Latest / Bloomberg Law / Immigration Issues from ICE in Minneapolis to Mahmoud Khalil
Transcript
- 0:02Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law, with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
- 0:08Speaker 2: Continuing clashes on the streets of Minneapolis between protesters and
- 0:14Speaker 2: ICE agents. As tensions escalated following two shootings by agents,
- 0:19Speaker 2: one of them deadly. Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Brooley
- 0:23Speaker 2: says that his office has been fielding NonStop complaints about
- 0:27Speaker 2: civil rights violations and that his own officers went off duty,
- 0:32Speaker 2: have been stopped and racially profiled by federal officers.
- 0:37Speaker 3: Every one of these individuals is a person of color
- 0:40Speaker 3: who has had this happen to them.
- 0:42Speaker 2: Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bavino, who was seen recently on
- 0:47Speaker 2: a video tossing a smoke canister into a crowd, said
- 0:51Speaker 2: the tactics employed by ICE are justified, but the Minnesota
- 0:55Speaker 2: Attorney General, Keith Ellison, disagrees.
- 0:59Speaker 4: Our operations are lawful. They're targeted, and they're focused on
- 1:03Speaker 4: individuals who pose a serious threat to this community. They
- 1:08Speaker 4: are not random, and they are not political.
- 1:12Speaker 3: These tactics that we've seen from MICE are brutal, they
- 1:16Speaker 3: are unfair, they are racial profiling, they are hurting our economy,
- 1:21Speaker 3: and they're running up our costs in terms of policing
- 1:23Speaker 3: and other public expenses. It is damaging to our state.
- 1:27Speaker 2: Joining me is immigration law expert Leon Fresco, a partner
- 1:31Speaker 2: at Honda Knight Leo. Let's start with this order from
- 1:34Speaker 2: a federal judge that the Eighth Circuit has put on hold.
- 1:38Speaker 2: Federal Judge Catherine Menendez had granted the ACLU's request and
- 1:44Speaker 2: ruled that the federal agents are prohibited from arresting or
- 1:49Speaker 2: detaining peaceful protesters in retaliation for their protected conduct and
- 1:54Speaker 2: absent a showing of probable cause or reasonable suspicion that
- 1:58Speaker 2: the person has committed a crime or obstructing or interfering
- 2:01Speaker 2: with the activities. Is this order anything more than her
- 2:05Speaker 2: basically saying follow the law eyes. Is there anything extraordinary
- 2:08Speaker 2: about it?
- 2:10Speaker 1: Well, a couple of things. First of all, I suppose
- 2:13Speaker 1: so to this extent that the Eighth Circuit on Wednesday
- 2:18Speaker 1: issued an administrative stay temporarily lifting that injunction, which did
- 2:23Speaker 1: block the federal agents from retaliating against her detaining peaceful
- 2:28Speaker 1: protesters without probable cause. I think the reason that the
- 2:34Speaker 1: Eighth Circuit did stay the district court order is that
- 2:38Speaker 1: perhaps there was some confusion about how you would implement
- 2:44Speaker 1: this order in the sense of if an ICE agent
- 2:49Speaker 1: does something illegal against a peaceful protester, then the recourse
- 2:54Speaker 1: would be a civil lawsuit or a criminal action. So
- 2:58Speaker 1: adding an injunction that does it change the law, but
- 3:03Speaker 1: just says enforced the law doesn't really add anything except
- 3:07Speaker 1: it adds confusion as to whether the injunction does anything more.
- 3:12Speaker 1: So the issue would be, are you adding additional requirements
- 3:17Speaker 1: that other than those that exist in the law, And
- 3:21Speaker 1: then what so now you sue for a violation of
- 3:23Speaker 1: this injunction as opposed to a civil lawsuit, because perhaps
- 3:27Speaker 1: what you're saying is that you're worried that the federal
- 3:30Speaker 1: government won't prosecute an ICE agent who violates the law.
- 3:34Speaker 1: This is sort of the complex issues there, and so
- 3:37Speaker 1: I think the Eighth Circuit said, we're going to need
- 3:40Speaker 1: more time to consider this. Let's pause this for a while,
- 3:44Speaker 1: because it seemed like it was going to be too complicated.
- 3:48Speaker 1: That every use of potentially, for instance, chemical agents, or
- 3:52Speaker 1: every arrest of a protester, or every discussion about a
- 3:57Speaker 1: protester perhaps following to close and perhaps potentially obstructing, were
- 4:03Speaker 1: they obstructing or were they peacefully protesting? Perhaps every single
- 4:07Speaker 1: instance of that could have led to a contempt of
- 4:10Speaker 1: court injunction violation hearing. And the question was from the
- 4:15Speaker 1: Eighth Circuits perspective, I suppose did they want to have
- 4:19Speaker 1: that granular hearing every single time in front of this
- 4:24Speaker 1: district cord or did they just think, look at the end,
- 4:26Speaker 1: that there's something really wrong. People can file civil suit
- 4:29Speaker 1: or criminal actions can be filed.
