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FBI Agents Sue Trump & Guantanamo Flights · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseol from Bloomberg Radio.
0:08
Speaker 2: Time and again. Donald Trump has promised to exact revenge
0:12
Speaker 2: against those involved in the cases against him.
0:16
Speaker 3: Look, when this election is over, based on what they've done,
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Speaker 3: I would have every right to go after them.
0:25
Speaker 1: And it's easy.
0:27
Speaker 3: And sometimes revenge can be justified, though I have to
0:30
Speaker 3: be honest, you know, sometimes it can.
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Speaker 2: And the President appears to be keeping those promises to
0:35
Speaker 2: the FBI. In a highly unusual move, his Justice Department
0:40
Speaker 2: is putting together a list of all FBI employees who
0:44
Speaker 2: worked on the criminal investigations into Trump or the January
0:48
Speaker 2: sixth investigations. So two groups of FBI agents are going
0:53
Speaker 2: to federal court to prevent the government from disclosing the
0:56
Speaker 2: names on that list, fearing it could target them for
0:59
Speaker 2: a time allation. January sixth writers who were pardoned by
1:03
Speaker 2: Trump have already taken to social media to identify prosecutors
1:08
Speaker 2: and agents who worked on their cases.
1:10
Speaker 4: But I will tell you now it's our cher.
1:15
Speaker 2: One of the lawsuits sites these comments by Enrique Tario,
1:19
Speaker 2: the former leader of the Proud Boys, who was serving
1:22
Speaker 2: a twenty two year sentence before his pardon the.
1:25
Speaker 4: People who did this, they need to feel the heat.
1:28
Speaker 4: They need to be put behind bars, and they need
1:31
Speaker 4: to be prosecuted.
1:32
Speaker 2: My guest is national security law expert Brad Moss, a
1:35
Speaker 2: partner at Mark Zaid. He's representing the seven FBI agents
1:39
Speaker 2: and the FBI Association suing the Justice Department. Brad tell
1:44
Speaker 2: us what's been happening at the FBI.
1:46
Speaker 1: So, what's been transpiring at the moment with the FBI
1:50
Speaker 1: and the Justice Department is that a set of instructions
1:52
Speaker 1: came down from the White House pretty much starting from
1:55
Speaker 1: day one, to identify everyone involved in associated with the
2:00
Speaker 1: prosecutions and investigations not only into Donald Trump, but also
2:06
Speaker 1: everyone who was prosecuted for the January sixth riots and
2:10
Speaker 1: the seditious attempts. The set of prosecutors from the January
2:15
Speaker 1: six cases that specifically were on Jack Smith's team that
2:18
Speaker 1: went after Donald Trump. Those individuals apparently were already fired
2:22
Speaker 1: without cause, which is something that will likely be subject
2:25
Speaker 1: to litigation. But the more immediate and more widespread concern
2:29
Speaker 1: is that the Just Department ordered the FBI to compile
2:33
Speaker 1: a list identify everyone within the FBI Special Agents, Technical
2:38
Speaker 1: Assistance Support staff. Fred Dicks's examiners everything compile lists and
2:43
Speaker 1: send it to the Justice Department to identify everyone involved
2:47
Speaker 1: in any of the January sixth investigations and prosecutions, with
2:52
Speaker 1: the obvious concern being not only this it's going to
2:54
Speaker 1: be shared with the Just Department, but also with the
2:57
Speaker 1: White House, and that these names will be made public.
3:00
Speaker 1: The lawsuits that were filed yesterday, there's two different lawsuits,
3:03
Speaker 1: one of which i'm a list of attorney on are
3:06
Speaker 1: designed to keep those names of those FBI personnel private
3:11
Speaker 1: and anonymous, just like it's always done for government officials
3:15
Speaker 1: who are not otherwise public facing individuals.
3:18
Speaker 2: The FBI said it had taken steps to protect agents,
3:22
Speaker 2: including identifying them by employee IDs rather than by name,
3:26
Speaker 2: though I'm not sure how much that helps, and that
3:28
Speaker 2: list has already been turned over to the Justice Department.
3:32
Speaker 1: So the list of the unique identifiers was already turned over.
3:36
Speaker 1: According to the reporting, and the way I at least
3:40
Speaker 1: view the actions by FBI leadership was to try to
3:43
Speaker 1: slow walk things. Slow this down, because yes, the Just
3:47
Speaker 1: Department can go back into the system and start matching
3:49
Speaker 1: up these identifiers to individual names, but that'll take time.
3:54
Speaker 1: That'll take resources. It's my numbing work. It is a
3:58
Speaker 1: question of how much time and resources the Justice Breyone
4:01
Speaker 1: wants to put into doing that. So part of this
4:04
Speaker 1: was the FBI just try to slow walk it. But
4:06
Speaker 1: part of it was also a recognition, no doubt by
4:08
Speaker 1: the existing leadership that if they did not comply in
4:11
Speaker 1: some manner, the White House would simply order them purged,
4:15
Speaker 1: and they would continue purging leadership officials until they found
4:19
Speaker 1: someone willing to comply. Think of the Saturday Night massacre
4:24
Speaker 1: drama from the seventies and ultimately Robert Bork implementing orders
4:28
Speaker 1: for no other reason than to just stop the blood letting.
4:31
Speaker 1: So that's where things stand at the moment. But even
4:34
Speaker 1: with those identifiers, and even if the Just Department identifies
4:37
Speaker 1: the individuals from those identifiers, no action has been taken
4:40
Speaker 1: to publicly disseminate that information, and we're working to make
4:44
Speaker 1: sure that does not happen.
4:46
Speaker 2: The acting Director, Brian Driscoll, in a memo, said the
4:49
Speaker 2: list covered thousands of FBI employees around the country, including him,
4:53
Speaker 2: and by the way, in a memo today, Deputy Attorney
4:56
Speaker 2: General Emil Bove accuses Driscoll of insight ordination I'm sure
5:01
Speaker 2: that'll find its way into a lawsuit. So Brett did
5:04
Speaker 2: all the thousands of FBI employees fill out that detailed
5:09
Speaker 2: three page questionnaire they got, which included questions about their
5:13
Speaker 2: specific role in the January sixth investigations.
5:17
Speaker 1: So that was the questionnaire that was originally going to
5:19
Speaker 1: be used to identify everyone involved in our understanding. It's
5:23
Speaker 1: basically that majority of FBI leadership told rank and file
5:27
Speaker 1: that they were going to handle it, not to have
5:29
Speaker 1: the individual employees fill this out, and that the various
5:33
Speaker 1: special Agents in charge and the assistant special Agents in
5:35
Speaker 1: charge in AINC leadership took it on themselves to collect
5:39
Speaker 1: the data and to provide those unique identifier numbers to
5:43
Speaker 1: doj But this remains the concern is what is the
5:47
Speaker 1: purpose of this, where are they going with this, and
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Speaker 1: what is the White House plan to do with this information?
