Did Biden Do a Good Immigration Thing?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:45 Thomas: And welcome to Opening Arguments, this is episode 1043, I'm your host Thomas Smith, and that over there is Matt Cameron, and due to scheduling stuff and me being on a trip, it's been a minute. How's it going, Matt?

0:00:56 Matt: To hear from you. And I am doing fantastic because this is one of those rare weeks where we have good immigration news.

0:01:01 Thomas: Don't believe it. I'll believe it when I see it. No, yeah, we've seen the headlines and a lot of people, of course, on the thread want to hear this explained, myself included. So yeah, I'm excited for some potential good news. We got to take that good news where we can get it.

0:01:04 Matt: Well, same.

0:01:15 Matt: For Sure. And we're also going to talk to someone who's going to be directly affected, which is something I always want to do for good news like this so we can find out how much it really matters to at least one person. Yeah,

0:01:24 Thomas: Absolutely. And gosh, there's so much to talk about, Matt. And we're also snagging Matt back for Monday's episode because the other thing that has been on the top of the list of what everyone wants to hear about is this Young Thug trial and the the contempt stuff, you know, so we're also going to be covering that on Monday, I think, right?

0:01:43 Matt: It turns out Fonny Willis has more than one case. And this is a big one. This is a lot bigger than I realized. So there's a lot to talk about. I could probably do weeks on this one.

0:01:44 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. Well may even, uh, spill over to Gavel Gavel, but just wanted to let let people know that we won't be hitting on that today, but we'll be doing that on Monday. I'm very excited and eager for that.

0:01:57 Matt: I think it should. Me too.

0:02:03 Thomas: Let's see. Oh, you know, I wanted to do a random plug that occurred to me. It occurred to me that, like, you now, since I can just do this now, I was editing Dear Old Dads the other day and I was thinking, you what? I want make sure people know about that show, just just in case.

Old Dads is one of my, you know, too many other shows, but it's also just, in my mind, criminally under -listened to, because it's so funny, and I think a lot of people had heard the name Dear Old Dads and assumed it was just for dads, which it's absolutely not, and it's not just for parents either.

It really isn't, and I just wanted to, perhaps if you've, if you need a very funny podcast, but also a very thoughtful podcast in your rotation, check out Dear Old Dads.

You know, it's it's not, it's just about, like, even it's also about having been parented, which I think, you know, most people have been parent ed I mean, and I don't know, I thought of it the other day, I was just thinking, you know, the show is just so damn good, it's that people will check it out. So just want to throw in that random plug.

0:03:01 Matt: Sure. Range The and depth of podcasts that you work on constantly amazes me.

0:03:06 Thomas: All right, well. Well, after this break, which you can avoid if you're going, if you go to patreon.com/law, avoid all the ads, all the commercials, all that crap. And of course here, a lot of awful movies, which, uh, ooh, we're coming up on another one of those, man. Can't wait.

0:03:18 Matt: For Sure. Our brains again.

0:03:20 Thomas: Head over to patreon dot com slash law to avoid the break and get that good stuff. And after that break, we'll be talking about this potentially good immigration news. I don't believe it. Pixar, it didn't happen.

0:03:34 Thomas: Right, Matt. So, yeah, I mean, I, I'm sure everyone's seen the headlines on this. The Biden executive order, um, is the kind of thing where we really do have to get very basic because it is so hard, if I am any, any guide, which I may not be, if I'm any guide, for what the average person perceives on this, the immigration system and the rules are so confusing and so counterintuitive. Break it down for me, first off, what did he do, and is he even allowed to do this, or is this the kind of thing where he's like pushing it, or, yeah, I have too many questions. Well, I'll just let you start first. Yeah.

0:04:05 Matt: Yeah. Well, let's take it through. Will I say that this is a nice counterpoint to the bad news that we were talking about a few weeks ago with the asylum ban at the border? Can't say that it outweighs it necessarily, but this is something I actually mentioned in that episode as something that Biden could do. Not completely a prophet. I did know this was potentially on the horizon. I just wasn't sure if it's actually going to happen, it really has happened. So I just want to step through in because I think people should know about why this matters, because I've seen so many people saying, well, if they're married to US citizens, what's the deal? How could this be so difficult?

0:04:19 Thomas: Yeah. Right.

0:04:36 Matt: And it is, and it's actually impossible for many people. So I just want to step through why this matter so much and

0:04:43 Thomas: The average person, again, I'll be the judge, gauge for that, you see it in a, like a sitcom or a movie, it's like, wow, uh, that person, for a green card, and so they get married, and then maybe they don't even, it's just a marriage of convenience even, maybe, and then they get get married, and then you, like, they mail you a green card, and then you're all set, right, uh

0:04:52 Matt: Yeah. And maybe you go to an interview and that's it. That is true. For a lot of people, that is truth. So if you came here with a student visa, with a tourist visa, with an employment visa, right? You came here and you were inspected, you know, you sat on an airplane and walked in, then now even if that was 20 or 30 years ago, even if you've overstayed all that time, treated very differently than somebody who came over the border, potentially somebody like many of my clients fleeing persecution or violence, who had no other choice and couldn't get any other kind of visa. But you were treated in this way because in 1996, the law was changed. But I want to start first in 1965, which is when we changed the entire immigration system over to being family -based.

And about 65 % of our visas now, as of this year, are issued to members of families of U.S. citizens or residents. So this is the main way that people get lawful status in this country for immigrant visas is through family. Now, every one of those categories, except for immediate relatives, there's a visa cap and there's a limit. There's an algorithm that actually determines under INA 203, I believe.

It sets up a system that allocates visas based based on how many come out of every category, out of every country, every year. And so we might have talked about this before, but for example, siblings from Mexico, that's at this point more than a hundred year weight, probably, for that category.

0:05:10 Thomas: That's the key a Hundred years, wow, I

0:06:18 Matt: Yeah, well, way that we're advancing lifetimes now, you know, maybe that won't be so bad. Maybe we'll actually be living to 200 years.

0:06:21 Thomas: Mean Yeah. Maybe you can spend the last like year of your life, you know, if you apply as a baby, you know, who knows, maybe you'll get lucky.