- 4:33Speaker 2: The problem is it's hard to deny what you can
- 4:35Speaker 2: see on the videos. I saw one video where a
- 4:38Speaker 2: man was already restrained and on the ground and an
- 4:42Speaker 2: ice officer was spraying some kind of yellow chemical into
- 4:46Speaker 2: his face while he's on the ground. So the ice
- 4:49Speaker 2: officers don't seem to be exhibiting any kind of restraint,
- 4:53Speaker 2: and there are multiple reports of US citizens getting arrested.
- 4:58Speaker 1: Well, this is what becomes complicated from the standpoint of
- 5:02Speaker 1: in a normal course of action, when you have an
- 5:05Speaker 1: agent that you believe violates the federal laws, then you
- 5:10Speaker 1: can have a prosecution of that agent by a US
- 5:12Speaker 1: Attorney's office who says that that agent acted in correctly,
- 5:16Speaker 1: or you can of course obviously file a civil lawsuit
- 5:19Speaker 1: in that situation. But I think what motivated this injunction
- 5:24Speaker 1: was all of that would take far too long or
- 5:27Speaker 1: might not even occur at all, and so you needed
- 5:29Speaker 1: to have something in place that was faster in order
- 5:33Speaker 1: to try to tamp down any actions that might violate
- 5:36Speaker 1: the law. But the problem was how do you do
- 5:39Speaker 1: that and who sets the line for when one of
- 5:43Speaker 1: those uses of chemical agents did cross the line or
- 5:46Speaker 1: when it was necessary to protect the agents. This situation
- 5:51Speaker 1: in Minnesota has become so intense and so high octane
- 5:56Speaker 1: that you may have in fifty percent of this situations
- 6:00Speaker 1: the ice agents acting completely correctly, and in fifty percent
- 6:05Speaker 1: of the time, perhaps they do not completely correctly. And
- 6:08Speaker 1: now you're having a debate every single day in the
- 6:11Speaker 1: federal court who did what when? What does that mean?
- 6:15Speaker 1: And I think that this is just a situation that
- 6:19Speaker 1: needs to be handled, perhaps in a new manner. Irrespective
- 6:23Speaker 1: of either this injunction or anything else where, the targeted
- 6:28Speaker 1: operations happen in a way that are not intersecting with
- 6:33Speaker 1: all of these protests and not causing all of these
- 6:36Speaker 1: city skirmishes, and so I think that's a matter for
- 6:39Speaker 1: everybody involved to try to figure out. But I think
- 6:42Speaker 1: this injunction, the reason it was stayed is because the
- 6:47Speaker 1: Eighth Circuit may have believed that it just wasn't the
- 6:51Speaker 1: right approach to have a district judge basically trying to
- 6:54Speaker 1: be a referee for every single thing that was happening
- 6:57Speaker 1: in Minneapolis at that point.
- 7:00Speaker 2: The problem is one of perception. You have the FEDS
- 7:04Speaker 2: refusing to open a civil rights investigation into the killing
- 7:09Speaker 2: of Renee Good by an ICE officer, with the Vice
- 7:12Speaker 2: President again declaring today that it was her own fault.
- 7:16Speaker 2: At the same time, they're serving the governor of Minnesota
- 7:19Speaker 2: and the mayor of Minneapolis with subpoenas over their refusal
- 7:24Speaker 2: to cooperate with federal law enforcement. It doesn't help to
- 7:28Speaker 2: quell the protests.
- 7:30Speaker 1: Absolutely. I understand why the injunction was sought and why
- 7:34Speaker 1: the injunction was issued to the extent that people believe
- 7:38Speaker 1: that any actions that are taken would not be dealt
- 7:42Speaker 1: with in a normal course of action where there would
- 7:44Speaker 1: be an investigation and a prosecution, So you needed to
- 7:47Speaker 1: do something else so that you could have a content order.
- 7:50Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, even that, let's
- 7:52Speaker 1: say you have a content order from a court saying
- 7:55Speaker 1: this person is held in content, then what at the
- 7:58Speaker 1: end of the day, the federal agents aren't going to
- 8:01Speaker 1: put anyone in detention. We end up just back where
- 8:04Speaker 1: we were, which is with a constitutional crisis. So it's
- 8:08Speaker 1: not like this injunction at the end of the day
- 8:11Speaker 1: would avoid the constitutional crisis, because you could still have
- 8:16Speaker 1: an injunction from a court that says this ICE agent
- 8:19Speaker 1: acted incorrectly, they are now in contempt of court and
- 8:23Speaker 1: put them in jail, and the administration will just say, well, no, sorry,
- 8:28Speaker 1: too bad. And then what is the actual judge going
- 8:31Speaker 1: to start picking up ICE agents and you know, putting
- 8:34Speaker 1: them in detention. No, they require federal agents to implement
- 8:39Speaker 1: these orders, and so we're back at square one. And
- 8:42Speaker 1: so I think that's what makes this complicated.
- 8:44Speaker 2: According to reports, hundreds of soldiers are on standby to
- 8:49Speaker 2: enter Minneapolis, and the preparations are tied to the possibility
- 8:54Speaker 2: that Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act. He's threatened that before.
- 9:00Speaker 2: How would that go.
- 9:02Speaker 1: Well, the way the Insurrection Act works, there's two main ways.
- 9:06Speaker 1: One is not going to happen, which is that the
- 9:08Speaker 1: state actually requests the assistance of the federal government through
- 9:13Speaker 1: the governor or the state legislature. That's the opposite of
- 9:16Speaker 1: what's happening here. Here you have the state governor and
- 9:19Speaker 1: the local officials and everyone else saying that they don't
- 9:22Speaker 1: want the federal authorities. So then the second way is
- 9:25Speaker 1: what's called the federal authority standard, which allows the president
- 9:29Speaker 1: to act unilaterally to enforce the federal law. And there
- 9:33Speaker 1: the president has to say that there's been some sort
- 9:36Speaker 1: of unlawful obstruction or rebellion against the authority of the
- 9:41Speaker 1: United States and makes it impracticable to enforce the laws
- 9:45Speaker 1: of the United States. And here the president would say,
- 9:48Speaker 1: I'm trying to just enforce immigration law, and I have
- 9:52Speaker 1: a number of individuals that are causing me problems because
- 9:58Speaker 1: they're basically like the Civil War, it's refusing certain things
- 10:03Speaker 1: to happen that the federal government wants to happen in
- 10:05Speaker 1: particular states. And so I have to come in and
- 10:08Speaker 1: protect the ICE agents who are being followed around by
- 10:12Speaker 1: protesters and everywhere they go, they're being followed around or obstructed.
- 10:16Speaker 1: I need to be able to come in and solve
- 10:19Speaker 1: that problem. And then what would happen is the president
- 10:21Speaker 1: access to the issue of proclamations, saying I'm going to
- 10:25Speaker 1: be invoking the Insurrection Act unless you disperse, give people
- 10:29Speaker 1: time to disperse, and if they don't, then insert the
- 10:33Speaker 1: Insurrection Act. And then we're back to if there's a lawsuit, Okay, well,
- 10:38Speaker 1: who has the authority? Is this reviewable? Is their judicial review?
- 10:42Speaker 1: If there is judicial review? How much different? And we're
- 10:46Speaker 1: back to all of that again. And those are going
- 10:49Speaker 1: to be the issues that would then need to be
- 10:51Speaker 1: decided ultimately by the Supreme Court. I mean, yes, there'll
- 10:54Speaker 1: be lower courts that way in, but the Supreme Court
- 10:56Speaker 1: would ultimately need to decide is this reviewable? If so,
- 11:00Speaker 1: how much deference is given to the president, and who
- 11:05Speaker 1: can challenge it, etc. So we'd be back to all
- 11:07Speaker 1: of those ar givens.
- 11:08Speaker 2: Again, seemingly back to square one. Coming up next on
- 11:12Speaker 2: the Bloomberg Lawn Show, more with immigration expert Leon Fresco.
- 11:17Speaker 2: Vice President JD Vance visits Minneapolis and defends the Trump
- 11:21Speaker 2: Administration's aggressive deportation raids. I'm June Grosso and you're listening
- 11:28Speaker 2: to Bloomberg. Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis today, where
- 11:34Speaker 2: he sought to defend the Trump Administration's aggressive deportation raids,
- 11:39Speaker 2: which have set off street confrontations between demonstrators and immigration agents.
- 11:45Speaker 2: ICE operations turned deadly earlier this month when agent Jonathan
- 11:50Speaker 2: Ross shot and killed Renee Good, something the federal government
- 11:54Speaker 2: is not investigating and refuses to allow the state access
- 11:58Speaker 2: to the evidence. Here's what Van said about his previous
- 12:02Speaker 2: statement that ICE officers have absolute immunity.