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Speaker 5: Because remember one.
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Speaker 1: Of the first things Donald Trump did was pardon everyone
5:56
Speaker 1: convicted for their actions tied to January sixth, the Proud Boy,
6:00
Speaker 1: including the healthkeepers, all these violent militants who had gone
6:04
Speaker 1: in with a plan to take down the government to
6:07
Speaker 1: install Donald Trump aftery laws in twenty twenty, those individuals
6:12
Speaker 1: are now publicly threatening the FBI officials who went after
6:15
Speaker 1: them and who investigated them as part of those prosecutions,
6:18
Speaker 1: and there's a real threat to those FBI officials' lives
6:21
Speaker 1: and their safety and see their family members if their
6:24
Speaker 1: names get released in your lawsuit.
6:26
Speaker 2: Are you concerned about dismissals or are you only concerned
6:31
Speaker 2: about retaliation?
6:33
Speaker 1: Right now, this is strictly about keeping the anonymity of
6:36
Speaker 1: the names of these various officials because no other action
6:41
Speaker 1: has been taken to actually fire these personnel. We're not
6:45
Speaker 1: there yet on bringing a challenge to it. It's premature.
6:50
Speaker 1: If DOJ does go through with that, If there is
6:53
Speaker 1: a mass purge of personnel, our lawsuit could obviously be
6:57
Speaker 1: amended and updated to address that as well.
7:00
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the grounds for your suit. Are you
7:03
Speaker 2: suing under the First Amendment and the Federal Privacy Act?
7:07
Speaker 1: So, yeah, the First and Fifth Amendment constitutional protections due
7:10
Speaker 1: process for these individuals, particularly the stigma of being defamed
7:16
Speaker 1: essentially an accused of miscarriage of justice by the White
7:19
Speaker 1: House if their names are publicly released. First Amendment retaliation
7:23
Speaker 1: in the sense that this is all about the fact
7:25
Speaker 1: that they are not politically aligned and ideologically aligned with
7:29
Speaker 1: the White House, which for civil servant is not something
7:31
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be doing. They're not supposed to be political.
7:34
Speaker 1: But also the Privacy Act, which puts strict limits on
7:37
Speaker 1: what agencies can do with the personal identifying information of
7:42
Speaker 1: personnel and where it can and cannot be disseminated absent
7:47
Speaker 1: employee consent, which, to be clear, these personnel are not
7:51
Speaker 1: giving their consent for this personal identifying information to be
7:55
Speaker 1: disseminated outside of the FBI, let alone to the public.
7:58
Speaker 2: Are you asking for a temper restraining order?
8:01
Speaker 1: Yes, emotion for a temporary restraining order was filed yesterday
8:04
Speaker 1: as well in an initial hearing will be held tomorrow,
8:08
Speaker 1: Thursday morning, at ten thirty am in the courtroom of
8:13
Speaker 1: Judge Cobb in DC.
8:15
Speaker 2: I'm curious about whether a lot of people from the
8:18
Speaker 2: FBI have approached you with their concerns about this.
8:22
Speaker 1: Yes, we've been approached by a myriad an untold number
8:25
Speaker 1: of personnel across the FBI, not just in DC, but
8:29
Speaker 1: across the country who we are representing as a part
8:32
Speaker 1: of this collective group. There is a select number of
8:35
Speaker 1: individuals who have agreed to be the plaintiffs in this action,
8:39
Speaker 1: we're keeping their identities protected at the moment that the
8:42
Speaker 1: court agreed to allow them to proceed, as John Doe's
8:46
Speaker 1: Jane does for now, we're also working to make sure
8:49
Speaker 1: to try to keep their identities secret from the government itself, sadly,
8:54
Speaker 1: to try to prevent and avoid retaliation for having engaged
8:58
Speaker 1: in affection. But yes, also the Agent Association is also
9:02
Speaker 1: a listed plaintiff, which represents agents across the country and
9:06
Speaker 1: has an obvious organizational interest in protecting its personnel from
9:10
Speaker 1: this political retribution.
9:12
Speaker 2: Do you think you'll be able to get to meet
9:14
Speaker 2: the high standards for a temporary restraining order?
9:17
Speaker 1: We do, and that is certainly something we're prepared to
9:20
Speaker 1: start briefing out immediately. That as our understanding is that
9:23
Speaker 1: the hearing tomorrow, if nothing else, will set out an
9:26
Speaker 1: expedited briefing schedule. We want this addressed immediately. We cannot
9:31
Speaker 1: wait with the way this administration is moving and just
9:35
Speaker 1: this reckless, you know, move fast and break things attitude
9:39
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk and Donald Trump have. Time is of
9:42
Speaker 1: the essence, and every day that passes is another day
9:45
Speaker 1: that these names could be disseminated to the public. So
9:48
Speaker 1: everything is about moving quickly right now to halt any
9:53
Speaker 1: dissemination until these legal issues can.
9:55
Speaker 5: Be resolved through standard briefing.
9:58
Speaker 2: There have been accusations from former Trump officials that FBI
10:01
Speaker 2: agents went beyond their authority when they executed the search
10:06
Speaker 2: warrants at Mara a Lago. Was there any litigation or
10:09
Speaker 2: court decisions about those accusations.
10:12
Speaker 1: There is no merit to that. Every challenge regarding the
10:17
Speaker 1: lawfulness of the effidavits, the lawfulness of the searches did
10:20
Speaker 1: not even fly in motions before Judge Cannon. There has
10:24
Speaker 1: been zero validated claim that these officials went beyond the
10:29
Speaker 1: scope of their authority or otherwise violated Donald Trump's Fourth
10:34
Speaker 1: Amendment rights with respect to his actual.
10:37
Speaker 5: Property that was at mar Lago.
10:39
Speaker 1: This is political hatchet jobs, smearing by individuals trying to
10:44
Speaker 1: color it as it being an issue of misconduct. If
10:47
Speaker 1: they had actual, verified claims of misconduct against any of
10:51
Speaker 1: these officials, they could bring it through the normal administrative process.
10:54
Speaker 1: They don't want to do that because they know those
10:57
Speaker 1: claims won't hold up to scrutiny.
11:00
Speaker 2: And so big picture, what you're saying basically is these
11:03
Speaker 2: are FBI agents who are doing their jobs.
11:05
Speaker 6: We're doing what they were assigned to.
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Speaker 1: Do, correct and not just you know, I don't ever
11:09
Speaker 1: want to go with the we're just doing our jobs
11:11
Speaker 1: lined because that harkens back to World War Two. These
11:14
Speaker 1: were people following lawful orders to investigate potential crime in
11:20
Speaker 1: the sense of the attack on the capital of January sixth,
11:24
Speaker 1: as well as the unauthorized retention of classified documents at
11:28
Speaker 1: mar A Lago. Those are existing crimes. There was a
11:30
Speaker 1: standard investigation. The only quote unquote misconduct they did was
11:36
Speaker 1: they dared to be part of an investigation into Donald Trump.
11:39
Speaker 1: And the point that this White House is trying to
11:42
Speaker 1: push is that people like Donald Trump and his friends
11:45
Speaker 1: and allies are above the law and can never be investigated.
11:50
Speaker 2: The FBI, in its many years, there's been controversies. Have
11:54
Speaker 2: you ever heard anything like this, you know, seeking retribution?
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Speaker 1: This makes you think of, you know, the Hoover days
12:02
Speaker 1: in terms of the idea of such blanket aupliticization of
12:09
Speaker 1: the just Department of the FBI. We moved beyond that
12:13
Speaker 1: after Hoover for a reason. The civil Service that its
12:16
Speaker 1: protections exist.
12:18
Speaker 7: For a reason.
12:19
Speaker 1: We're trying to move beyond the flaws in the States
12:23
Speaker 1: of the part of our path in this country, not
12:26
Speaker 1: just in the FBI, but in the political system itself.
12:29
Speaker 5: To allow Donald.
12:30
Speaker 1: Trump to do what he's trying to do would cripple
12:33
Speaker 1: the existing system and bring us back to the days
12:36
Speaker 1: of Tammany Hall and blanket abuses of power. We cannot
12:41
Speaker 1: go back to that. That is why these lawsuits are
12:44
Speaker 1: beinging brought. That is why lawyers like us are standing
12:47
Speaker 1: up to protect these individuals.
12:49
Speaker 2: Finally, during her confirmation hearing, Pam Bondi, who is now
12:53
Speaker 2: the Attorney General, assured Senator is that she wouldn't retaliate
12:56
Speaker 2: against Justice Department staff simply because they've been a designed
13:00
Speaker 2: to cases involving Trump. Cash Ptel echoed a similar pledge.
13:05
Speaker 2: Do you have any faith or hope that now that
13:08
Speaker 2: she's in charge that this might stop?
13:12
Speaker 1: None those promises, those reassurances mean nothing more than the
13:18
Speaker 1: reassurances given by certain Supreme Court nominees about the sanctity
13:24
Speaker 1: of Roe v.
13:24
Speaker 5: Wade.
13:25
Speaker 1: They're politicized, you know, cover your your end statements that
13:31
Speaker 1: were made to get appointed, to get confirmed, that they
13:34
Speaker 1: will happily, you know, circumvent and throw out the window.
13:38
Speaker 1: Once they're in power knowing that there's no one who's
13:42
Speaker 1: going to do anything to stop them, certainly not the
13:45
Speaker 1: existing majority in the House or Senate. They have no
13:49
Speaker 1: interest in going after these officials if they end up
13:52
Speaker 1: doing what they promised they would not do. And those
13:55
Speaker 1: officials like Pam Bondy know.
13:57
Speaker 2: That We'll check back with you after the hearing tomorrow.
14:00
Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Brad. That's national security expert Brad Moss
14:04
Speaker 2: of mark zaid. The Trump administration has started flying detained
14:09
Speaker 2: migrants on military aircraft to Guantanamo Bay. Last month, President
14:13
Speaker 2: Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the expansion of
14:17
Speaker 2: a migrant detention center at the military installation to full capacity,
14:22
Speaker 2: saying it could hold up to thirty thousand. Homeland Security
14:26
Speaker 2: Secretary Christy Nomes said the base will hold the worst
14:30
Speaker 2: of those detained for entering the US illegally.
14:33
Speaker 8: We are building out our capacity at Guantanamo Bay right now.
14:36
Speaker 8: That is where the worst are going. We have only
14:39
Speaker 8: a handful of individuals there now, but we will build
14:41
Speaker 8: out those facilities to have a capacity there to meet
14:44
Speaker 8: our needs.
14:45
Speaker 2: Hundreds of US service members arrived ahead of the detainees
14:49
Speaker 2: to set up a tent city. Here's Marine Corps First
14:52
Speaker 2: Sergeant Johnny Stone.
14:53
Speaker 6: This is what we trained for.
14:55
Speaker 1: We at a moment's notice, we get the call. We
14:57
Speaker 1: were in the field training for something like this, and
15:00
Speaker 1: it happened.
15:01
Speaker 4: We stay ready and we're ready to go, and here
15:03
Speaker 4: we are.
15:04
Speaker 2: Immigrant rights groups have warned that moving migrants to Guantanamo
15:09
Speaker 2: would bypass legal protections, so the move is certain to
15:13
Speaker 2: lead to lawsuits. Joining me is immigration law expert Leon Fresco,
15:18
Speaker 2: a partner at Holland and Knight and the former head
15:20
Speaker 2: of the Office of Immigration Litigation in the Obama administration.
15:24
Speaker 2: Leon Guantanamo is well known, perhaps infamous, for housing terrorism suspects.
15:30
Speaker 2: Has it ever been used to house migrants? How much
15:33
Speaker 2: might this cost?
15:35
Speaker 7: There have been many periods of time, most prevalently in
15:38
Speaker 7: the nineties under Bill Clinton, where Juantanamo was used as
15:43
Speaker 7: a facility that held migrants. But typically the way that
15:47
Speaker 7: worked was migrants were detained at sea and they were
15:51
Speaker 7: said to Guantanamo so that they were not allowed to
15:54
Speaker 7: enter the United States because there was what was called
15:57
Speaker 7: the wet foot Dry Food policy at that time, which
15:59
Speaker 7: allow of Cubans too. If they entered the United States,
16:03
Speaker 7: they could stay and get lawful permanent residency. So the
16:07
Speaker 7: idea was to interdict the migrants at sea and place
16:10
Speaker 7: them in Guantanamo until something could be figured out if
16:13
Speaker 7: they were actually genuine asylum seekers or if they could
16:16
Speaker 7: be repatriated back to Cuba. And also the Haitians ended
16:20
Speaker 7: up also being detained at Guantanamo. This would be a
16:24
Speaker 7: new phenomenon which would not be interdicting migrants at sea,
16:28
Speaker 7: but would actually be taking planes and flying migrants from
16:33
Speaker 7: the interior of the United States into Guantanamo, which yes,
16:36
Speaker 7: becomes a much more expensive operation because you have to
16:40
Speaker 7: have all of those planes flying into Ontonamo. You also
16:44
Speaker 7: have to run the detention facility. You have to move
16:47
Speaker 7: military folks who were not in Ontanamo for the purpose
16:51
Speaker 7: of running a thirty thousand person detention facility for that purpose,
16:56
Speaker 7: and so all of that obviously is going to require
16:59
Speaker 7: increased appropriate but then there will also be legal challenges
17:03
Speaker 7: about things like access to council and what they're doing,
17:07
Speaker 7: what kind of individuals are going to be there. Will
17:10
Speaker 7: it only be people with final orders of removal that
17:13
Speaker 7: they're trying to execute removal orders for which, by the way,
17:16
Speaker 7: also makes things logistically more challenging because then you have
17:20
Speaker 7: to round up enough people from a specific country to
17:23
Speaker 7: put on a specific plane that will leave Gantanamo and
17:26
Speaker 7: go to a specific country. But nevertheless, if it's that
17:31
Speaker 7: there will be less legal challenges. But if it's people
17:33
Speaker 7: with pending cases, then the question is how is a
17:36
Speaker 7: lawyer supposed to work with a client who is detained
17:39
Speaker 7: in Wantanamo? And that will provide a lot of fodder
17:44
Speaker 7: for legal challenges.
17:45
Speaker 6: Yeah.
17:46
Speaker 2: Amy Fisher of Amnesty International said sending immigrants to Guantanamo
17:51
Speaker 2: is a profoundly cruel, costly move. It will cut people
17:55
Speaker 2: off from lawyers, family and support systems, throwing them into
17:59
Speaker 2: a black call so the US government can continue to
18:02
Speaker 2: violate their human rights out of sight. I guess you'd
18:06
Speaker 2: expect a lawsuit very quickly.
18:09
Speaker 5: Yes.
18:09
Speaker 7: I think the complication is going to be the procedural
18:11
Speaker 7: posture of the people being placed in Guantanamo. If they
18:15
Speaker 7: are people whose process has been completed and they have
18:19
Speaker 7: no rights, and the issue is just we want to
18:21
Speaker 7: detain them in Wantanamo to clear up the current detention
18:25
Speaker 7: space we have for people impending proceedings, then I can
18:30
Speaker 7: see this being able to function much longer than if
18:33
Speaker 7: you're actually sending people to Wantanamo who are impending proceedings,
18:37
Speaker 7: because there, I think unless they provide some very new
18:43
Speaker 7: and innovative ways for lawyers to contact detainees, it's just
18:48
Speaker 7: almost impossible. I don't know how you would represent someone
18:51
Speaker 7: in Wantanamo. It would be very, very difficult to do.
18:55
Speaker 7: And so I think that's going to be a complicated issue.
18:59
Speaker 2: There are trumps threats working. Are most of the countries
19:05
Speaker 2: that we're going to take back their citizens are they
19:10
Speaker 2: now accepting them?
19:12
Speaker 1: Well?
19:12
Speaker 7: The ones that have changed from positions of just maybe
19:17
Speaker 7: let's say two three months ago are Venezuela theoretically. I
19:21
Speaker 7: mean there's announcement saying that they're changing and they're going
19:24
Speaker 7: to accept US detainees from Venezuela to be repatriated back
19:28
Speaker 7: to Venezuela.
19:29
Speaker 5: And India has.
19:30
Speaker 7: Also said the same thing that they would accept people
19:33
Speaker 7: that are going to be deported to India. There was
19:34
Speaker 7: the famous skirmish with the Colombian president, but Colombia was
19:37
Speaker 7: already accepting US removals, and the same thing with Brazil.
19:43
Speaker 7: And so here's the point to the extaid that there
19:46
Speaker 7: have been skirmishes all of those skirmishes have ended with
19:49
Speaker 7: those countries saying they will accept people the United States
19:52
Speaker 7: is trying to remove. But there are still countries. I mean,
19:55
Speaker 7: the big ones are going to be China and Cuba.
19:57
Speaker 7: Are they going to accept people that the United States
20:00
Speaker 7: is trying to remove.
20:01
Speaker 5: So we'll wait and see on that.
20:02
Speaker 2: Now, we've talked before about the protections for Venezuelans in
20:07
Speaker 2: the US, and the Homeland Security Secretary Christin Nomes says
20:12
Speaker 2: she's going to terminate temporary removal protections for several hundred
20:17
Speaker 2: thousand Venezuelans in the US. That's like nearly three hundred
20:21
Speaker 2: and fifty thousand immigrants.
20:24
Speaker 7: Yeah, there are two trunches of temporary protective status because
20:28
Speaker 7: it's just been a sort of scattershot order system that's happened.
20:33
Speaker 7: So there's about three hundred and fifty thousand or so
20:35
Speaker 7: whose status expires April second, twenty twenty five, and there's
20:39
Speaker 7: another few hundred thousand two status expires in September of
20:42
Speaker 7: twenty twenty five. And what the Secretary is saying is
20:45
Speaker 7: that they will not renew the status of the Venezuelans
20:48
Speaker 7: who status expires in April of twenty twenty five, and
20:52
Speaker 7: so they won't have any status. So what does that
20:55
Speaker 7: mean rid large how will this probably play out? I
20:58
Speaker 7: think probably the way you'll this play out is a
21:01
Speaker 7: large number of those individuals either already had asylum cases
21:05
Speaker 7: that they actually ended up withdrawing because they got temporary
21:09
Speaker 7: protective status, so they have to refile it. And then
21:12
Speaker 7: there's going to be a ton of litigation about whether
21:15
Speaker 7: you filed your asylum claim within the year or you
21:19
Speaker 7: didn't file your asylum claim within the year. So though
21:21
Speaker 7: the all of that, you usually have to file for
21:24
Speaker 7: asylum within one year after writing in the United States,
21:27
Speaker 7: so there's that issue, But in the end, almost all
21:31
Speaker 7: of them are going to apply for asylum. And so
21:34
Speaker 7: then what makes this complicated is that's going to create
21:37
Speaker 7: a lot of strain on an immigration court system that
21:41
Speaker 7: already has over a million.
21:42
Speaker 5: Cases in it.
21:44
Speaker 7: And so to the extent that one is trying to
21:48
Speaker 7: create repatriations, one might actually be flowing them down unwittingly
21:54
Speaker 7: by doing something like this.
21:56
Speaker 5: But nevertheless, this is what's going to happen. Now.
22:00
Speaker 2: Talk about yet another lawsuit against Trump. Immigrant rights groups
22:04
Speaker 2: filed a federal lawsuit against Trump, claiming that his Executive
22:08
Speaker 2: Order entitled Guaranteeing the State's Protection against Invasion unlawfully targets
22:14
Speaker 2: asylum seekers with deportation, violating federal law.
22:18
Speaker 7: So the ACLU as Counsel filed a lawsuit on behalf
22:22
Speaker 7: of three different organizations that work with the refugees, and
22:26
Speaker 7: what they basically said is that the proclamations that were
22:29
Speaker 7: issued by the Trump administration banning all access to asylum
22:34
Speaker 7: in the United States by people who cross the border
22:37
Speaker 7: violates the immigration statutes and violates the Administrative Procedures Acts.
22:42
Speaker 7: Basically because the way the statutory authority works, and this
22:47
Speaker 7: has always been the debate about whether one could do
22:50
Speaker 7: this or not, is that the statutory authority says you
22:54
Speaker 7: can apply for asylum regardless of whether you entered the
22:58
Speaker 7: United States legally or ill legally. Now there's a separate
23:01
Speaker 7: part of the statute that says you can ban people
23:04
Speaker 7: applying for asylum if you create a regulatory discretionary reason.
23:10
Speaker 7: So you could add things like, for instance, you know,
23:13
Speaker 7: are a cyber criminal that might not have existed in
23:16
Speaker 7: the nineteen eighties when these statutes were written, So you
23:19
Speaker 7: could do things like that. But the question is can
23:21
Speaker 7: you use this discretion to take away something that the
23:26
Speaker 7: statute specifically says, which is that it doesn't matter how
23:29
Speaker 7: you enter the United States, you can apply for asylum.
23:32
Speaker 7: And so this litigation was going on under the first
23:35
Speaker 7: Trump administration that was canceled, then when Biden put his order.
23:40
Speaker 5: In, it was going on.
23:42
Speaker 7: And now this is a new challenge to the new
23:44
Speaker 7: Trump order. But eventually this will work its way to
23:48
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court and we will see who wins this
23:51
Speaker 7: argument between the two concepts of can you actually ban
23:55
Speaker 7: asylum as a discretionary matter for people who cross the border.
23:59
Speaker 5: Or if that's the one area where you're.
24:01
Speaker 7: Not allowed discretion because the statue specifically says that you
24:06
Speaker 7: can apply for asylum even if you enter the United
24:10
Speaker 7: States illegally.
24:11
Speaker 6: Do you think that they have a good case.
24:14
Speaker 7: I think it's a strong case, because when Congress actually
24:18
Speaker 7: takes the rare occasion to enumerate something as clearly as that,
24:23
Speaker 7: it does seem like it's a strong case where they
24:27
Speaker 7: wouldn't want the discretion to be used to deny that
24:30
Speaker 7: specific reason for asking for asylum. So I do think
24:34
Speaker 7: it's a strong case. I think sort of like I say,
24:36
Speaker 7: sometimes a computer judge would probably rule in favor of
24:41
Speaker 7: the plaintiffs here. But you know, since the judges are
24:44
Speaker 7: human beings and they have their own predilections, maybe they
24:47
Speaker 7: will rule for the Trump administration. But I think if
24:50
Speaker 7: you're just using the text and you have these two statutes,
24:53
Speaker 7: one that says you can pick new discretionary reasons to
24:56
Speaker 7: deny people, and one which says that no matter matter what,
25:01
Speaker 7: you can apply for asylum, even if you entered illegally,
25:03
Speaker 7: that you probably couldn't use a discretionary reason that violates
25:08
Speaker 7: that specific statutory instruction that allows you to apply for asylum.
25:12
Speaker 2: So I mean, because these cases take so long, is
25:15
Speaker 2: the key here then whether or not they get an
25:18
Speaker 2: injunction to stop Trump from doing this?
25:21
Speaker 7: While well, here's the problem. The Supreme Court has issued
25:26
Speaker 7: cases during the Biden administration that says now that only
25:29
Speaker 7: the Supreme Court can issue the injunction. The district court
25:33
Speaker 7: and the appellate Court do not have the authority to
25:37
Speaker 7: issue the injunction on this kind of removal statute interpretation,
25:42
Speaker 7: just because of the weird quirky way in which these
25:46
Speaker 7: statutes were drafted, where it actually says that, And so
25:50
Speaker 7: they say, well, I mean, this is weird, But because
25:52
Speaker 7: the statute actually says it, then we're going to interpret
25:55
Speaker 7: the statute the way.
25:56
Speaker 5: It says it.
25:57
Speaker 7: And that means that the district court can only be
26:00
Speaker 7: recommend an injunction and say it's on lawful and the
26:04
Speaker 7: appellate court can do the thing. But it's only going
26:07
Speaker 7: to be the Supreme Court that can issue the injunction.
26:09
Speaker 7: Which is why the Biden case took so long, is
26:12
Speaker 7: because you can't actually get a tro.
26:16
Speaker 5: Or an injunction to do this.
26:18
Speaker 1: Now.
26:18
Speaker 5: Now you have to get a.
26:20
Speaker 7: Declaratory judgment that this is illegal and work your way
26:24
Speaker 7: all the way up to the Supreme Court.
26:26
Speaker 2: And it's a long way up to the Supreme Court.
26:29
Speaker 2: Stay with me, Leon Coming up next on the Bloomberg
26:31
Speaker 2: Law Show, El Salvador's offer to jail deporties from the
26:35
Speaker 2: US of any nationality, including US citizens, and the many
26:40
Speaker 2: ways that offer is illegal. You're listening to Bloomberg.
26:44
Speaker 9: No one's ever made an offer like that, and to
26:47
Speaker 9: outsource at a fraction of the cost at least some
26:51
Speaker 9: of the most dangerous and violent criminals that we have
26:53
Speaker 9: in the United States. But obviously the administration will have
26:56
Speaker 9: to make a decision.
26:57
Speaker 2: Secretary of State Mark or Rubio said he was exploring
27:00
Speaker 2: whether he could move forward with the offer from L.
27:03
Speaker 2: Salvador's president to jail deporties from the United States of
27:07
Speaker 2: any nationality, including US citizens, in L. Salvador's prisons, which,
27:13
Speaker 2: by the way, the State Department has described as dangerous
27:17
Speaker 2: and harsh.
27:18
Speaker 9: Obviously, we'll have to study it on our end. There
27:21
Speaker 9: are obviously legalities involved. We have a constitution, we have
27:24
Speaker 9: all sorts of things. But it's a very generous.
27:25
Speaker 2: Offer and it won't take much studying to discover that
27:29
Speaker 2: sending US citizens to foreign prisons is illegal. I've been
27:33
Speaker 2: talking to immigration law expert Leon Fresco of Holland and Knight. Leon,
27:38
Speaker 2: is there any doubt that you can't send American citizens
27:42
Speaker 2: to L Salvador to serve out their sentences?
27:46
Speaker 6: Right?
27:46
Speaker 5: That is not legal.
27:47
Speaker 7: So, first of all, if you were born in America
27:50
Speaker 7: and you're not even a dual citizen of any kind,
27:53
Speaker 7: you would be violating a number of statutes by sending
27:58
Speaker 7: someone to prison in Al Salvador.
28:01
Speaker 5: That is not permitted.
28:03
Speaker 7: But even if the person happened to be a dual citizen,
28:06
Speaker 7: it still doesn't matter. There's no authority. The number one
28:10
Speaker 7: defense in the i NA for a removal proceeding is
28:14
Speaker 7: that you're a citizen. That's the sort of when you
28:17
Speaker 7: talk about rock scissors paper, being a citizen is a
28:20
Speaker 7: nuclear bomb that's destroying the rock scissors or the paper.
28:24
Speaker 7: And so I don't know exactly why that would have
28:28
Speaker 7: been highlighted, other than perhaps to create some sort of
28:32
Speaker 7: feeling of instability for would be dual citizen criminals to say, hey,
28:38
Speaker 7: be careful, you might get sent to Alsavad or that
28:41
Speaker 7: kind of thing. But in terms of the legality of it,
28:44
Speaker 7: it's very not legal.
28:46
Speaker 2: I like that term very not legal, although President Trump
28:50
Speaker 2: was all for it.
28:51
Speaker 3: These are sick people. If we could get them out
28:55
Speaker 3: of our country, we have other countries that would take them,
28:58
Speaker 3: then it's no different than are system, except it would
29:01
Speaker 3: be a lot less expensive and it would be a
29:03
Speaker 3: great deterrent.
29:04
Speaker 7: It's possible as a matter of rhetoric, but as a
29:07
Speaker 7: matter of law, I do not think that that will
29:09
Speaker 7: end up surviving both under the immigration laws under the IRONA,
29:14
Speaker 7: but also even if you could make some argument that
29:17
Speaker 7: you could legally do it, then the Convention against Structure
29:20
Speaker 7: would come in and you wouldn't be able to send
29:22
Speaker 7: people to the kinds of facilities that you're seeing on
29:25
Speaker 7: TV where you have five hundred people packed into one room.
29:29
Speaker 7: You know that kind of thing is not going to
29:31
Speaker 7: be permitted.
29:32
Speaker 2: What about sending migrants who are here illegally to prison
29:36
Speaker 2: in a foreign country like El Salvador.
29:38
Speaker 7: So there are two types of situations where this does happen. First,
29:45
Speaker 7: the US immigration law is actually quite clear that if
29:48
Speaker 7: a person has gone through all of their due process,
29:51
Speaker 7: they can be removed to a third country if the
29:55
Speaker 7: country that's their actual nationality doesn't choose.
29:58
Speaker 5: To accept them.
29:59
Speaker 7: And in the past there have been countries. Venezuela wasn't
30:03
Speaker 7: accepting people. They're claiming that they're going to start accepting
30:05
Speaker 7: people now as of this last weekend. But China has
30:09
Speaker 7: been typically recalcentrant in accepting people. Cuba has been typically
30:14
Speaker 7: recalcitrant in accepting people who are to be removed from
30:17
Speaker 7: the United States, and so there hasn't been a country
30:20
Speaker 7: that's wanted to enmass accept deportise.
30:24
Speaker 1: Now.
30:24
Speaker 7: The problem is there's two layers of this, Which is,
30:27
Speaker 7: if all Al Salvador would do is let the planes
30:31
Speaker 7: land in al Savador and accept the deporties. That would
30:35
Speaker 7: be a much likelier scenario to survive any legal challenge.
30:41
Speaker 7: The problem is going to be if people start getting
30:43
Speaker 7: detained in some of those famous facilities that you see
30:47
Speaker 7: on the news regarding al Savador with very violent gang
30:51
Speaker 7: members and things of that nature. People will start filing
30:54
Speaker 7: claims that there was called the Convention against Torture, and
30:58
Speaker 7: there is a lot of robust case claw that says
31:01
Speaker 7: the facilities are the kind of facilities that resemble the
31:05
Speaker 7: kind of facilities that you see in Alsamador. I don't
31:08
Speaker 7: want to prejudge this, nor do I know which facilities
31:11
Speaker 7: in Alsavador will be used for these contexts, but theoretically speaking,
31:15
Speaker 7: there will be claims that people say sending me to
31:18
Speaker 7: these facilities in Alsavodoor is the same as sargering me,
31:22
Speaker 7: and courts will have a lot of litigation there, and
31:25
Speaker 7: so it will be interesting to see if that move
31:28
Speaker 7: actually ends up creating any efficiencies for the Trump administration
31:33
Speaker 7: or if it just ends up creating a lot of
31:35
Speaker 7: litigation about whether sending people to those facilities violates the
31:39
Speaker 7: Convention against Let's turn.
31:41
Speaker 2: To sanctuary cities for a moment, Trumps on an executive
31:44
Speaker 2: order directing federal prosecutors to investigate and potentially bring charges
31:49
Speaker 2: against state and local officials who don't assist in the
31:52
Speaker 2: administration's campaign of mass deportations. So now apparently there's the
31:58
Speaker 2: first case where they're actually investigating someone.
32:02
Speaker 6: In New York.
32:04
Speaker 2: The Justice Department is looking into the release by an
32:07
Speaker 2: upstate New York sheriff's office of an immigrant living in
32:10
Speaker 2: the US illegally. It was released despite an outstanding federal
32:15
Speaker 2: arrest warrant on a charge of illegally re entering the
32:18
Speaker 2: US after a prior removal, so he was arrested by immigration.
32:23
Speaker 2: Ithaca said, well, our police department followed all relevant city policies.
32:28
Speaker 6: That's a pretty liberal city.
32:30
Speaker 2: I mean, what can the Trump administration really do against
32:33
Speaker 2: that local sheriff's office anything.
32:36
Speaker 5: So here is the issues it's all going to depend on.