0:06:26 Matt: Yeah. Sure. Sure, yeah. Or maybe you'll just live on the moon. I don't know at that point. But the good news is that if you're an immediate relative, an immediate relativ is classified only as a spouse, a child under 21 or a parent of a U.S. citizen, then you don't have a visa cap. There's an unlimited number of visas available for those because obviously our system wants to prioritize family unity for close family members. And now that, again, children over 21 have a long wait right now. Married children have a whole other process that takes a lot longer. But if you're talking about minors and spouses and parents, not going to happen.

0:06:47 Thomas: Okay.

0:06:59 Thomas: Like if you're like if your married to your sibling, sorry, yeah, so this is all like relative to someone who's already a a citizen. I, this might sound dumb to you, but, like, is it's married to someone who's a citizen, or someone who, like, has some other kind of residence or something, you know, like, I just meant all of what you're talking about now, like those those quotas, what is, what it sounds like to me, so that's all, I just want, so it's like not somebody who also immigrated here and then you can be a family member of them, or what, you know, know nothing about this, like, you know, all of us, okay.

0:07:05 Matt: Yeah.

0:07:19 Matt: The rule we're talking talking about today only applies for people married to citizens. There want to sponsor a family member who's in your home country, you came over here and you got residency maybe through your job, maybe you're a coder, which is pretty common, at the point at which you become a citizen, you can bring over your parents. You can apply for your siblings. It's going to be a long wait. You can apply for your children. And Republicans actually, in the last round under Trump, were actually trying to reform the system so that we would remove parents from immediate relatives, believe it or not.

0:07:45 Thomas: Wow. Oh.

0:08:01 Matt: They actually were going to make it so you couldn't bring your parents. You might remember we talked about, back in the Francis Scott Key Bridge episode, we talked about that ridiculous Tom Cotton proposal, which would have basically just given residency to Nobel Prize winners, right? But in the same breath, yeah, they'd get a lot of points. But in the same breath, they were going to eliminate the parent visa. So you're going to be like an Olympic athlete, a Nobel Prize winner and not be able to bring the rest of your family. I don't know. I never really understood that. And these, again, this is from the party of family values, right? From the people that care about families and family unity when it's white

0:08:11 Thomas: Yeah. Well they get a few points you know they'd get it, well they're the party of white family values, Matt, I'm glad I could clear that up for you. Yeah. Under

0:08:39 Matt: That's right. Yeah, no, that's true. What am I thinking? Thinking. That's sort of the backdrop here is that when you're married to a U.S. citizen, if you came, again, on a visa, even if you overstayed that visa,

0:08:49 Thomas: Tom Cotton's rules, it's if you're quote unquote one of the good ones, it says here, then I guess you get to come over, yeah oh

0:08:55 Matt: That's pretty much. And again, we make this exception because we understand how important a family unity is. Usually, if you've overstayed a visa, your options are going to be extremely limited. But immediate relatives, that is one thing. There is this loophole where if you're a married U. S. citizen, we can forgive that.

But in 1996 the law was changed, and the the law was changed actually with the help of Senator Joe Biden from Delaware, a familiar name, who had a lot to do in the Senate with getting this through. And I don't know exactly what his role was, but he voted for it in the end. And he was in the leadership at the time. This And change in 1996 was the last time that we actually reformed immigration law through Congress.

And, of course, as we know, nothing has been able to get through Congress since then. Immigration is just an absolute non -starter. There have been many, many attempts to do even little piecemeal things, have just not worked. But the '96 reform, which at some point I want to do a deep dive just on the '96 immigration law, so people can understand what happens when you pass immigration reform in the middle of the night, basically, and throw in

0:09:50 Thomas: God.

0:09:50 Matt: A bunch of things that people don't really understand.

0:09:50 Thomas: Yeah. We need to cover that, I have a bunch of questions on that, I'll save it for that episode, okay.

0:09:53 Matt: Yeah, need to finish the book I'm reading about it, too, before I can tell you. But it's a great book. So I think that people need to understand that in 96, we made things so much harder for so many different categories of people. And one of those was people married to U.S. citizens, because here's how it works. If you did not come with a visa originally, you're required to go back to your home country to process in the consulate. That's just the law. That's how it is. And this goes back to 19th century legal tradition. There's a whole, yeah, it is, but it's just, the penalty I'm going to tell you about is from 96. So it's always

0:09:58 Thomas: So this wasn't just from '96, or or seven, or whatever Oh. Oh. Gotcha.

0:10:32 Matt: Been the case, though, that if you came over, you know, that that had to go that way. But the problem is that under the change in 1996, as soon as you leave the country, you are automatically barred for 10 years. And unfortunately, I've met people that didn't know this. When they filed their marriage visas, they said, okay, come on down to the consulate, do your interview. And they didn't have a lawyer, and nobody told them that you're not going to be able to come back for 10 ears.

0:10:32 Thomas: Wow.

0:10:53 Thomas: So they're almost like tricked to going back to their home country, you're saying?

0:10:57 Matt: If you don't know, if you don't know what you're up against. And so what they'll do at that point is invite you to file a waiver, and that waiver is going to be based on extreme hardship to your relative. And extreme hardship is a pretty difficult standard, actually. It's not impossible. Certainly I've won plenty of these waivers. Know, you can actually go on the USCIS website, and there's a whole sort of breakdown of what they consider to be extreme hardship or not. And the fact is that just family separation, just losing your job, just losing career opportunities, just loosing the chance to have your child educated in the United States, none of those things are considered to be extreme hardship.

0:11:00 Thomas: Huh. Yeah.

0:11:30 Matt: You have to be able to show something that's unique to you, and typically that's going to start with health problems, mental or physical health. Can usually get people evaluated by a psychologist, because, you know, I think this is the same for you or I, if thought for me of being separated from my spouse for 10 years, or having to relocate to a country I've never been to with my spouse causes me anxiety and potentially severe depression.

0:11:45 Thomas: No. Kidding. Yeah.

0:11:50 Matt: If you're in a legitimate marriage, that is almost certainly what's going to happen if you are a human being.

0:11:50 Thomas: I was Gonna say, I mean, not for nothing, I can't think of many things that would be more of a hardship than that, like, I could, I would, you know, way rather lose my job or something, or like, then have to, like, be separated from Lydia for 10 years. Yeah.

0:12:11 Matt: Or with the kids to Honduras or Guatemala or somewhere that you've never been before, right? I mean with young kids, that s especially difficult. And that's another part of this waiver thing that people should understand is that the qualifying relative for the waiver. The person you show hardship to is not anybody but the spouse or a U.S. citizen or resident parent. So you can't show hardship for your children. That means that even if you have a child with special needs, you have a child in a wheelchair, right? You have any number of things you can imagine, a child without leukemia, right, the best we can do is say, well, it's going to be a hardship to the mother of that child if we have to see the child suffer. It's like an indirect hardship, basically. That's what we have argue. But we're

0:12:14 Thomas: Why

0:12:48 Matt: Not allowed to argue hardship to the child. Well, my theory is, I think, that Republicans are obsessed with the idea, and I hate this term, but I'm going to use it so people can understand what we're talking about here, but the Republicans talk about anchor babies, right, which is a horrific racist term, and I really don't even want to be using it. But the idea that you get here, you have a child, and somehow that gives you a right to stay here, which it doesn't. That's another misconception.

It doesn't give you any status to have a baby here. I think that they don't want to incentivize people to have children so they have an extra ability to get a waiver. That That's the best I can think of, because it's pretty cruel. So this this change in the law in 96, I've heard different people who were in Congress at the time say they didn't fully understand what it was going to do. And same with some of the criminal bars, by the way.

There's some really extensive criminal bars that we've talked about before, including things like possession of small amounts of drugs, things that can permanently bar you from residency. This at least has a waiver available. Change was under INA 212 A9C1. And one thing I wanted to mention about this change in the law, which I've always thought was strange, was that it applies for people who have been unlawfully present for more than a year.

So you come here, you're you're unlawfully president and and you leave, then you have a 10 -year bar. Or Or if you were deported, if you had a removal order, right? And even if you weren't physically removed, if you had a removable order. And I've just always thought it was strange that Congress, in a very arbitrary way, gave the same penalty to people who were here, never had any contact with the system, and then left. And then people who got a removal letter and then

0:12:48 Thomas: Is that the rule Okay. I'm Yeah.

0:14:07 Matt: Maybe never left or left, knowing that they were supposed to leave.

0:14:08 Thomas: What the hell?

0:14:10 Matt: And it just seems like there's a different level of intent there, that you have different level responsibility.

0:14:11 Thomas: That doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

0:14:18 Matt: Doesn't, there, there's an extra couple of steps you have to go through if you have a removal order, but, uh,

0:14:21 Thomas: When we do the episode that's about how this got passed and all that, I'm going to be incredibly depressed to learn how much of it was just people didn't read the bill. That will be what it is, I'm sure.

0:14:30 Matt: Oh yeah. And, minute horse trading and, you Know, all the usual stuff that goes on and people writing in the margins, if you remember the tax bill, right. There's stuff that passed with actual handwriting in the margins. Right. That kind of stuff happens all the time.

0:14:38 Thomas: No way. Wow.

0:14:39 Matt: Yeah, no, You can find the pictures. Yep. The Trump tax bill, one of his only great legislative success. Point is that there to be another way. Because going back and gambling on a waiver is really not something you want to have to do, right? Because you go back and you go to the embassy, you get denied, they tell you to apply for the waiver, and that can take maybe a year for that to go through while you're away.

And if that's denied, then you're stuck in your country for the next nine years until you can actually reapply and come in. So in 2013, Barack Obama created a sort of different way of doing this waiver that allowed people to do it in this country called the provisional waiver.

And so that process went in, in a way that, you know, now that I think about it, I don't know why they didn't just do what Biden did this time, but I'll talk about what that actually is in a second. But it's a typical kind of Obama thing of like, well, here's an interesting way to solve the problem instead of like maybe let's just like go straight to the heart of the problem.

0:14:40 Thomas: Okay. Yeah.

0:15:27 Matt: At least I have to say, I mean, it did change everything because a lot of people who previously were not willing to go back and take that risk to see if they're going to have, were willing to do it here. While you're waiting, you don't get any special rights while you are waiting. You could be deported in although the meantime. There's no protection.

The benefit is you get to be here with your spouse during that provisional waiver process, which is taking at this point about 43 months just for that one step. So that's obscene. And we're going to talk to somebody who's been waiting through a lot of that pretty soon here. The obvious solution to me has always been to just give these people what's called parole in place. And parole in police already exists.

The reason that we know it's lawful and that it works just fine is that we've been doing it for military families for a long time now. And I think this is a program that anybody could support.

I think when you tell the average Republican, I would hope, the people that claim to love the troops the most, when you tell them that there's a program to make sure that service members who are serving overseas don't have to worry about their spouses and kids getting deported, that should go over pretty well.

0:16:24 Matt: I think generally, yeah.

0:16:24 Thomas: Bet you most People wouldn't even believe that's a possibility. Like they wouldn't. And it drives me nuts that

0:16:29 Matt: No, sure. Yeah. No, but it absolutely is. And certainly there's a risk. And if nothing else, you have to serve knowing that the country is not doing anything to help your spouse. So this Pearl in Place program was created to allow a retroactive lawful entry, essentially. So it gives you a enter in a way that allows you to apply for residency in this country very easily without having to go through this very lengthy and difficult and uncertain process.

So what Biden has done is extended parole in place to families of U.S. citizens, to spouses of U !S. Citizens, and to stepchildren as well. It's estimated probably about 50 ,000 children will benefit from this, along with the 500 ,000 they're estimating that will benefit for the overall program. This is something that I have been waiting on for so long. It's very exciting.

I can't say it's going to happen anytime soon because it's gonna have to to go through a long rulemaking process, but it is going to happen as long as Biden is president, it seems like. And what's going to be required? The other thing I should mention, it's not for everybody. There is one other thing that I'm concerned about. I wish they hadn't done it this way.

I do understand why they did it this way, but the way that they've written it that expect it to be coming out as is that you have to have been here for 10 years in order to qualify for this, and that's a long time.

0:17:34 Thomas: Is a long time, geez. Yeah.

0:17:35 Matt: Lot of the people I know who are married to U.S. citizens have been been here for 10 years or more is decades in some cases. That's not everybody. So it is going to be a problem that there are going to be a lot of people that are going ask me about this. They're going to realize that they don't qualify, but

0:17:39 Thomas: And It's not as though they could even like age into it, right? It's just like it's only this one time as of the order Huh. So if you've been here for nine years and 300 days, it's like, oh my god, this is the worst.

