Did The Supreme Court Just Make Protest Illegal In 3 States?
Added 2024-04-22 07:20:24 +0000 UTCEpisode 1025
Today we take on two law stories the media have been getting wrong recently.
1) Did the Supreme Court just "end the right to protest in three states"? We go beyond the headlines to better understand Justice Sonia Sotomayor's denial of certiorari in a negligence suit brought against Black Lives Matter organizer Deray McKesson by a police officer injured during a BLM protest in Baton Rouge.
2) Biden's border. The impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ended last week in the Senate before it ever began, but the lies, misinformation, and terrible reporting which fueled it are only getting worse. Matt breaks down what people who complain about Joe Biden's "open-border policies" are actually saying before getting into the facts. How do Trump's enforcement metrics compare to Biden's? How has a commitment to actually abiding by basic due process and our international and domestic obligations to people seeking protection for persecution been spun into "lawlessness at the border"? And what even are Biden's border policies anyway?
1) Justice Sonia Sotomayor's order denying certiorari in McKesson Doe (4/15/24)
2) Articles of impeachment passed by the House against DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (Dismissed by the Senate on 4/16/2024)
3) Data Show Trump Would Have Released as Many Border Crossers as Biden, David Bier, Cato Institute (1/5/2024)
4) The Biden Administration’s Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans: An Overview, American Immigration Council (10/21/2023)
5) 126 Parole Orders over 7 Decades: A Historical Review of Immigration Parole Orders, David Bier, Cato Institute (7/17/2023)
Comments
The Safe Mobility Initiative is under the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which is in the State Department-- not the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), even though the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency is within DHS, and USCIS handles asylum claims and parole programs like the Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelan (CHNV) program that Matt talked about on the show. Don't ask me why the the agencies are organized that way-- maybe Matt can say. But the outcome of this arrangement is that it seems like these organizations don't TALK to each other. Everybody claims to be implementing ideas to solve the immigration crisis, and their plans are all different, even though they overlap. One example: the Safe Mobility Initiative's website says "Tens of thousands of people have already submitted a free application on MovilidadSegura.org. SMOs are reviewing applications for eligibility and international protection needs and contacting applicants to provide information about a potential lawful pathway and to schedule an appointment for further processing." People are already setting up appointments for processing using CBP's shitty app, but the shitty app requires them to be in Mexico. How about instead of making them schedule appointments via a website operated by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), you fix the app so that they can schedule appointments from anywhere? And then you let them fly to the border, if they want to, for those appointments? And you take the app away from CBP, for that matter, and give it to USCIS? Then you make that a true alternative-- not replacement-- for appearing at the border, while never turning away those who do so. Yeah, the SMO Initiative looks like it would "take some pressure off" the asylum system-- by placing more pressure on migrants. Every program they create seems to "expedite" the work that CBP is (supposed to be) doing, at the cost of shifting all of the work involved in that processing onto the migrants. Yes, I know that CBP isn't supposed to be adjudicating asylum claims, but effectively they are, by turning away asylum seekers for any reason whatsoever. Remember that as Matt said, those people have a right to be heard. They have a right to physically appear at the border and request asylum there (and that needs to be handled by USCIS). The uncomfortable truth that nobody seems to acknowledge is that probably most people who request asylum actually need and deserve it. But acknowledging that means letting far more people in than we're comfortable with, so we make up all of these bullshit restrictions to "provide sale and legal pathways/alternatives" to asylum that are flat out illegal in themselves. The only way to make people not want to come to the United States is to make things better where they are-- not try to make entry into the U.S. progressively more difficult, even lethal, because clearly that isn't working.
Gretchen Koch
2024-04-25 17:48:38 +0000 UTCMight you talk about this in a future episode? Excerpt: Through its Safe Mobility Offices (SMO) initiative, the Biden administration has set in motion a mechanism to make it possible for those who would qualify for asylum were they to make the dangerous journey to the U.S.-Mexico border to be processed far closer to their homes through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. … Maximizing in-region processing—and taking pressure off the U.S.-Mexico border—requires that those accessing the SMO network also have access to alternative migration pathways. To that end, instead of undermining humanitarian parole authority as some have suggested, Congress should support initiatives such … https://www.americanprogress.org/article/to-resolve-the-humanitarian-and-administrative-border-crisis-the-u-s-must-fix-the-broken-asylum-system-help-stabilize-the-western-hemisphere-and-provide-robust-orderly-migration-pathways/
Susan
2024-04-24 19:47:37 +0000 UTCAlso, you might be interested in connecting with my friend Adam Bates, if you don't know him already. A libertarian and immigration attorney who used to be at Cato, but he's now Supervisory Policy Counsel for the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP).