- 12:06Speaker 5: When federal law enforcement officers violate the law, that is
- 12:08Speaker 5: typically something that federal officials would look into. We don't
- 12:11Speaker 5: want these guys to have kangaroo courts. We want them
- 12:14Speaker 5: to actually have real due process, real investigation.
- 12:17Speaker 2: Of course that's not happening in the case of Renee
- 12:20Speaker 2: Good shooting. I've been talking to immigration expertly on Fresco
- 12:24Speaker 2: of Holland and Knight back to the beginning. So, immigration
- 12:28Speaker 2: advocates and legal aid groups have warned people or urged
- 12:33Speaker 2: them not to open their doors to immigration agents to
- 12:37Speaker 2: ICE agents unless they're shown a warrant signed by a judge.
- 12:41Speaker 2: But according to an internal ICE memo obtained by the
- 12:45Speaker 2: Associated Press, the federal immigration officers are asserting power to
- 12:50Speaker 2: forcibly enter people's homes without a judge's warrant to do
- 12:55Speaker 2: it based on an administrative warrant. Isn't that on constitutional?
- 13:01Speaker 1: So let's give you both of the arguments, and let's
- 13:04Speaker 1: give you some facts. What is an administrative warrant. It's
- 13:08Speaker 1: a form document. You can look at the ICE administrative warrant.
- 13:11Speaker 1: It's called an I two five. You can google it
- 13:14Speaker 1: and see the blank warrant. But basically, an ICE agent
- 13:18Speaker 1: could fill out that warrant and then get their supervisor
- 13:21Speaker 1: to sign it, and on that basis, ICE is arguing
- 13:24Speaker 1: that it can then enter the home. Now, to be
- 13:27Speaker 1: very clear, because they're important that we get all the
- 13:29Speaker 1: facts right. ICE is not currently taking the position now.
- 13:33Speaker 1: It may it may evolve and take this position if
- 13:36Speaker 1: its first position become successful, but let's just go with
- 13:39Speaker 1: what the facts are. They're not currently taking the position
- 13:42Speaker 1: that they can go into any home they want with
- 13:45Speaker 1: an administrative warrant and knock things down and go around
- 13:50Speaker 1: and grab people. What they're currently saying is if someone
- 13:54Speaker 1: has a final order of removal, meaning that they were
- 13:59Speaker 1: already served with what's called a notice to appear, which
- 14:03Speaker 1: is saying, look, you're in deportation proceedings, and then they've
- 14:07Speaker 1: gone to immigration court and then they've lost, then all
- 14:11Speaker 1: of that due process was already done. So it's not
- 14:14Speaker 1: like barging into your house in the first place and
- 14:17Speaker 1: taking your computer and then convicting you of a crime
- 14:21Speaker 1: based on that. It's not any's. They would say, it's
- 14:24Speaker 1: not anything like that. They would say, this is the
- 14:26Speaker 1: equivalent of somebody escaped from jail, and now we're just
- 14:30Speaker 1: trying to find them, and so we don't need to
- 14:33Speaker 1: go through the whole judicial warrant process to do this.
- 14:37Speaker 2: Are they relying on any case law or precedent.
- 14:41Speaker 1: The case they rely on for that is very interesting
- 14:44Speaker 1: because it's if you've seen the movie The Bridge of
- 14:47Speaker 1: Spies with Tom Hanks and the Academy Award winning Supporting
- 14:52Speaker 1: actor Mark Rylands, that Rudolph Abel case, whereas the Russian
- 14:56Speaker 1: spy from the nineteen sixties, he was taken pursue it
- 15:00Speaker 1: to an administrative warrant for immigration. Originally that's what it's
- 15:04Speaker 1: also searched for. And so there's some dicta in that
- 15:07Speaker 1: case that says that because immigration is a civil matter,
- 15:10Speaker 1: it's not a criminal matter, the concerns of the administrative
- 15:14Speaker 1: warrant aren't necessarily valid in that instance, and so that's
- 15:20Speaker 1: dick that wasn't necessary for the able case. But the
- 15:23Speaker 1: point is ice wants to build off of that precedent
- 15:28Speaker 1: and say, look, immigration is a civil matter. There's a
- 15:31Speaker 1: final order of removal. We're just now trying to execute
- 15:35Speaker 1: this civil removal that is not a criminal matter. There's
- 15:39Speaker 1: already been the due process of the notice to appear
- 15:42Speaker 1: and the hearing, and we should be allowed to do that.
- 15:45Speaker 1: From the perspective obviously of the opponents of this, they say,
- 15:49Speaker 1: when you're going into someone's home, that's literally if you're
- 15:52Speaker 1: talking about rock scissors paper, someone's home is nuclear war.
- 15:57Speaker 1: You know, it beats everything. It's the Fourth Amendment most
- 16:01Speaker 1: sanctity location that there is. And so you can't go
- 16:05Speaker 1: into anyone's home without a judicial warrant. Why because maybe
- 16:09Speaker 1: you're gonna go into the wrong home. And now what
- 16:12Speaker 1: you've just barged into somebody's home, there wasn't any judicial
- 16:15Speaker 1: oversight to make sure that everything was correct before you
- 16:19Speaker 1: started barging into people's homes. You're going to cause collateral damage.
- 16:24Speaker 1: There's a lot of untrained people being deployed out onto
- 16:27Speaker 1: the field, and so that's why you need this judicial
- 16:31Speaker 1: warrant to sort of make sure that these untrained people
- 16:34Speaker 1: are doing what they're doing. And of course, if people
- 16:36Speaker 1: have unfettered anything in any aspect of the government, there's
- 16:40Speaker 1: always going to be more mistakes than if they have
- 16:43Speaker 1: to answer to independent authorities before they do things. And
- 16:47Speaker 1: so from that perspective, this is where you have the tension.
- 16:51Speaker 1: But it is possible that if they're allowed to do this,
- 16:54Speaker 1: if the courts don't join this, then they may expand
- 16:57Speaker 1: this to other immigration actions or the person doesn't currently
- 17:01Speaker 1: have a final order of removal, but at the moment
- 17:04Speaker 1: they're saying that they're limiting it to people who have
- 17:07Speaker 1: a final order of removal.
- 17:09Speaker 2: But there's also the point that perhaps most likely there
- 17:12Speaker 2: are other people in the house, correct, and they're violating
- 17:16Speaker 2: their constitutional rights. I mean they have a constitutional right absolutely.
- 17:20Speaker 1: I think you know they have constitutional rights to the
- 17:23Speaker 1: sanctity of their home. And especially if ICE is going
- 17:25Speaker 1: to start engaging in what are called collateral operations once
- 17:29Speaker 1: they're in there and say who else is undocumented here,
- 17:32Speaker 1: or this is very interesting what we've uncovered, then that
- 17:36Speaker 1: is going to weaken their argument for being able to
- 17:39Speaker 1: come in with an administrative warrant as opposed to a
- 17:42Speaker 1: judicial warrant. But we're going to have to wait and
- 17:44Speaker 1: see what the courts say, and also in what procedural
- 17:48Speaker 1: posture this ends up getting challenged. Does it only end
- 17:51Speaker 1: up getting challenged in the context of a final order
- 17:56Speaker 1: of removal or do the people who challenge it have
- 17:59Speaker 1: better facts like you've talked about, where there are collateral
- 18:02Speaker 1: cases that they're also challenging, and then that'll make the
- 18:06Speaker 1: government's defense much more complicated.
- 18:09Speaker 2: So, speaking of procedural issues, former Columbia grad student Mood Khalil,
- 18:14Speaker 2: who was one of the first to be rounded up
- 18:16Speaker 2: during the government's crackdown on anti Israel campus protests, is
- 18:22Speaker 2: set to be deported to Algeria, according to a Homeland
- 18:25Speaker 2: Security official. So it seemed as if Khalil was on
- 18:29Speaker 2: a winning streak he was released from ice to attention.
- 18:32Speaker 2: Tell us what happened with this third circuit decision.
- 18:35Speaker 1: Mister Khalil was out of detention because a district judge
- 18:38Speaker 1: at held that he should be released from detention because
- 18:42Speaker 1: his deportation violated potentially the First Amendment because of concerns
- 18:48Speaker 1: that he was just being penalized for his views on
- 18:51Speaker 1: Middle Eastern conflicts. The Third Circuit comes in and says, wait,
- 18:56Speaker 1: a second district court you shouldn't have been looking at
- 18:59Speaker 1: any of this. All of this needed to go in
- 19:02Speaker 1: the following mode. The government apprehends Khalil, places him in
- 19:07Speaker 1: detention proceeding and removal proceedings, places him in detention and
- 19:11Speaker 1: places him in removal proceedings. The removal proceedings go until
- 19:15Speaker 1: the end, and then at the end of those administrative
- 19:18Speaker 1: removal proceedings, you then make an appeal of every legal
- 19:22Speaker 1: and constitutional claim you have directly to the Court of Appeals.