0:17:51 Matt: Right. Yep. As of the 17th of June, that's right. And Nope. And the same thing happened with DACA because you have to have been here the five years before the DACA announcement. And I met people who were four years and 11 months and days away from, yeah, it's Tough, but they have to draw these lines somewhere. And this program has been around since 1952, like the idea of parole, the idea of a humanitarian way to admit people when there's no other immigration option. And it's been used as kind of a stopgap, as a way to make sure that people who should have a chance get to do that. President Eisenhower used parole for the first time to help orphan kids, you know, some of the most sympathetic people in the world, people who were otherwise going to be blocked. You know, there were U.S. citizens after

0:17:57 Thomas: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Oh. Yikes. Now Deport

0:18:33 Matt: The war.

0:18:33 Thomas: Those orphan kids, Matt, they're taking our jobs in the coal mines Jesus.

0:18:36 Matt: That's right. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, no, they're just takers all around. You know what kids are. They're just always taken. Yeah, this a great example of good use of parole because in 1952, they were still recovering from the war. There were still a lot of European orphans, and there were U.S. citizens ready to adopt them, but there was a cap of $4 ,000 a year. And Eisenhower said, let's just extend that. Let's open up a parole program so that kids can come in.

And it was used for Eastern Europeans and people from the USSR, people from Cuba, in a very political kind of way to show, right, our door is open to you, you know, former Soviet people. Been used 126 times since 1952. So you can't say this is new. You can't Say that he invented it. Now, parole in place is a relatively new idea. But again, it's been tried and tested with the military families program. It works just fine.

It worked a lot slower than I'd want, but I've gotten people through That just fine, and there is going to be a legal challenge. Stephen Miller's organization has already promised immediately to do that. And it was very interesting, I thought, the wording. America First Legal is the Stephen Miller legal organization. And I just want to read you a little bit about how they phrased this, because they managed to release a three-paragraph statement that didn't mention the word marriage once, because they know, right, politically, that if they actually explained what this was. In the middle of a raging deadly border invasion on the heels of illegal aliens led into the country by Biden being charged with the most heinous rapes and murders of children and mothers,

0:18:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

0:19:57 Matt: Good start. Yeah. Has issued one of the largest executive amnesties in American history. Congress has for decades refused to grant citizenship to illegal aliens, now acting as a tyrant king. Biden is circumventing Congress and incinerating the Constitution to unilaterally grant a pathway to citizenship.

0:20:12 Thomas: That's Awesome. I want to vote for this guy. You know, I know it's an ongoing joke, but like, I really do want to vot for the Biden that they think is exists. Like, that's awesome. Like, unironically, please give me God Emperor King Biden, because I feel like you would, would do a lot of things. I don't, I'm not saying he'd be amazing, but holy shit if he could just pass stuff with a snap of his fingers, um, think we'd get a lot of good things. Yeah.

0:20:34 Matt: Well, This is the closest thing there is to him being able to do that, because the President does have tremendous amount of power over immigration, specifically more than any other executive policy. And the Pearl program is very broad. And in the same way that he's exercising this broad discretion to allegedly shut down the border and to stop people from applying for asylum, he can exercise it the other direction to give people status. And I've nothing stopping the federal government from setting up a parole program that could just be open to anybody. And right now, anybody can apply for humanitarian parole.

And there is a sort of a working sort of program for, you know, simply if you have a caretaker, you very sick and you have caretakers as an undocumented person, there's a humanitarian parole program, right, for that. Or if you yourself need life -saving treatment, there is humanitarian parole for that, you know. So there are sort of these piecemeal things.

But they're going to formalize it a little little bit more and set up a formal process after going through the usual rulemaking process they have to do. And at that point, what's going to happen is people will be eligible to apply for this special parole status. And then immediately, as soon as that's granted, they can go ahead and apply for residency. And as long as they're not otherwise disqualified, and for pretty much everybody that I've worked with, this is the only issue. There's no other criminal issues. There're no health issues. There's nothing

0:20:37 Thomas: Okay.

0:21:42 Thomas: No.

0:21:42 Matt: Else stopping them. It's just this civil immigration violation, which again, has no criminal aspect whatsoever. This is just a violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act. So this to me is, it's politically, I mean, I hate to break it down to political, but that's if you have to, it is politically brilliant because you are extending status to people who were married to U.S. citizens. I think there's some of the hardest people to argue with along with military members, families.

You actually do support marriage and family unity, you're if going to be honest about this program, which of course, Stephen Miller isn't being, Ted Cruz and all these other people that are coming out against it, just calling it a general amnesty. It's nothing like that. They know that. Don't know how we reach the people who don't understand that going through marriage is in no way guaranteed and is not easy for a lot of people.

But I think that if that story could be told a little better, I think that if you actually went out on the street and explained this to people the right way, I think they would understand it. Maybe I'm too optimistic about this, but I really think that if I understood that people married to U.S. citizens can't do it in any kind of easy, timely way without significant stress and hardship, I don't know.

0:22:42 Thomas: I think that's, I think that applies to most issues if you could actually have a conversation with someone, uh, think they could understand. Unfortunately, it's just not how anything works, so they don't get a conversation, uh, they get a shouting from from Trump's, uh, lectern about you, women and children, or whatever the hell, like, just nonsense they're coming up with. Hopefully,

0:23:02 Matt: I what they have to do because the truth is not that favorable to them. Again, we have a system that is supposed to be based on family ties. And if we want to honor that, if that's what we actually want to do, this is the kind of thing we should be doing. And I'm very happy to see it. I wish that it hadn't come with this firm hand on the the other side.

For the asylum seekers, as we've talked about in the last episode about that, there's going to be a high human cost to that, I think. But this at least is something that I can celebrate, that I kan appreciate, and that can really only happen in any real way if Joe Biden is reelected. And this is the kind of thing where I can say definitively that we have to reelect Joe Biden to make this happen. Will not happen under Trump. It won't happen under any other Republican.

Maybe once it becomes secure, once the program becomes inevitable, once it become something that people are used to. If you have a Republican president promising to take it away, I think that that will be very unpopular. I hope.

0:23:50 Thomas: Who knows, yeah.

0:23:51 Matt: All these people who are yelling, do it the right way, because the right is whatever we say it is, right? We can change the laws however we want to. And we can change the procedure however we want to within reason. And the president has broad discretion to say that some people have the ability to get this special parole if they deserve it. And And I think these are very deserving serving people. I mean, I think everyone I work with is deserving, but it's very hard to hear from U.S. citizen families, especially in these cases where people have such strong ties to this country. They're so rooted here. Know, to have to be facing the kind of uncertainty and stress this causes, it's just, I'm just glad to be able to tell people some good news.

