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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. President Trump has

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Speaker 1: experienced one setback after another in his attempt to cut

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Speaker 1: off the flow of immigrants into this country across the

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Speaker 1: southern border. Some of his attempts were stymied by Congress,

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Speaker 1: some by economics, some by public reaction, but most were

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Speaker 1: blocked by the courts. The latest judicial setback came Monday,

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Speaker 1: when a federal judge in California stopped Trump from forcing

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Speaker 1: Central Americans seeking asylum to wait in Mexico for months

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Speaker 1: or even years while their applications are being processed. In

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Speaker 1: a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition last Saturday, Trump

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Speaker 1: called the asylum program a scam. They read a little

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Speaker 1: page given by lawyers that are all over the lawyers.

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Speaker 1: They tell him what this. You look at this guy?

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Speaker 1: He said, Wow, that's a tough cookie. I am very

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Speaker 1: fearful for my life. Joining me is David Beer, immigration

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Speaker 1: policy analyst at the Cato Institute David. Let's start with

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Speaker 1: the most recent decision. What did the judge base his

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Speaker 1: decision on. Well, he based it on the Asylum Law

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Speaker 1: UM and the the law requires the administration not to

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Speaker 1: return people to UM anywhere where they may be facing

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Speaker 1: persecution or a threat to their life, which the administration

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Speaker 1: admitted was the case. Uh, they just said they had

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Speaker 1: adequate protocols in place to prevent the removal of people

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Speaker 1: who may be threatened in Mexico. The judge disagreed with that.

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Speaker 1: UM And the second thing that the judge concluded was

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Speaker 1: that UM the statute explicitly obeyed them from using the

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Speaker 1: procedure that they were using in order to remove people

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Speaker 1: from the country. Again, the asylum law of the United

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Speaker 1: States does not allow for the removal of people who

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Speaker 1: are potentially eligible for asylum. Let's discuss some of the

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Speaker 1: other immigration policies the Trump administration has tried out. The

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Speaker 1: administration tried to put restrictions on immigrants seeking asylum with

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Speaker 1: a deportation fast tracking policy against immigrants who claimed they

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Speaker 1: were victims of domestic or gang violence in their home lends.

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Speaker 1: A DC judge ruled against that. Why, well, again, you

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Speaker 1: know this is this is really the Trump administration arbitrarily

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Speaker 1: deciding what counts as persecution and what doesn't. And it

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Speaker 1: goes against a longstanding practice of of of the country

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Speaker 1: and and really the the understanding that persecution can take

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Speaker 1: various forms. It can it can involve active persecution, which is,

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Speaker 1: for example, you know, putting people in you know, gas

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Speaker 1: chambers and killing them that way. Or it could be

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Speaker 1: that the government of a certain country just simply chooses

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Speaker 1: not to protect a certain group of people. They just

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Speaker 1: refused to prosecute cases of domestic violence in many parts

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Speaker 1: of the northern triangle of Central American And this isn't

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Speaker 1: according to myself, this is according to the U. S.

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Speaker 1: State Department. And the Trump administration has basically said, we're

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Speaker 1: not gonna include that as grounds for asylum because we

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Speaker 1: don't like that people are qualifying for asylum under this

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Speaker 1: um uh, you know the grounds. The Trump administration, just

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Speaker 1: a note, was also blocked by a San Francisco a

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Speaker 1: federal judge from automatically denying political asylum to immigrants who

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Speaker 1: don't arrive at official ports of entry. Let's talk broadly,

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Speaker 1: because President Trump says, you know, Congress should change the

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Speaker 1: asylum laws. How much can Congress change the asylum laws

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Speaker 1: and how much are their international treaties that might prevent it. Well,

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't be the first time that US asylum law

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Speaker 1: was out of step with our international agreements. Say, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't until night that really asylum law came in um

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Speaker 1: UH was in accordance with the U N's UH, the

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Speaker 1: U N agreements that we've signed on human rights and refugees.

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Speaker 1: So this is this would not be unprecedented, but it

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Speaker 1: would be a reversion to a time um where the

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Speaker 1: United States really out of step with the rest of

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Speaker 1: the world on protecting people from potential persecution in their

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Speaker 1: home country. So the short answer is Congress can do

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Speaker 1: a lot. Congress could almost entirely removed protection for asylum

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Speaker 1: seekers and UH. It certainly seems that the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: would be willing to uphold any kind of statute that

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Speaker 1: prohibited or regulated um um migration in almost any manner,

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Speaker 1: based on what we saw from the travel ban UH

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Speaker 1: case last year. So in response, Trump in February declared

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Speaker 1: a national emergency on the US Mexico border to try

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Speaker 1: to go around lawmakers that is being held up in

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Speaker 1: the courts right now there are about six or more lawsuits.