32:39
Speaker 7: There are state and local statutes that law enforcement individuals
32:43
Speaker 7: have to follow, which says that you are to release
32:48
Speaker 7: people in detention and then their normal course of action
32:51
Speaker 7: without consulting with immigration. Because we choose not to consult
32:55
Speaker 7: with immigration, then those individuals will be not prosecutable because
33:02
Speaker 7: they're stuck in a very difficult situation where they would
33:04
Speaker 7: either violate state or local law or they would violate
33:08
Speaker 7: federal law. What's going to be more challenging is if
33:12
Speaker 7: they have some discretion about whether to honor these detainers
33:16
Speaker 7: from the federal government, and they choose not to honor
33:20
Speaker 7: the detainer, and then I think you need something plus, like,
33:23
Speaker 7: for instance, Ice was outside and they helped them by
33:27
Speaker 7: going out of the back or something, or did some
33:29
Speaker 7: other release that thwarted Ice somehow. In that scenario, you
33:35
Speaker 7: could end up seeing a prosecution for harboring or concealing
33:39
Speaker 7: of someone who's here unlawfully in the United States. But
33:42
Speaker 7: I think it will require more than just lack of cooperation.
33:46
Speaker 7: I think you will need and I don't think they'll
33:49
Speaker 7: want to make the first case a pure lack of
33:51
Speaker 7: cooperation case. If they're being strategic about it, they're just
33:55
Speaker 7: trying to get any case to scare people, then yeah,
33:57
Speaker 7: they might make any case they want. If you are
34:00
Speaker 7: being strategic about it, you would do a case where
34:04
Speaker 7: it was lack of cooperation plus some aggravating factor, where
34:09
Speaker 7: there was an actual effort of some kind done by
34:12
Speaker 7: one of these state or local individuals to do something
34:15
Speaker 7: in addition to just not cooperating so that an individual
34:19
Speaker 7: could have aided detection.
34:21
Speaker 2: As I've been talking to people in different areas over
34:25
Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks, I've been hearing more and
34:30
Speaker 2: more about senior career attorneys who are experienced in antitrust,
34:37
Speaker 2: who are experienced in environmental law, etc. Being reassigned to
34:43
Speaker 2: a sanctuary city's working group. The majority have no expertise
34:49
Speaker 2: in immigration law. I mean, is this a real group.
34:53
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean it's happening in the Department of Justice.
34:56
Speaker 7: There are lawyers, even in the immigration sections who are
34:59
Speaker 7: being transferred there that don't ideally want to be transferred there,
35:03
Speaker 7: and they're having to make choices between either retiring or
35:07
Speaker 7: going to this location or resigning. You know, if you're
35:10
Speaker 7: old enough, you can retire.
35:12
Speaker 5: If you're young, your.
35:13
Speaker 7: Only choice is to resign. And I think there's a
35:16
Speaker 7: lot of people who will not like being transferred either
35:19
Speaker 7: to the Sanctuary Cities Department or to the border for
35:22
Speaker 7: border prosecutions to the expense that there's lawyers who are
35:26
Speaker 7: working in other cities that the reason they came.
35:29
Speaker 5: To the Department of Justice. You have to think of
35:31
Speaker 5: it in three layers.
35:32
Speaker 7: First of all, all lawyers generally go into the law
35:35
Speaker 7: because they're risk averse.
35:37
Speaker 5: They don't want to go.
35:37
Speaker 7: Into business or something else. Then, if you're at the
35:41
Speaker 7: second level, where you go into the government, you're particularly
35:44
Speaker 7: risk averse. You really want to have a stable, normal
35:48
Speaker 7: government job. And now if you're being re routed places,
35:52
Speaker 7: that just creates a level of trauma. For a government lawyer,
35:56
Speaker 7: that's far more difficult. But I think a normal person's
35:59
Speaker 7: under sand and for a government lawyer to understand. For
36:02
Speaker 7: government lawyer, this would be like sending someone who is.
36:06
Speaker 5: On a diet to the Hershey factory or something.
36:09
Speaker 7: It just creates a level of destabilization that's unmanageable.
36:14
Speaker 2: That's the best explanation of why people become lawyers. It
36:17
Speaker 2: does seem like some of them might be transferred because
36:21
Speaker 2: the administration wants them to quit, But for some of them,
36:25
Speaker 2: it's hard to figure out the reason why they want
36:27
Speaker 2: them to quit.
36:29
Speaker 7: Without getting into this too much, I'll just say there
36:32
Speaker 7: are many different causes for why someone would end up
36:35
Speaker 7: being assigned to the border or to the Saint Jerry's
36:38
Speaker 7: City's work group. What I would just say is to
36:41
Speaker 7: be said that people don't want to be there, then
36:44
Speaker 7: there should be a weighing process about is the government
36:47
Speaker 7: actually losing a resource that could be used for some
36:49
Speaker 7: other purpose if the person is just going to leave
36:52
Speaker 7: or not want to be there. And I just don't
36:54
Speaker 7: know what more to say about that because I tried
36:57
Speaker 7: to keep it non inflammatory, so I'll just leave it
37:02
Speaker 7: at that. But I will say that in general, this
37:05
Speaker 7: is that's something that government lawyers it is a huge
37:08
Speaker 7: trauma for them to be reassigned in situations such as this.
37:11
Speaker 2: So I've been reading a lot about red states following
37:16
Speaker 2: Trump's lead, you know, pursuing sweeping immigration orders themselves, like
37:22
Speaker 2: Missouri and Mississippi have proposed allowing bounty hunters to detain
37:27
Speaker 2: undocumented migrants and offering one thousand dollars rewards for tips
37:32
Speaker 2: that lead to arrest.
37:33
Speaker 6: I mean, these are.
37:34
Speaker 2: Just proposals as the twenty twenty five Legislative Sessions power up.
37:40
Speaker 2: Is this helpful to the Trump immigration push?
37:43
Speaker 6: Are there that?
37:44
Speaker 7: What's going to be interesting? So there's going to be
37:48
Speaker 7: a lot of this delegation under what's called to eighty
37:51
Speaker 7: seven G, which is a section of the Immigration and
37:53
Speaker 7: Nationality Act which does allow, under certain circumstances, federal officials
37:58
Speaker 7: to deputy and local law enforcement to do immigration functions.
38:04
Speaker 7: But the problem is there's this choke point. So, yes,
38:07
Speaker 7: you can detain people, you can grab them, you can
38:11
Speaker 7: apprehend them, you can detain them, and then then what
38:14
Speaker 7: is the question, what do you do now if they're
38:17
Speaker 7: sitting there in a state of local prison for months
38:19
Speaker 7: and months and months and they can't get into the
38:22
Speaker 7: immigration court because there are no judges, there are no
38:25
Speaker 7: ice attorneys, there isn't a functionality for that. So you
38:29
Speaker 7: have to build the system from that end, toward the
38:33
Speaker 7: end of detention, rather than from the end of detention,
38:36
Speaker 7: because then you end up with these massive log jams,
38:38
Speaker 7: which will create even more litigation about the legality of
38:42
Speaker 7: doing that, and the two eighty seven g agreements and
38:45
Speaker 7: all of that, and then all of the government lawyers
38:48
Speaker 7: that are still left in the government are fighting that
38:51
Speaker 7: instead of using their resources to get people legally removed
38:55
Speaker 7: from the United States. And so this is where it's
38:58
Speaker 7: a bit of a of a resource challenge because you're
39:02
Speaker 7: trying to get in one area and you're trying to
39:05
Speaker 7: plug one all and then another leak opens in another location.