0:24:23 Thomas: Just to talk for a moment before we, uh, speak to someone who's actually going be affected by this, just to talk a moment about that kind of political question, I, so hard again for me to, I don't know, relate to what I, like, don't even know anymore who, who voters are that matter and what, how they think about things, because, like, I'm so far past any sort of starry-eyed, like, I need to be in love with my candidate to whatever, like, I, I don't know about anybody else, but I'm so utilitarian about this now, I'm just like, cool, okay, we gotta, it looks like we got a good thing out of Biden, what will happen if, uh, Biden is not elected, we'll have, if elected Trump's, well, we'll lose this, uh, good thing, and will, uh, a bunch of horrible crap including mass deportations, so that's pretty easy to me, people want to get hung up on, yeah but he could have done this earlier and he could could have died a different way, yeah, no, sure, plenty, I'm not here to argue with you whatsoever, but you know, it's actually true, just look at what will happen, look at the goddamn trolley, it's just a trolley now, maybe back in the day we could have been in love with the with the track, with with like how amazing it looked, how inspirational the track looked, and how what's going to get done, the whatever, who cares, it's a track, there's bodies on that track, there're way fewer bodies on the other track, that's what it is, like, I, I don't, it just sucks though, because I just don't think that works broadly speaking, like, I think people need to feel inspired and feel like their candidate is, you, all these things.

0:24:56 Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Wish you had.

0:25:48 Matt: Perfect.

0:25:48 Thomas: And it's going to be amazing, I just, I don't even get it anymore, like, that's, do you find it hard to even, like, think about that, because I, I certainly do, like, how do you even communicate with anyone about this, you know?

0:25:49 Matt: Yeah, yeah. No, no. I'm pretty far to the left of Joe Joe Biden. He was not my candidate. And I'm certainly happy that he's president instead of Trump. But you like said, we have to be utilitarian about this. We have to get what we can out of the situation and out of these people. And if I guess I'll say, when these people do something right, I believe in noticing it. I think it's worth commending and to say, this is the right direction. Please do more of this. In the same way that I had some things to say about him after the asylum ban.

0:25:58 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:22 Thomas: Well. Here's another thing that I, so if he's doing this for just politics or just for getting elected, sure, probably is, I hope, by the way, I hope he's doing a lot of things to just get elected, because, you know what, I really need him to get elected, so if there's anything else that he wants to do that his heart of hearts isn't really into, but he wants wants to do it to get elected, please, by all means, because I would very much like him to get elected, and I don't particularly care what's in anybody's heart of hearts, because when these things go down in the law books or in the executive order books, they don't really ask about, like, well, what was in the president's heart when he actually did this, doesn't really matter, but anyway, um, my point.

When President Biden, or whoever, makes the decision, I want to do X just to get elected, we can actually affect in some small way what that X is. We can try to, one thing, if you're mad at Biden, which, great, man, I don't care. There. Biden sucks. I don't, I'm really, displeased about Biden in terms of Israel, Palestine, especially. But we have some effect if you want to find a way to, you know, still feel like you're an doing something and making change without having to feel like your supporting or believing in someone year old man whose politics aren't really like amazing.

On changing what that thing is, what that think that is, get you elected thing, we'll bring out the vote, we can affect that by trying to get the word out in campaign and and hearts and minds on these issues, like, if we and in our, you know, a little podcast, for example, Matt, if we're able to inform and educate people more as to how what the current state of the immigration system is and to really maybe people on that, then the thing that President whomever will do to try to get elected can start to change and can start move to the left.

0:26:41 Matt: I truly believe that. And at the same time, we have to give credit to the activists who've been out there pushing for things like this, just like DACA wouldn't have ever happened without the youth activists that were just pushing and pushing for something when DREAM wasn't passing. Have been any number of activists out there, very much, including Emily, who we're going to talk to in a few minutes here, been working with immigration activism, to do what they can to bring this to light and to push every administration to do something about the problem of mixed status families who are being punished by these extremely harsh rules.

And Joe Biden, by the way, to his credit, the 2020 campaign, I was trying to find this, I couldn't find his old website, but they actually acknowledged on that website that he was part of the '96 reforms. And that, and in many words, between that and the fact that the Obama administration set records for deportations, in so many words, Biden acknowledged that he has a debt to pay, that he has some things to make up for.

And I have to say, I really appreciate that kind of honesty. I appreciate that reflection and understanding that you can do better and you have a chance in this position to do that. So full credit, really.

0:28:06 Thomas: Absolutely. All right. Well, is it time to go to our little interview?

0:29:00 Matt: Yeah, I'm excited to talk to Emily. Let's introduce her.

0:29:03 Thomas: Well, let's get to that after this break.

0:29:07 Matt: And I think it's very important to make sure we hear from people who are actually directly affected by these policies, so I'm very happy to introduce to you in the audience Emily. She's a client, along with her husband Carlos, and they've been going through the waiver process I was just telling you about. So Emily, are you with us?

0:29:21 Emily: Hi, nice to be here today.

0:29:23 Thomas: So much for joining us.

0:29:23 Matt: Great, thank you.

0:29:24 Emily: Thanks for having me.

0:29:26 Matt: If you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and about Carlos and how you met, we'd like to know kind of your background.

0:29:32 Emily: I met Carlos about five years ago doing community work, advocating for immigrants in Massachusetts, and through that work we fell in love and got married, and we're about to celebrate our four-year anniversary.

0:29:48 Matt: That's great.

0:29:48 Thomas: Congrats.

0:29:49 Emily: Thank you.

0:29:50 Matt: That was during the pandemic? Is that right?

0:29:52 Emily: Was was right before the pandemic. Got married during the pandemic, so know, a little wedding in our parents' backyard.

0:29:58 Matt: Were in a pod with your parents, right? It was just the four of you? Like?

0:29:59 Emily: Mm -hmm, yep. Was a fast introduction to the family, and

0:30:05 Thomas: Like either this is going to really work or really not work.

0:30:09 Emily: I knew I had found a good partner if we could make it through the pandemic with my parents.

0:30:13 Thomas: Kidding. Yeah.