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Speaker 1: Where do you see those cases going if, as expected,

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Speaker 1: they end up at the Supreme Court? I mean, this

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Speaker 1: is this is really another area where it's really impossible

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Speaker 1: to predict what the courts will do. The administration has

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Speaker 1: certainly violated the spirit of the Constitution by spending money

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Speaker 1: that Congress had intended to be spent somewhere else. But

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Speaker 1: there are problems with that argument because Congress has at

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Speaker 1: the same time given the President a significant amount of

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Speaker 1: leeway and deciding what types of things constitute a national emergency,

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Speaker 1: what types of things constitute um, you know, national security

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Speaker 1: and UM. Courts have typically deferred to Congress and the

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Speaker 1: President on these types of matters. I'm wondering because new

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Speaker 1: numbers that are coming out the The l A. Times

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Speaker 1: reports that the Trump administration's handling up immigration cases has

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Speaker 1: caused a increase in backlogged immigration cases since October of

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Speaker 1: Apparently there's an immigration court backlog of more than thousand cases.

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Speaker 1: Does that actually contribute to the definite to Trump's definition

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Speaker 1: of an emergency in the courts? Well, this is this

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Speaker 1: is um again, all about how you define these things.

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Speaker 1: But certainly a long backlog in cases is nothing new

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Speaker 1: for the immigration system. You have a huge backlog of

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Speaker 1: naturalization cases, you have a huge backlog of cases for

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Speaker 1: legal immigration benefits. So a huge backlog is just not unusual,

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Speaker 1: unfortunately in our immigration system. And the fact that it's

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Speaker 1: increased a lot under his watch is not a good

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Speaker 1: sign for his administration of the immigration issue. But the

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Speaker 1: idea that it would constitute a national emergency where he

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Speaker 1: would gain extraordinary powers is just something that doesn't seem

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Speaker 1: reasonable to me, to put it, Miley, There seems to

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Speaker 1: be a lot of shuffling at the Department of Homeland Security,

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Speaker 1: a lot of places left open. Does it seem as

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Speaker 1: if there's a plan there who to fill those places with.

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Speaker 1: Even if you feel the places with people who are

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Speaker 1: tougher on immigration, you still have the law to contend with, right,

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Speaker 1: you know. There was a quote in Politico from the

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Speaker 1: top advisor for President Trump, Stephen Miller, on immigration, and

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Speaker 1: he said, basically, the administration is out of ideas, and

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Speaker 1: when you're out of ideas, you blame personnel, and so

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Speaker 1: they're placing blame for the fact that they haven't been

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Speaker 1: able to reduce the number of migrants who are showing

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Speaker 1: up at the border on Secretary Nielsen and the other

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Speaker 1: administrators of the immigration agencies. And I think but you'll

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Speaker 1: see as a consequence of this is being replaced with

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Speaker 1: people who have less experienced dealing with the Department of

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Speaker 1: Homeland Security, people who may be outside of the Department

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Speaker 1: and UM come from you know, the private sector or

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Speaker 1: state agencies, and UM. I expect that that will not

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Speaker 1: result in the desired outcome because you do need experience,

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Speaker 1: UM in order to you know, control an agency of

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Speaker 1: this size, and it seems to be forgotten in you know,

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Speaker 1: Trump trying to change the Department of Homeland Security that

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Speaker 1: there's a lot more than immigration issues that that department handles.

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Speaker 1: Are there other areas areas that are going unnoticed or

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Speaker 1: where things are falling behind Well, certainly, you know, the

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Speaker 1: Department of Homeland Security also includes FEMA and uh femas

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Speaker 1: the depart or the agency in charge of handling federal

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Speaker 1: emergencies UM. So, for example, the situation in Puerto Rico

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Speaker 1: following the hurricane, they're enormous amount of criticism about how

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Speaker 1: that was handled UM and in fact, the UM government

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Speaker 1: has been shifting money away from FEMA in order to

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Speaker 1: handle some of the immigration issues, and that's been criticized.

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Speaker 1: So really the Trump administration has turned the Department of

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Speaker 1: Homeland Security, which was you know, has a diverse set

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Speaker 1: of duties, into only being about the immigration issue and

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Speaker 1: really the border issue in particular. Thank you so much, David,

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Speaker 1: Always a pleasure to have you on. That's David Beer,

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Speaker 1: immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen

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Speaker 1: to the show on Apple, pod Cast, SoundCloud, and on

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg m