaker 3: and so as a migrant, you are now worrying every
Speaker 3: time you check in. Am I exposing someone who's undocumented
Speaker 3: to ICE surveillance? Am I exposing myself, you know, to
Speaker 3: just like tagging somewhere that ICE doesn't want me to
Speaker 3: be and maybe an officer is going to show up
Speaker 3: for a check Because of that, it is created creating
Speaker 3: a ton of insecurity in a system that is already
Speaker 3: very insecure, and the like psychological harms of that are manifest.
Speaker 3: You know, there's good studies like internationally that your risk
Speaker 3: of suicide and depression goes way up when you're on
Speaker 3: electronic monitoring, that your access to jobs goes way out you.
Speaker 3: You know, there's stigma with wearing an ankle brace. Also
Speaker 3: concerns that if you take a job you won't be
Speaker 3: able to check in at your home at the appropriate time,
Speaker 3: it looks like you're absconding. Right, So this level of
Speaker 3: monitoring is messing with people's lives and really fundamental and
Speaker 3: deeply cruel ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, and these like like you talked about sort
Speaker 1: of how how your phone can make you a snitch,
Speaker 1: Like mixed status families are very common, right, Inspecting in
Speaker 1: migrant diaspora is so like it could be someone in
Speaker 1: your family who have to different immigration status from you,
Speaker 1: and to do what you need to do, you might
Speaker 1: be putting that person at risks. And it's a very
Speaker 1: scary thing to have that tag on you at all times.
Speaker 1: And like you said, it's not just where you are,
Speaker 1: but where you've been. And I if I'm right, like
Speaker 1: they they keep that data, right that data isn't anonymized
Speaker 1: or sort of like destroyed.
Speaker 3: They can keep their data forever if they want to. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's inputed into their systems and that hangs around for
Speaker 3: I think the retention period of seventy five years. Okay, yeah, great,
Speaker 3: depends a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This technology that goes into these right, that's facial recognition.
Speaker 1: I know they also have a number plate license plate
Speaker 1: in America recognition. They have I'm trying to think which
Speaker 1: are other technologies. They have a cell phone site simulation.
Speaker 1: A lot of that can also be transferred to local
Speaker 1: police agencies right through some of these like they're not
Speaker 1: tech transfer programs, that's certain word. But some of these
Speaker 1: grants and programs that ICE and DHS more broadly has,
Speaker 1: Does that mean that local police agencies could also have
Speaker 1: access to some of this data?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think there's two different types of programs
Speaker 3: and it's worth breaking them apart. Yeah, there are grant
Speaker 3: programs that are providing state and local police with the
Speaker 3: technology itself. Right, that's like money to buy a license
Speaker 3: plate reader and pop it out in your community. There
Speaker 3: are is also the overlap between Betteral and Special Department
Speaker 3: of Homeland Security ices databases the systems that they house
Speaker 3: all of this information in, and state and local police
Speaker 3: they have their own databases. Those databases are very often
Speaker 3: linked or accessible, which means that monitoring. You know, your
Speaker 3: local police department has a log of everyone and they
Speaker 3: arrest very often that log is sent to ICE and
Speaker 3: vice versa. Right So it's one of the main ways
Speaker 3: that this has done is through fusion centers, which is
Speaker 3: basically a federally funded state run technology center embedded in
Speaker 3: state or local police departments, where you have the Department
Speaker 3: of Homeland Security agents who have access to their set
Speaker 3: of databases, and state and local police department officers who
Speaker 3: have access to their set of databases, sitting right next
Speaker 3: to each other, and those people can then talk and
Speaker 3: be like, yo, I need you to run this search
Speaker 3: into your system, which is theoretically only for federal use,
Speaker 3: but suddenly it's getting used for state law enforcement and
Speaker 3: vice versa. One of the biggest problems with this is
Speaker 3: that cities that want to be sanctuary cities that don't
Speaker 3: want their police departments reporting and handing people over to
Speaker 3: ICE when they arrest undocumented folks, city government is unable
Speaker 3: to control their local police departments and the information that
Speaker 3: is sent to ICE. So even a sensible sanctuary cities,
Speaker 3: a city says we're not going to report this information.
Speaker 3: The way that these databases are tied together, especially license
Speaker 3: plate reader databases as but as well as arrest databases,
Speaker 3: all sorts of stuff means that the city government functionally
Speaker 3: cannot create a sanctuary city, right, which, justin if we
Speaker 3: talk about my situation, I'm in San Diego, are mayor
Speaker 3: is terrible and want to turn all our street lights
Speaker 3: into spies, right, like put little cameras on them so
Speaker 3: that they can watch what we're doing, and like this
Speaker 3: information feeds into we know exactly where the future center
Speaker 3: is actually, Like I wrote about this in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: when the cops took someone's phone and used.
Speaker 1: Gray key to crack it open. So like the yeah,
Speaker 1: the exposure for people who in the US who are
Speaker 1: not citizens of the US is very high with these things.
Speaker 1: The last thing about these databases I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: about was those aren't the only databases that I had
Speaker 1: access to? You, right, can you explain how they've they've
Speaker 1: managed to acquire some data about other people and whether
Speaker 1: or not that is strictly speaking legal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have a massive problem in America with
Speaker 3: data broker which is companies. The biggest, the worst are
Speaker 3: Lexus and Nexus and Thompson and Routers West Law. But
Speaker 3: there are hundreds and hundreds of data brokers who vacuum
Speaker 3: up all of the information that they can off the Internet,
Speaker 3: off of utility records, off of publicly available information, and
Speaker 3: basically make massive databases that are tracking to the best
Speaker 3: that they can at every aspect of people's lives. Credit
Speaker 3: reporting agencies, the people who like give you your credit score,
Speaker 3: are also data brokers. They're pulling in all this information
Speaker 3: so that they can assign you your credit which is
Speaker 3: like where your credit cards are, how much money you have.
Speaker 3: All this information is super valuable, right, and it's valuable
Speaker 3: to advertisers. It's valuevaluable, yeah, like for marketing, but it's
Speaker 3: also really valuable for law enforcement because you have everything
Speaker 3: from like addresses where people are spending money. Often you
Speaker 3: can pull from advertised like phone advertising data, people's GPS
Speaker 3: location and a number of these services have sold access
Speaker 3: to ICE, both like Thompson, Ridge is Clear, Lexus, Nexus
Speaker 3: has several products that they sell to ICE as well
Speaker 3: as Locate x which is now Babble Street, which is
Speaker 3: specifically a GPS location company, and ICE has basically managed
Speaker 3: to obtain through contracts information that they could not legally
Speaker 3: obtain through a warrant, right, which is to say that
Speaker 3: if you a police officer and ICE officer want to
Speaker 3: get information on a single person, you know, you want
Speaker 3: their GPS location off their o't you need to go
Speaker 3: to a court and say, hey, I'm looking for James
Speaker 3: Stout and I think that he committed a crime or
Speaker 3: an immigration he brook immigration law. Here's my evidence. I
Speaker 3: need a warrant. You cannot get a warrant for mass monitoring.
Speaker 3: That's like a fundamental part of how the Fourth Amendment
Speaker 3: in the US Constitution works is that it has to
Speaker 3: be individualized or very close to individualized. But there is
Speaker 3: currently no law that says that ICE can't just go
Speaker 3: buy the information on the open market and completely evade
Speaker 3: the warrant requirement. So that's what's going on with Lexis
Speaker 3: and Nexus, with locate acts as well as complex social
Speaker 3: media surveillance companies. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the same database is that I, as a journalist
Speaker 1: use when I'm you know, wondering if this Nazi is
Speaker 1: still living in this place, or you know, finding the
Speaker 1: sense of Confederate veterans to check if they still work
Speaker 1: at the Citadell University. So I think a good way
Speaker 1: to finish this up will be to talk about once
Speaker 1: you're in, you've gone through this process, right, you've CVP one,
Speaker 1: you've at d'd, and you enter into sort of the
Speaker 1: asylum hearing or you have your your various different asylum processes.
Speaker 1: Can Austin, can you give us a very broad overview
Speaker 1: of like the likelihood of success and maybe a couple
Speaker 1: of I know you're very good at monitoring the factors
Speaker 1: that determine the likelihood of success and an asylum application
Speaker 1: through TRACK. This is a great place to plug TRACK
Speaker 1: if you want to. Can you talk about like how
Speaker 1: likely folks are to be successful in that asylum application process?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we monitor this federal data relates to immigration
Speaker 2: other areas through TRACK transactional records access clearing how at
Speaker 2: Syracuse University where I'm at, I'm also a research fellow
Speaker 2: at American University, So we have a kind of a
Speaker 2: fun partnership right now looking at different angles of connecting
Speaker 2: data to research on Latin American Latino migrants. And so
Speaker 2: we keep really close track of what's happening with the
Speaker 2: immigration courts. We don't get data. Remember earlier I described
Speaker 2: as two tracks of seeking asylum. We don't currently get
Speaker 2: data on that first track, where people go through asylum
Speaker 2: officers at USCIS. We're interested in it, but they actually
Speaker 2: publish not comprehensive, but they published decent amount of data.
Speaker 2: We would certainly like to get more. But it's the
Speaker 2: immigration course that we have focused very heavily on for
Speaker 2: the last decade, I would say, And so we get
Speaker 2: very detailed, granular data from the immigration courts on a
Speaker 2: monthly basis that allows us to see exactly what's happening.
Speaker 2: I would say, currently, the success rate denial rate, however
Speaker 2: you want to put it in immigration court for asylum
Speaker 2: seekers is about fifty two or fifty three percent get denied,
Speaker 2: about forty seven to forty eight percent are granted asylum.
Speaker 2: But that varies widely by immigration court and by nationality.
Speaker 2: So migrants from Central America, Al Salvador, Hondurasquatemala tend to
Speaker 2: have much higher denial rates seventy eighty percent ninety percent,
Speaker 2: whereas nationals from let's say, Ukraine, China, some other countries,
Speaker 2: Cuba have very high success rates. Haiti actually is a
Speaker 2: good example of a country that has very low grant rates,
Speaker 2: very high denial rates, even though much like northern Mexico,
Speaker 2: where we actually send people that we deport very often,
Speaker 2: there are all kinds of travel warnings. In the United States,
Speaker 2: government is not when people going to Haiti because it's
Speaker 2: too dangerous, But we don't even have a problem deporting
Speaker 2: people back there who are seeking asylum, right and so
Speaker 2: that's what that's what we've seen in recent years. The
Speaker 2: denial rate was as high as seventy percent during the
Speaker 2: Trump administration, and so it's certainly much better under the
Speaker 2: Biden administration. I do want to say though, that in
Speaker 2: addition to sort of a policy related issues that may
Speaker 2: drive this factor geographic concerns, people are much more successful
Speaker 2: in New York City than say Houston or Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 2: But one of the really important factors here is, in
Speaker 2: addition to all of that, there's a threshold question, which
Speaker 2: is a lot of people, including a lot of people
Speaker 2: who are recently arriving to the United States, if they
Speaker 2: can't get an attorney, it's very unlikely that they will
Speaker 2: even be able to file in asylum application in the
Speaker 2: first place. So that fifty you know, that forty eight
Speaker 2: percent grant rate is for people who file in the
Speaker 2: sylum application. We're not seeing, you know, the people who
Speaker 2: don't even who aren't even able to file the silum
Speaker 2: application in the first place. And one of the most
Speaker 2: concerning things recent developments is that the Biden administration, I
Speaker 2: think not for no reason at all. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: two point two million pending cases in the immigration courts
Speaker 2: right now. The Biden administration is trying to push cases
Speaker 2: too faster. This is something the Obama insty administration tried,
Speaker 2: Trump administration tried it, Biden administration tried it, and every
Speaker 2: single time the cases get accelerated, including a large number
Speaker 2: of family cases. Unfortunately, they simply don't have time to
Speaker 2: get an attorney and file a good sylum application. So
Speaker 2: what we're seeing as in addition to like geography, nationality,
Speaker 2: does someone get an attorney, it's also speed, just how
Speaker 2: fast the cases go through. And the reality is if
Speaker 2: you try to force an asylum case through the immigration
Speaker 2: courts or frankly even through USAIS in a matter of weeks,
Speaker 2: people are just not going to win. You can't speed
Speaker 2: things up and maintain a fair system. You just can't.
Speaker 2: It's also not great for people to wait, you know, five, six, seven,
Speaker 2: eight years for a hearing or for a conclusion, So
Speaker 2: that's not ideal either. But you know, trying the force
Speaker 2: cases through and you know two or three months is
Speaker 2: just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've spoken to people. I spoke to a friend
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago who was saying that now
Speaker 1: he's seeing people newly a run. He's been in the
Speaker 1: United States for a few years. I've gone through the process.
Speaker 1: But he's seeing people come in and the amount to
Speaker 1: pay for a lawyer, if they want to get a
Speaker 1: private lawyer is going up. And like if people only
Speaker 1: have a few months or don't have the right to work,
Speaker 1: there's just no way for them to obtain that much money.
Speaker 1: And then the people who are doing it sort of,
Speaker 1: I guess sort of in for nonprofits, are just overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by the amount of demand. So, yeah, those people in
Speaker 1: a really tough situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we should talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: the fundamental unfairness of this system.
Speaker 4: YEP.
Speaker 3: So like immigration judges areministrative law judges, they are not
Speaker 3: like real judges approved by Congress. They are hired by
Speaker 3: an administrative agency, which effectively means that there are much
Speaker 3: lower bars to who can be an administrative law judge.
Speaker 3: You also, as an immigrant, do not have a right
Speaker 3: to an attorney sitting in front of an administrative law judge.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that the data fres out
Speaker 3: is that in every aspect of the system, having an
Speaker 3: attorney is the strongest indicator of a good result. So
Speaker 3: that's like how likely people are to know about their appointments.
Speaker 3: It's actually extremely hard if you are someone who does
Speaker 3: not speak English and has limited money and limited access
Speaker 3: to the system, and frankly does not understand how the
Speaker 3: American immigration law system works, which is reasonable because virtually
Speaker 3: no one understands how it works. It's really difficult to know,
Speaker 3: like when you have a much less to show up
Speaker 3: and to understand what kind of information that you need
Speaker 3: to collect and present to a judge that will be
Speaker 3: convincing to this person, who again is not an Article
Speaker 3: three judge that's been appointed by Congress, not the type
Speaker 3: of judges that you or I would have our cases
Speaker 3: heard by if we were arrested or if we just
Speaker 3: like file a lawsuit, and so access to a judge
Speaker 3: is like the number one best indicator for whether your
Speaker 3: asylum claim is going to be successful or not, or
Speaker 3: any kind of claim in the immigration system, frankly, and
Speaker 3: we do not provide that to people who don't have
Speaker 3: the money to hire a lawyer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is fundamentally unjust. Right.
Speaker 3: We also there's like not a guarantee that you will
Speaker 3: have a quality translator, see you will be able to
Speaker 3: show up to court and at all understand what is
Speaker 3: happening in your legal case, which is a huge barrier
Speaker 3: to be able to get at good results, to be
Speaker 3: able to communicate who you are and why you will
Speaker 3: not be safe if you were deported from the country, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we heard that in May where they were like
Speaker 1: they were basically asking if anyone could come and help
Speaker 1: trans migrant advocacy groups. You know, does someone speak Commanji,
Speaker 1: does someone speak Turkish? Just does someone speak Vietnamese? Could
Speaker 1: they come down and help this person with their initial interview.
Speaker 1: Which it's just not a not a just or even
Speaker 1: reasonable way to do these things. But that's where it's
Speaker 1: at right now. I guess I think most people probably
Speaker 1: aren't aware of much of that. So it's good to
Speaker 1: explain how fundamentally andjus it is so if people want
Speaker 1: to learn more about this, if people want to follow along,
Speaker 1: I know you both do some writing online. Where can
Speaker 1: they find you? And where can they find more of
Speaker 1: your writing about this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So you can find my writing on the Electronic
Speaker 3: Privacy Information Center EPICS website that is EPIC dot org.
Speaker 3: You can find me and my one hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: followers on Twitter at real Jake Wiener that's w I
Speaker 3: E n e R. And hopefully and in your future
Speaker 3: you'll be able to find some scholarship for me as well.
Speaker 1: Oh cool, Yeah, using the Donald Trump Twitter format. Great.
Speaker 1: How about you, Austin? Where can people find you? You
Speaker 1: have many more followers on Twitter dot com.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's Austin Cocher. Last name is Ko c
Speaker 2: h e R. The peculiarity of that name is in
Speaker 2: my favor because you know, pretty easy to search. But
Speaker 2: actually this is a great timing. I just had an
Speaker 2: article published this week, detailed one on CBP one. It's
Speaker 2: called Glitches and the Digitization of Asylum. It's an academic article,
Speaker 2: but it is open access, so there's no pay well there,
Speaker 2: glitches and the digitization of asylum. It's also up on
Speaker 2: my Twitter page. I'm on Twitter at ac coker so
Speaker 2: A c k O c h E R. And I
Speaker 2: also write pretty regularly on substack, and that's like a
Speaker 2: weird thing to say. I'm slightly embarrassed to mention that,
Speaker 2: except that I'm not because this academic article emerged actually
Speaker 2: out of stuff that I was initially exploring on substacks.
Speaker 2: So I really loved that format for writing because it's
Speaker 2: given me a chance to work out concepts and ideas
Speaker 2: before they even go into like pure ifew print. So
Speaker 2: if people want to get ahead of the curve on
Speaker 2: what I'm thinking, go check that out too. Nice and
Speaker 2: don't forget to visit track t r A C dot
Speaker 2: s y r dot edu to get all kinds of
Speaker 2: data on immigration courts, alternatives to detention, detension statistics and
Speaker 2: so forth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like Telegram channel as well. Right, it's like
Speaker 1: the only time I can go on Telegram, I don't
Speaker 1: see dead people, so I appreciate it for that.
Speaker 2: That's right. We put stuff out on Telegram and WhatsApp too,
Speaker 2: So if you don't want to have to be on Twitter.
Speaker 2: If you don't want to have to get an email
Speaker 2: on something like that, you just want to get a
Speaker 2: little if you like some of those other messaging platforms,
Speaker 2: we have announcement threads on there. You can't interact, you
Speaker 2: just you just get the little notification. But we try
Speaker 2: that we try to diversify as much as possible, especially
Speaker 2: with the muscification of Twitter.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty a good met Thank you very
Speaker 1: much for your time, Beth, to you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: That was very insightful.
Speaker 3: Thank you, James.
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