0:30:14 Matt: For sure, for as you know, this waiver that we've been talking about, it's based on extreme hardship. And just want to talk a little bit sort of about the average case that we see, because your case is, I mean, you're not average people, obviously, but this is something of an average marriage case involving two younger people that are kind of getting their lives going. Old are each of you?

0:30:30 Emily: So it's am 35 and Carlos is 39.

0:30:34 Matt: Maybe not getting their lives gone, but I

0:30:36 Thomas: Matt's 80. So to him, you know, He

0:30:38 Matt: It's true. Yeah. What did you know about the process you'd need to go through or about Carlos's immigration situation when you met?

0:30:46 Emily: Knew that we would need to go through a process to adjust his status. Knew because of my work doing immigrant community, I knew just because one person in the marriage was a U.S. citizen didn't mean that you could easily adjust your status. So I knew we would likely have to go through a long and uncertain process, but I didn't really have details about what that would actually look like or what that would actually mean for us before we got married. No.

0:31:13 Matt: You expect it would be as long as it has been? Yeah,

0:31:15 Emily: I didn't. I was hoping at this point coming up on our four-year anniversary that we would have this behind us and we are not even halfway through this.

0:31:24 Matt: Me too. Me too. Yeah. Now, your case was filed in, I think, February or March 2021. I

0:31:29 Thomas: Doesn't you know exactly that you're not halfway through, like how do you know kind of the timeline it's going to be?

0:31:34 Emily: The. The way that I explain it, because for so many people, when I tell people that we're going through this process to adjust Carlos's immigration status, they're surprised that it hasn't already happened, because many people assume that if you're married to a U.S. citizen, you get an Adjustment of status in a relatively straightforward and relatively fast way, although none of it's fast. And the way that I describe it is that we have to go through a three-step process. We have to validate that our marriage is real, that we're a real couple, we have to get our waiver, and then Carlos has to go for his immigration interview. So we're sort of in step two of a three step process, waiting for a waiver, and that process, that just that one middle step has a wait time of over three years right now.

0:31:34 Thomas: Yeah.

0:31:50 Thomas: Wait.

0:32:20 Matt: Right now, it's actually 43 months. I just checked before we came on. That's where we're at. So of average speaking, now that's just the processing time that's posted. That's about 80% of cases they estimate are done within 43 months, and that means that your case is not supposed to finish until April 2025. And as you said, even when it does finish, you're still going to have to go through processing to the National Visa Center, and then he has to go back to Honduras and have his interview for a couple of weeks. And no, it's not done yet. We

0:32:44 Thomas: What, why Does he have to go back to Honduras, sorry?

0:32:48 Matt: That's the whole point of this program. The new parole-in-place program is to make sure that he has the opportunity to do it here, because that's sort of how they punish people, is they make them go back to their home countries to finish the process. As soon as you leave the country, you've got that 10-year bar. That point, I mean, the good news is from everything I know about Carlos, he's going to have an easy medical exam. He'll have an easier interview.

Obviously, he'll have no trouble. He has no other admissibility factors. There's nothing that's going to stop him from getting that visa. And he'll be able to come back as a resident and the card will show up a couple of weeks later in the mail. And that'll be it if you have to go through that. But what I'm hoping is that this new process becomes effective. And you'd emailed me yesterday just asking some questions about that.

I want to talk about some of those questions and what we can expect here. All, they're promising that this program is going to be available by the end of the summer. I don't know that I believe that just based on the way that rulemaking goes, because they have to publish something in the federal register and then there there has to be a period of time for notice and comment, and it has to go through the whole administrative rulemaking process.

And so I can't certainly guarantee it'll be ready before the election, but I think they're going to try to push it really hard so that we can at least file these before the election, which means that it's very possible that we could have the parole in place portion approved before any new administration. That's what I'm hoping. But just for clarity here, I think you might understand this, Emily, but let me make sure that everyone does.

What the parole-in-place does is gives Carlos essentially a retroactive lawful entry. It's as if he came lawfully. And by giving him that, it allows him to apply for residency in this country as if you'd come that way. And that one little thing just makes all the difference.

And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on is because just getting to know you and Carlos and what you've been through, I think people might also be surprised to learn that this is not an easy waiver case. And waivers themselves are based on extreme hardship. And I just want to talk about some of those factors in your case.

We don't have to get too personal here, but I just just want to kind of get an overview of a sense of what kind of waiver this is. And right now, as I understand it, you and Carlos are in good health, right?

0:34:36 Emily: We're in, we're be in good health, I'm

0:34:38 Matt: Lucky for you, but not so lucky for your immigration process because as an immigration attorney, I always get a little too excited if somebody has leukemia or cancer or something, right. And because I know, I know it's perverse, but that's the way it works because that's going to be an easy winning waiver. But, know, USCIS does not consider a lot of the things that I think most married couples would consider to be extreme hardships to be extremely hardships, including just the fact that you're going to be separated for 10 years, potentially, or have to relocate to another country for 10 years. That's automatically, off the bat, not considered to be a hardship.

So you have to show something more than that. In my understanding of your situation and your waiver, I think it's a doable case. It's not necessarily a slam dunk though. That's why this program I think would be a great alternative because it pretty well guarantees that there's not going to be an issue.

To give you a sense, though, and people listening, with my partner for going on about 20 years, and I don't know what I would do without her for a couple of months, and I I don't know how people are supposed to even consider the possibility of being separated for 10 years or completely relocating. Have you ever been to Honduras?

0:34:45 Thomas: Jeez.

0:35:33 Emily: No, um.

0:35:33 Matt: You plan to at some point?

0:35:34 Emily: Would love to, but I really want to go with my husband. We haven't been. Able to do that.

0:35:39 Matt: Of course. Of course, sure. You considered relocation?

0:35:42 Emily: I have student loans. I'm a nurse. Have student loans to pay back. I couldn't pay back my student loans if I was working in Honduras. It's also, you know, we'd like to have children and we'd like to have children somewhere where we felt like we could raise them safely and that would be hard to raise a child in Honduras right now.

0:35:44 Matt: -hmm.

0:35:59 Matt: From everything I know, I certainly have met a lot of Hondurans. And you would stand out, certainly, as an American. I think it would be pretty obvious that you weren't from around there. You in all kinds of risk.

0:36:06 Emily: Yeah. I think would be a pretty challenging place to live for me.

0:36:09 Matt: Yeah, for everything I now, for sure. Or you do speak Spanish, don't you?

0:36:13 Emily: I speak some Spanish. I wouldn't say I speak Spanish well enough to work in Spanish. So I think that would be another challenge for me

0:36:15 Matt: Not Right. Right. Exactly.

0:36:19 Thomas: Me, I know, I know, this stuff is probably going to be basic to you guys, but this, you say waiver, Matt, you're just saying like, let's pretend this uh executive order or whatever Biden action, let's pretend that that's out of the picture. It's a waiver of this, of how Carlos originally entered the country. There's like a punitive 10-year waiting period, and it's a waiver of specifically that, is because

0:36:41 Matt: That's right. 1997, it became effective. It passed in '96. A lot of the people that voted for it have since expressed regret. They didn't realize what they were doing. And they said that they didn't understand the full import or how badly it would affect people. I mean, Emily is one of the few people that I think understood coming into this process that it was not going to be easy. Most people do walk in thinking, I'm married, I'm here, let's do this. And I have to explain it could be another four or five years.

0:37:04 Thomas: So, They're faced with a choice of, go through this process, four or five years process to even start, and then, you know, it's unclear like, if you'll be granted it, and then if you're not granted this waiver, then it's like, okay, then you have to decide between being either apart for 10 years, or you both, you travel somewhere else that you may not necessarily be be established in or want to go to, or whatever, like that's your choice, versus, why wouldn't the incentive be, okay, well, just continue flying under the radar, right? Like, just, trying is that a dumb question, or why wouldn't that be what most people would probably choose to do? Oh.

0:37:10 Emily: Start and then, you know, it's unclear, like,

0:37:39 Matt: Most people do choose to do that. And the fact is, this waiver used to be something, until 2013, you used to actually have to go back to your home country. So you're taking the gamble of, going back and not knowing if you're gonna be able to come back within a year or two, or within 10 years. So at least this change in the law allows people to be together and remain in the U.S. while they wait. Emily, if you don't mind, could you share a little bit about what the waiting has been like, and what it's like just not knowing?

0:37:46 Thomas: Wow. No.

0:38:02 Emily: Waiting is hard, there's uncertainty always in life, um, I am lucky to be in good health, but I do have a lot of anxiety, and I think this is a piece of uh my life that adds a lot of anxiety, knowing that there's this uncertainty sort of hanging over what can happen. And I work in the emergency department, so I know there's uncertainty in so many different ways, that people have illness and trauma that changes their lives in an instant. So, I'm not under the illusion that this is the only kind of uncertainty in the world. But having this uncertainty that is sort of man-made, or controlled by someone else, and not being able to know what your fate is, is a really hard way to live. And we've been talking about whether we want to have a child, and I would like to have child, but I would really like to have a child knowing that this piece of uncertainty is not hanging over our heads and hanging over a marriage, and that I

0:38:14 Thomas: Kidding.

0:38:55 Matt: Course.

0:38:55 Emily: Have the best chance to be able to raise a child with my partner and the person that I love. So that anxiety is huge, and that has affected our lives and our decisions in big ways.

0:39:07 Matt: You been following some of the reactions to this announcement this week?

0:39:10 Emily: I've been following it. And, you know, people are messaging me like, oh, this should take care of everything now. And I'm like, this is still going to be a year's process. And I feel really grateful, potentially, of having another option that doesn't require the waiver. But I'm also a little scared to get my hopes up, just knowing how broken the immigration system has been. And I also, I feel frustrated knowing that this could have happened three years ago, and it didn't happen until now.

And I have friends who, just because of what you were saying earlier, people who chose to fly under the radar instead of applying for a waiver, or felt like getting married to their U.S. citizen partner wasn't worth it, because there was no, you know, they have a committed partnership, but they never chose to actually solidify that in a marriage. Friends who are getting married in August who are not going to be eligible for this.

And I think I feel really lucky on the one hand that we might have another door open. And I think lucky is such a funny word when it comes to people whose lives are impacted by the immigration system, because what does it mean to be lucky, that you've had to wait years for this immigration process, and to feel lucky that you might have another option when other people don't, is just really sort of had my stomach in knots, honestly.

0:39:16 Thomas: Yeah.

0:40:37 Matt: I was thinking about that with the reactions and I was asking because I shouldn't say I can't believe, because at this point I can believe anything, but some of the responses of people just saying, well, no, these people should be deported or they should go and do it the right way or whatever. I know so many couples like the two of you. I know so many people who have been trying and trying and waiting and waiting. And don't know, maybe this isn't a fair question, but what would you say to people like that who say something like that?

0:41:02 Emily: I feel like the right way doesn't exist.

0:41:05 Emily: That's what people are saying when they're trying to talk about legality. But when we're talking about a US foreign policy that has broken down so many countries, particularly in the Americas and really all over, and immigrants have felt that they have to leave their country for their safety or for the economic stability of themselves and their families, you have to understand that we're just in a system that is completely broken, and that people, I just, trying to make their lives work, and we've been doing the right thing as much as we can, and that we've been applying for these waivers, and we've been waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

0:41:47 Thomas: I, as, um, am pretty quick to assume bad and/or racist motivations about all this stuff, I do really think with this there is true, a true component of, people do not understand this, like, I certainly don't. You know, I didn't know that there's this many steps, you know, and I, and I guess, one thing that I really hope we can spread the word on, you know, Matt, and it's been this whole time that you've been doing this show, is like, there isn't any easy right way. And so much of what we think the system is, just as people not involved in it, is just not how it actually is.

0:41:57 Matt: Yeah.

0:42:17 Matt: Now, that's why I wanted to talk to Emily and make sure that we heard from real people.

0:42:21 Emily: The thing I think that's been hard, is that this comes on the heels just a few weeks ago of further limiting of asylum, so it's a little hard to feel like, well, we're going to give some, some people more chance to adjust their status, but actually limit others, and hard to not feel like you're just part of a political game. And I think no one likes to feel that their lives are being used for political gain. And at the same time, I am really grateful that we might have this other option to go forward with. It's devastating to me, to know that there are people at the border who are struggling to apply for the asylum that they need.

0:42:58 Matt: Yeah, I've

0:42:58 Thomas: The same time, I imagine and another factor has got to be talking about that political game. If if Trump wins, what happens to this?

0:43:05 Matt: Yeah, I mean, that is the wild card, is that it's an executive order. It can be given. It could be taken away. And it's impermanent. And we just have to hope that it is able to help as many people as it can. Congress can change the law and make this permanent. And I think that if people understand after this goes into effect how hard this actually is, maybe we can talk about that. Emily, do you have any questions for me or about the process as long as we're here?

0:43:26 Emily: I feel like my question is just like, I'm so hesitant to believe anything is going to work. And so what I want to ask is not really a question of hope. Like, I want us to say, like, is this real?

0:43:34 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

0:43:35 Matt: Sure. Well, I mean, we have to watch and see how long it's going to take. Obviously, we'll apply at the earliest opportunity, and you and a lot of other people we're working with, if this becomes available, we will do it. The point is, at the point at which you have the application filed, then they have to process it and they have to honor it. Parole in place will count as an entry.

If we can get this in and get it done, it doesn't matter who's president at that point. That's what I'm hoping is going to happen. Happen. It is real. I'll say there are going to be legal challenges to this. It's something else to look out for. Stephen Miller is already promising to use his legal organization to stop this. But Texas and the other states already tried to stop the other Biden parole program that brings people in from certain countries. And that just didn't get anywhere.

The courts shut that down pretty quickly because this is clearly lawful. It is something that the president absolutely has the authority to do. So I am confident it is going to survive legal challenges. I'm hoping it's not going to be held up. And I do think that they're making it a priority. And I understand that the election is the major impetus here, but if that's what it takes, that's what's going to happen. So,

0:44:38 Thomas: Might be a stupid question, Matt, that I'm sure I've asked before, but why does this take so long? Is there any action Biden or somebody could take to, I don't know, hire some people or something to make this at least not take forever?

0:44:52 Matt: Is a very good question. And I think, you know, unfortunately, I think when we met Emily, I told you that it might be something like six to eight, maybe 12 months, because that's when it was back then. Was a huge setback during the pandemic. I know that things really got slowed down, but it does seem to me that these cases are not a priority and they don't have a lot of people on them. And I think that when you pay your filing fees and you put in an application, you have a right to get a timely answer. And there's just nobody who could say that 43 months is a timely answer to anything. I just don't think that's fair. So there has been talk of reassigning resources and trying to get these things faster. I think there was talk of a class action at one point because it was taking so long, but we're at the mercy of USCIS at that point once you file it. So that is just, you know, you have your place in line and they just get to you when they get to you.

0:45:02 Thomas: Right.

0:45:35 Thomas: But What's involved? I mean, what is this like? What would you need more of for this to go faster? Immigration judges? Or is it just a processing thing? Like, what I don't know how Does This work?

0:45:45 Matt: It's adjudicators. It is definitely a training issue. They do have to have trained immigration adjudikators that can actually go through the hardship factors and evaluate these. I mean, these are legal applications. It isn't just a form. There is a lot to look at and, you know, they have to balance. So, you know, I understand why it takes so long and they can't just crank these out every day, but it's still frustrating.

0:45:47 Thomas: Okay. Sure.

0:46:04 Thomas: But It really sounds like there's something to be said for maybe some sort of action. That was going to be my question before you even said it. It was like, yeah, is there some case to be made? Like, hey, this is taking too long. Like, I've heard of things like, I want to say when I worked in California CDCR, I've heard of a different thing, but like, if you're taking too long to do something, that I feel like a court can be like, hey, that's too long, figure out how to do it faster. And like, that can add fuel to the fire. But, you know, yeah, it just seems crazy.

0:46:29 Matt: Yeah.

0:46:30 Thomas: To me. Absolutely.

0:46:30 Matt: It has to be a priority, and there has to be some controlling stake. And there's just no incentive for them to do this. And the system's stretched. They just have a lot of different things to process right now.

The other thing that is not relevant to what we're talking about today, but the other thing that is kind of collateral to this is for some people, if you've been married for less than two years and you want to go on to get full permanent residence, you have to go through a second step kind of to confirm it. And that's not going to happen here because you two have been married for a long time now, those applications have been bottom of the pile priority.

And to the point that it's so cynical of me that I think that maybe they're just waiting for people to break up, because you have to show that you're still together at the end of this, potentially another couple of years while they process the second step. So I don't know, I just don't think the marriage cases are high priority when it comes down to it with these waivers and the extensions. But Emily, I really appreciate you joining us today to provide the human story here. Is there anything else we haven't talked about you want to cover?

0:47:21 Emily: Thanks so much for having me on. Can't tell you how many people ask us, you know, or how many people I know who have gotten married after us, who've already had their, uh, like their, their processes completed, um. And already gotten green cards. And just for people to know that it's not straightforward for every case that that people's cases are different. And yeah, this is actually, this is affecting, you know, thousands of people.

0:47:48 Matt: Hundreds of thousands, no doubt.

0:47:50 Thomas: So much for coming on, and uh we're all pulling for you and hoping that you can have some hope on this.

0:47:56 Matt: I do, for what it's worth. Of course, I'll be in touch as soon as we have anything we can do.

0:47:56 Emily: Too. I'm hoping for that too. Thanks so much.

0:48:01 Matt: Right, thanks for talking to us.

0:48:05 Thomas: Right, Matt. Another big thanks to Emily for coming on. I really appreciate hearing from someone actually affected by this. And uh, hey, well, you know, just a thought, everybody, let's do everything we can to—I don't even have to put it in terms of electing or not electing Trump or whatever—let's do the thing that needs to happen for this policy to stay in place, just as an example, which is, you know, not let Trump win, um, uh, thanks so much, uh, great to hear from Matt again, by the way, Matt, it's been, it's only been like a, I donno, a week, a week and a half or whatever it was, but it felt like too long, so glad to uh get back on with you

0:48:26 Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, good to be with you. Let's do it again.

0:48:39 Thomas: Also on Monday, yeah, looking forward to speaking, uh, that Young Thug trial, wow, interesting stuff, that'll be Monday's episode, so uh, I think we'll see everybody then, does

0:48:50 Matt: Right. Right.

0:48:51 Clip: This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved. It is produced and edited by Thomas Smith, who also provided the fabulous intro and outro music used with permission.

0:49:08 Matt: For sure, okay, yeah, so and God, there's just, what is, oh, can you hear what's going on outside, it's just so loud out there that might actually be the parade, I don't know, but, but the basketball parade.

0:49:16 Thomas: Well, I can, that's pretty crazy, oh oh my

0:49:22 Matt: Everybody cares about the basketball except me.

0:49:23 Thomas: God That's, that's right.