Gretchen Koch
2024-04-23 21:59:00 +0000 UTCYou're correct on the policy, and yes, people are encouraged to put themselves in grave danger by crossing the border (legally, btw, as Matt said) because they weren't able to request asylum in Mexico (good luck doing that), and couldn't use a terrible app to schedule an appointment. Interestingly, when Title 42 was in effect, they COULD use the app to attest to certain vulnerability criteria that would count them as exempt from the ban. Being in danger in Mexico was one of them. But even so, that didn't guarantee even seeing an asylum officer, and of course when Title 42 was lifted, you could not longer use the app to make any kind of statement regarding a need for asylum.
Gretchen Koch
2024-04-23 18:14:47 +0000 UTCI actually just completed an "app review" of CBP One that goes over the development of the app, the legal precedent cited (gathering biometric data from aliens entering or exiting the country) the impact of MPP and Title 42 as they relate to the app, etc. Fun fact that people might not know: Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee claimed that the purpose of the app was "expanded" in January of 2023 by the Biden administration, when it was supposed to be for commercial purposes, not "people moving." In fact, the app WAS expanded in January of 2023 because that's when migrants were allowed to start using the app directly to set up their own appointments rather than having to rely on (short-staffed, exhausted, often unpaid) NGOs to do it for them. However, the app was developed for "people moving" from the start (it launched in October of 2018-- who was president then? Not Biden!). It's just that the people in question were intended to be U.S. citizens in Trusted Traveler programs (with paid memberships) and foreign nationals needing I-94 forms to document their compliance with the law in not overstaying in the U.S., etc. So yes, it was developed for moving people-- in fact it uses the same facial recognition engine that the Global Entry app, and the Mobile Passport Control app, and that TSA uses in many airports now. It was first used by JetBlue in 2017. But CBP One was definitely NOT developed for gathering information (including biometric information) from large numbers of undocumented migrants, and that's a good chunk of why it sucks so much. Another part, of course, is that nobody should have to use an app to claim asylum. Even the swankiest app, which CBP One decidedly is not. https://giantif.com/2024/04/15/cbp-one-the-border-in-your-pocket/
Gretchen Koch
2024-04-23 18:09:57 +0000 UTCThat makes much more sense!
Drew Vogel
2024-04-23 16:42:05 +0000 UTCgood catch! I am literally dyscalculic and the number cited in the articles of impeachment for estimated annual revenues of the trafficking industry was 13 *billion.* Easy correction to make there
Matt Cameron
2024-04-23 16:39:53 +0000 UTCI'm sorry but there is zero chance I'll believe the 13 trillion figure. If that is a defensible quote it must be over a ten year period or defined much, much, much more broadly that those facilitating border crossings. As an annual figure that would be 25% of the national GDP and on par with the the entire healthcare industry.
Drew Vogel
2024-04-23 13:45:51 +0000 UTCYes, that is Biden's asylum ban as discussed in this episode--pretty much the same as Trump's. As i mentioned it still allows unauthorized crossers to apply for withholding of removal. Trump's was struck in the end and I don't see why this won't be either. I probably glossed over this too much, but I want to do a full asylum episode sometime in the next few months
Matt Cameron
2024-04-23 02:41:29 +0000 UTCMatt, From what I understand, asylum seekers can no longer request asylum at a port of entry unless they already have an appointment from the CBP One app (or have been denied asylum in a country they've traveled through). I could be completely wrong on that and I honestly hope I am wrong. That type of policy seems to encourage people who are seeking asylum to cross the border at places other than ports of entry which could be dangerous. 8 C.F.R. § 208.33(a)(2)(B)
Shad Riley
2024-04-22 23:38:58 +0000 UTCAs always, Matt is such a wonderful teacher. This is a great partnership.
Matt Barber
2024-04-22 14:04:09 +0000 UTCI was in Las Vegas for work once, and can confirm: I had quite a few drinks on [🤷🏼♂️ random company holding an end-of-something conference] purely due to being white-guy-in-suit
I am a philosophical hole
2024-04-22 11:34:03 +0000 UTC