- 19:26Speaker 1: The district judge should never have any view of any
- 19:29Speaker 1: of this, because that's the way the statute is written,
- 19:33Speaker 1: and so it was a two to one decision. There
- 19:35Speaker 1: was assent saying, look, we don't have time for all
- 19:37Speaker 1: of that. That could take years, and you unjustly are
- 19:40Speaker 1: holding people in detention who are nice people for years
- 19:44Speaker 1: while you're doing this. They'll never be able to make
- 19:46Speaker 1: these claims if you don't let them file a habeas
- 19:49Speaker 1: and you could just have unfettered chaos where administration just
- 19:53Speaker 1: start putting people in jail and what are they supposed
- 19:56Speaker 1: to do. And that's certainly very very sympathetic, but you
- 20:00Speaker 1: can also take a view that the statutes don't care
- 20:04Speaker 1: about any of that, and the statutes understand that all
- 20:07Speaker 1: of these things may happen, but nevertheless they still say
- 20:12Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You've got to go first go to
- 20:14Speaker 1: the Immigration judge, then go to the Board of Immigration Appeals,
- 20:18Speaker 1: and then if you actually have these constitutional claims to
- 20:20Speaker 1: make about the First Amendment or retaliation or anything else,
- 20:25Speaker 1: you've then make it in what's called the petition for
- 20:27Speaker 1: review in a final order of removal to the appropriate
- 20:31Speaker 1: circuit Court of Appeals. And so that's what the Third
- 20:34Speaker 1: Circuit said. It didn't say that the government was right
- 20:37Speaker 1: or Khalil was wrong, or that Khalil was rightment didn't
- 20:40Speaker 1: say any of that. It just said these all of
- 20:43Speaker 1: these proceedings are just canceled because they shouldn't have happened
- 20:46Speaker 1: in the first place. And when there's a final order
- 20:49Speaker 1: of removal, the circuit court will deal with that. Now,
- 20:53Speaker 1: the issue there is that that findal order of removal
- 20:56Speaker 1: would be in the Fifth Circuit, and so it would
- 20:58Speaker 1: be the Fifth Circuit, who's known as a conservative court,
- 21:01Speaker 1: who would actually end up dealing with that. And then
- 21:04Speaker 1: the other specific problem in the Khalil case is he
- 21:08Speaker 1: doesn't just have this Middle Eastern speech issue. He also
- 21:12Speaker 1: has a lying on his green card application issue, which
- 21:15Speaker 1: I think he probably understands is fatal to his case,
- 21:19Speaker 1: because even if he wins his constitutional argument, he still
- 21:24Speaker 1: may be deported on this lying on his green card
- 21:27Speaker 1: part of it.
- 21:29Speaker 2: Despite what the Trump administration says. He hasn't agreed to
- 21:32Speaker 2: go to Algeria yet. His lawyers are still fighting, right.
- 21:36Speaker 1: I mean, he's still trying to fight the third Circuit
- 21:39Speaker 1: order and take it on bank on appeal and try
- 21:43Speaker 1: to make sure he can't be put in detention. But
- 21:45Speaker 1: he may soon be forced to make this calculation, do
- 21:49Speaker 1: I want to go to Algeria or do I want
- 21:54Speaker 1: to fight this even if I'm in detention this whole time.
- 21:57Speaker 1: And so he does have Algerian citizenship through his mother's family,
- 22:01Speaker 1: which is why Algeria was designated as the country for removal.
- 22:05Speaker 1: He's not saying I'm leaving today, but I think the
- 22:07Speaker 1: reason they've settled on Algeria is because he does have
- 22:11Speaker 1: that citizenship, and perhaps they think if he's put to
- 22:16Speaker 1: this choice, he may end up taking it instead of
- 22:18Speaker 1: having to fight two three years more in detention.
- 22:21Speaker 2: The panel was composed of two Republican appointed judges who
- 22:25Speaker 2: voted for the government and a Democratic appointee who voted
- 22:28Speaker 2: against the government. If he goes to the Third Circuit,
- 22:32Speaker 2: the balance there is still seven judges appointed by Democrats,
- 22:36Speaker 2: but eight appointed by Republicans, including six Trump appointees. Is
- 22:40Speaker 2: he going to have a better chance at an on
- 22:42Speaker 2: bank hearing.
- 22:44Speaker 1: Here's the problem with this. If the judge in this case,
- 22:48Speaker 1: I mean, I might be biased. People can accuse me
- 22:51Speaker 1: on either side of being biased. I really tried to
- 22:53Speaker 1: give it as down the middle as I can. So
- 22:56Speaker 1: I try to use this if the judge was a
- 22:58Speaker 1: robot standard, and I would say it is my belief
- 23:02Speaker 1: that if the judge was a robot, unmotivated in any
- 23:05Speaker 1: way by human concerns, but only looking at language patterns,
- 23:10Speaker 1: you would have to rule that the Third Circuit two
- 23:13Speaker 1: to one decision is correct. That the statute says that
- 23:18Speaker 1: where you make these arguments is in a petition for
- 23:21Speaker 1: review in the Court of Appeals. The statue couldn't be
- 23:24Speaker 1: any clearer about that. The problem is that that basically
- 23:29Speaker 1: denies you due process for any random, arbitrary thing that
- 23:34Speaker 1: the government wants to do. Now we're not talking about
- 23:36Speaker 1: this specific case. This is anything. If you really take
- 23:40Speaker 1: that statute to its logical conclusion, the government can impose
- 23:44Speaker 1: all sorts of harm on foreign nationals without any checker
- 23:48Speaker 1: balance for the entire time it's doing it. It could
- 23:51Speaker 1: be a year, two year, three years, and who knows,
- 23:54Speaker 1: they could potentially delay the proceedings for many years so
- 23:57Speaker 1: that you never even get to the end of the proceedings,
- 24:01Speaker 1: in which case you'd have to file what's called an
- 24:04Speaker 1: unapplied challenge to your due process rights being taken away
- 24:08Speaker 1: from you. So you would file, you would file this
- 24:10Speaker 1: as applied challenge and say the Constitution is not being
- 24:14Speaker 1: applied correctly in my case. But how long would that be?
- 24:18Speaker 1: After eighteen months, twenty four months? The courts have had
- 24:21Speaker 1: all kinds of deadlines in these immigration cases, but certainly
- 24:25Speaker 1: not two months, three months, six months. They never say
- 24:29Speaker 1: that that short of a period allows you to get
- 24:32Speaker 1: back into court. So then the problem is how many
- 24:35Speaker 1: people are you essentially coercing over two months or six
- 24:38Speaker 1: months of detention to leave and not pursue their rights
- 24:42Speaker 1: and everything else. And so that's the sort of challenge,
- 24:45Speaker 1: is that the human side of this, it seems obvious
- 24:48Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to have a system that was vulnerable
- 24:52Speaker 1: to this level of hardship. But on the linguistic side,
- 24:58Speaker 1: that seems to be absolutely what Congress road. And so
- 25:02Speaker 1: this is what the courts are going to have.
- 25:03Speaker 2: To wrestle with leon you know, on the ground, if
- 25:07Speaker 2: this Third Circuit decision is affirmed, et cetera, et cetera,
- 25:10Speaker 2: I mean, what implications would that have for immigration lawyers
- 25:15Speaker 2: using habeas to.
- 25:17Speaker 1: Get very well? I mean if it gets to the
- 25:19Speaker 1: Supreme Court and the Supreme Court agrees that there's just
- 25:23Speaker 1: no habeas anymore for any reason, because that's what they'd
- 25:27Speaker 1: have to decide, because this is honestly one of the
- 25:29Speaker 1: most compelled If you're going to say, what's one of
- 25:31Speaker 1: the most compelling reasons you would ever need a habeas,
- 25:34Speaker 1: it would be because a lawful permanent resident was being
- 25:38Speaker 1: placed in detention for a nebulous, vague situation where it's
- 25:44Speaker 1: unclear whether something applied to that Green card holder or not.
- 25:48Speaker 1: I'm not saying Khalil is a good person or a
- 25:51Speaker 1: bad person. I'm not talking about that he baby Khalil
- 25:54Speaker 1: did some horrible things and should be deported. So I'm
- 25:57Speaker 1: not taking any position there I'm just saying, you have
- 26:00Speaker 1: a statute which says, if the Secretary of State deems
- 26:03Speaker 1: you to be contrary to the interests of the foreign
- 26:08Speaker 1: policy interests of the United States, they can deport you,
- 26:11Speaker 1: even if you're a Green card holder. So the point is,
- 26:13Speaker 1: what does that mean? How can I govern my conduct
- 26:17Speaker 1: in order to avoid the Secretary of State thinking that
- 26:20Speaker 1: about me? And so that's not exactly clear. It's different
- 26:23Speaker 1: than a statute which says if I commit a felony,
- 26:27Speaker 1: I can be deported. Okay, well, I know, don't commit
- 26:30Speaker 1: a felony. Fine, But how do I govern my conduct
- 26:33Speaker 1: so as to not have the Secretary of State mad
- 26:36Speaker 1: at me? Hard to know in that situation. And so
- 26:40Speaker 1: from that standpoint, if in that situation the court says
- 26:45Speaker 1: there's no habeas, that's going to mean there's no habeas
- 26:48Speaker 1: for anyone because this is going to be very much
- 26:52Speaker 1: a sensitive case and that they're saying, Look, I could
- 26:54Speaker 1: be held for detention for one year two years on
- 26:58Speaker 1: the basis of a statute I don't even know to follow.