39:09
Speaker 7: And so this is why if you're trying to do
39:11
Speaker 7: a lot of this on the fly, it's going to
39:14
Speaker 7: end up creating leaks in other locations.
39:17
Speaker 5: Whereas what you.
39:18
Speaker 7: Really have to do is build out the immigration courts first,
39:22
Speaker 7: get that fully fully staffed and ready to go, so
39:25
Speaker 7: that when you get people detained, you can put them
39:27
Speaker 7: through the court. Build up the number of ICE attorneys
39:30
Speaker 7: that are there. So that's the same thing, because you
39:32
Speaker 7: need the ice attorneys some show off the court and
39:35
Speaker 7: argue for the deportation.
39:37
Speaker 5: Of individuals, and then you can.
39:39
Speaker 7: Build up the detention and removal space. And then you
39:43
Speaker 7: would build up the capacity obviously in terms of planes
39:46
Speaker 7: and other.
39:47
Speaker 5: Logistics to get people out of the United States. So
39:50
Speaker 5: that's why you'd have to do it.
39:51
Speaker 7: But again, this is going to require people wanting to
39:56
Speaker 7: be immigration judges and people wanting to go into these fields.
40:00
Speaker 7: And so when you do that, you know, I don't
40:02
Speaker 7: know how many people A want to be doing that,
40:05
Speaker 7: but b with these sort of destabilizations of what it
40:11
Speaker 7: means to be a government lawyer, then you know, those
40:14
Speaker 7: things create presidents and so some new administration can come
40:18
Speaker 7: and cancel all of those individuals or move them to
40:22
Speaker 7: environmental protection or something. And so this this is the
40:26
Speaker 7: kind of thing that as people see it, it starts
40:30
Speaker 7: creating challenges in that end too. And so that all
40:34
Speaker 7: of this, all of this, all of these things are
40:37
Speaker 7: dynamic factors that affect one another and.
40:40
Speaker 5: Just will have to see how they all play out.
40:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, Texas Governor Greg Gabbott said that he signed an
40:45
Speaker 2: agreement with the Customs and Border Protection allowing the Texas
40:50
Speaker 2: National Guard to make immigration arrests.
40:52
Speaker 6: But then, yeah, I guess what happens.
40:54
Speaker 7: Then, So correct, because arresting them doesn't change anything. You
40:57
Speaker 7: thought to take them through the deport the system in
41:01
Speaker 7: order to actually remove them. And if that system is
41:04
Speaker 7: backlog and you just have a bunch of people just
41:06
Speaker 7: sitting in at Texas jail, there will soon be lawsuits
41:10
Speaker 7: to get them released from that Texas jale. And so
41:13
Speaker 7: that's going to be the interesting question on those cases.
41:16
Speaker 2: So Texas, there are probably a lot of illegal aliens there,
41:20
Speaker 2: but I mean in states like Missouri and Kansas, Indiana, Nebraska,
41:25
Speaker 2: are there that many.
41:26
Speaker 7: There are documented people all over the country. And I
41:29
Speaker 7: think this is actually one of the interesting things I've
41:33
Speaker 7: been grappling with sort of as a policy person, you know,
41:38
Speaker 7: policy adjacent person, a person who used to work as
41:41
Speaker 7: a Senate stop for doing policy is I've always wanted
41:45
Speaker 7: the solution, you know, sort of now that we're in
41:48
Speaker 7: this very divided red state, blue state country where people
41:53
Speaker 7: can't agree and we're at odds with each other and
41:55
Speaker 7: everybody's got each other's throat. So I've been thinking about it,
41:58
Speaker 7: and I've written articles about this where what you would
42:01
Speaker 7: do is that and an immigration bill.
42:03
Speaker 5: That if you did have an.
42:04
Speaker 7: Amnesty in it, what you could have is state opt in,
42:08
Speaker 7: opt out amnesty. And what that would mean is you
42:12
Speaker 7: could say if a state opted in, then the immigrant
42:15
Speaker 7: could work there legally, but the work permit would be illegal,
42:19
Speaker 7: meaning it would be subject to deportation if you worked
42:23
Speaker 7: illegally in an opt out state and a state that
42:25
Speaker 7: didn't want that, And then we could sort of let
42:27
Speaker 7: the laboratory of democracy see which states turned out better.
42:32
Speaker 7: Was it the states that opted in and allowed people
42:35
Speaker 7: who are given the amnesty to work, or was it
42:38
Speaker 7: the states that opted out and created this kind of
42:41
Speaker 7: very draconian enforcement in their states. So we're going to actually,
42:45
Speaker 7: even though there won't be this opting opted out in
42:48
Speaker 7: that sense, we're going to actually see some version of
42:51
Speaker 7: this happening unofficially when we have a bunch of sanctuary
42:56
Speaker 7: states and a bunch of states that are really hardcore
42:59
Speaker 7: on it immigration enforcement. Obviously, we will have a realitocation
43:03
Speaker 7: of where people are, and then we'll get to see
43:06
Speaker 7: for ourselves which states end up doing better and which
43:09
Speaker 7: ones end up doing worse. You know, there's things like agriculture,
43:12
Speaker 7: seasonal labor, and a lot of these places, the weirdest
43:17
Speaker 7: places require seasonal labor to do certain things, and so
43:23
Speaker 7: we'll see which.
43:24
Speaker 5: Ones come out better.
43:24
Speaker 7: And by the way, I'm not convinced that one will
43:27
Speaker 7: come out better than the other. I don't know, but
43:30
Speaker 7: this will be a sort of unofficial way to do
43:33
Speaker 7: it now. Granted, it will be in a sort of
43:35
Speaker 7: black market economy because these folks won't be legal, so
43:39
Speaker 7: it won't work the same way I would have wanted
43:41
Speaker 7: it to work, where people can work legally.
43:44
Speaker 5: But nevertheless, well, we'll have to see how this ends
43:46
Speaker 5: up playing out.
43:48
Speaker 2: Lee, and I have to say this was a tour
43:49
Speaker 2: to four on your part. No matter what question I
43:52
Speaker 2: ask you on immigration, you know the answer always a pleasure.
43:56
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. That's Leon Fresco of hond and Night
44:00
Speaker 2: and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
44:02
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