- 27:00Speaker 1: When I'm a lawful permanent resident and I have a
- 27:03Speaker 1: US it is in child, and I have a US
- 27:05Speaker 1: citizens spouse, what are we doing here? And so I
- 27:08Speaker 1: do think this is it. This is the test case.
- 27:12Speaker 1: And if the Supreme Court says there's no habs here,
- 27:15Speaker 1: that's going to mean there's no habeas for anyone.
- 27:19Speaker 2: Finally, I want to talk about in the Massachusetts case
- 27:22Speaker 2: by university professors that accuse the administration of having an
- 27:26Speaker 2: unconstitutional policy of deporting people based on their political views.
- 27:31Speaker 2: The trial focused on the targeting of five non citizen students,
- 27:35Speaker 2: including Khalil and Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, has
- 27:42Speaker 2: criticized what he said, we're breathtaking constitutional violations by senior
- 27:47Speaker 2: Trump administration officials and call the president an authoritarian who
- 27:52Speaker 2: expects everyone in the executive branch to tow the line. Absolutely.
- 27:57Speaker 2: So he's going to come out with a decision. First
- 27:59Speaker 2: of all, what's your reaction to the judge's sort of
- 28:02Speaker 2: astonishment at what he saw?
- 28:05Speaker 1: Well, yes, the judge is clearly upset by Again, we're
- 28:08Speaker 1: talking about the same statute here, which is a very
- 28:11Speaker 1: difficult statue to comply with, because you're saying that anybody
- 28:15Speaker 1: can be deported. If the Secretary of State thinks that
- 28:19Speaker 1: your speech is running a file of US foreign policy interests.
- 28:23Speaker 1: So how do people comply, how do people voice their opinions,
- 28:27Speaker 1: et cetera, if they're not actually engaging any any illegal action.
- 28:32Speaker 1: And so Judge Young didn't want that and said, basically,
- 28:35Speaker 1: very clearly, this is something authoritarians do, and in order
- 28:39Speaker 1: to implement this, you have to be engaging in a
- 28:42Speaker 1: conspiracy and you have to have people writing you out
- 28:46Speaker 1: like in the Fugitive Slave Act. And so he was
- 28:48Speaker 1: saying all of these very strong words. But at the
- 28:51Speaker 1: end of the day, we're going to be back to
- 28:54Speaker 1: what I just said a few minutes ago, which is,
- 28:56Speaker 1: does Judge Young have any authority to be doing any
- 28:59Speaker 1: of this? Or do these challenges have to be brought
- 29:03Speaker 1: by individual foreign nationals who are going through their proceedings
- 29:07Speaker 1: and suffering these these arms, as opposed to it a
- 29:12Speaker 1: separate proceeding a district judge being able to deal with this.
- 29:16Speaker 1: So this is literally part and parcel again of the
- 29:19Speaker 1: exact same argument. And here this will be decided by
- 29:23Speaker 1: the first Circuit, and so we'll have a first circuit
- 29:26Speaker 1: and a third circuit situation, and then it'll again go
- 29:29Speaker 1: back to the Supreme Court. Maybe if they break in
- 29:32Speaker 1: a way where it needs to, and the Supreme Court
- 29:35Speaker 1: would have to decide can these kinds of claims be
- 29:38Speaker 1: brought in the district courts or is the only solution
- 29:42Speaker 1: for an individual foreign national in deportation proceedings to bring
- 29:47Speaker 1: these claims administratively where first of all these judges can't
- 29:50Speaker 1: do anything about that, lose, and then a year later,
- 29:54Speaker 1: two years later, bring it to a Court of Appeals
- 29:57Speaker 1: as part of a petition for review of a final
- 30:00Speaker 1: order removal. And so I think that's the issue is
- 30:03Speaker 1: people are saying, man, that's going to take a long time,
- 30:05Speaker 1: what are we doing here? But this is this is
- 30:08Speaker 1: potentially what might need to be done under the law.
- 30:11Speaker 2: And then the question is whether you're in detention or not.
- 30:14Speaker 2: That makes a huge difference. Thanks so much, Leon, I've
- 30:17Speaker 2: been talking to immigration expert lyon Fresco of Holland and Knight.
- 30:22Speaker 2: And that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
- 30:24Speaker 2: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
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- 30:39Speaker 2: Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm
- 30:43Speaker 2: June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg, all right,