ICE Just... Decided Millions of People Are Ineligible for Bail. This Is Bad. Like, Really Bad.

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Matt: He has a three-month-old daughter. He has an U .S. citizen fiancée. He's got everything to stay here, and he can't get out on bond because an immigration judge decided to go along with something they made up literally last week.

0:00:17 Thomas: Boy, Matt, it's almost like they've step -by -step undermined all the protections for a certain group of people in a real premeditated way, and we've covered every step of the way, and yet still it's shocking, and it should be shocking.

0:00:26 Matt: And here we are. And having to see a whole docket full of people suffer, and having to tell my client this bond that we've been preparing for for weeks, I can't even do it.

0:00:41 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1174. I'm Thomas Smith. Out over there is real-life immigration attorney Matt Cameron. How you doing, Matt?

0:00:48 Matt: I've been drinking. Not, you know, today, but I started having some drinks after work in a way that I don't usually, for reasons I'm going to be talking about. Yeah, nothing to worry about. I'm okay. I've never been much of a drinker anyway, but ever so often, the government makes you want to drink. That's just how it works sometimes.

0:01:06 Thomas: I get it.

0:01:06 Matt: This is one of those situations where, as a practitioner, I can come in and tell you about something that has not really hit the news in a way that anybody understands yet, and I'm going to tell you, unfortunately, some pretty bad news. And I'm not going to say that it's not bad news, and it ties into some of the things we've been talking about. I think that people deserve to hear it from me about what's going on and how I've seen it play out already in immigration court and how this plays into mass deportation and the big bill that was just signed.

0:01:27 Thomas: Well, those who listen to the show know that, Matt, this is not normal for Matt. So if there's anybody new, normally Matt's got the, I don't know, I wouldn't say spin or anything, but normally you're optimistic more and you're positive about what's going on. So this is ominous. I'm really worried about this. I think if there'S any new listeners, maybe won't understand quite how big of a difference this is from your normal demeanor.

0:01:53 Matt: Well, I mean, I jumped on Substack. I couldn't even bring myself to write about it the day that I realized a couple of days ago when this was really good getting bad. And I was angry. You actually get to see a clip of me being angry, which is not that different from the way I'm talking right now, but I felt shaking with rage, furious and livid.

0:02:05 Thomas: No, it's not at all. Wow. I've never heard of you not being able to write. You write like you breathe. I can't imagine that. Yeah. Okay. Oh, boy.

0:02:14 Matt: Yeah. I didn't have time. I mean, it was literally just, I had 10 minutes for lunch and I'm like, I'm going to eat lunch and eat my frozen Amy's pad thai meal and rant into a microphone for 10 minutes, which is a good use of Substack, it turns out. Yeah, so now I get to rant into a microphone much longer than that with citations. So I'm gonna go deep a little bit and explain some important concepts of immigration law that people need to know to understand just how bad this is. I don't think you're gonna hear this anywhere else, so I'm happy to bring it. And And then we've got some much better news from Central California that I do want to talk about.

0:02:43 Thomas: Matt's making an effort to give us some good news. And also, I'm sure we have a must have a delightful footnote, right? Do we have something fun? Good news. Okay. I'll take it. You know, Matt, I'll took it. Sold. I'm not going to haggle. I take it. All right. Well, we better get to it. Sounds like there's a lot to talk about. So we'll take take this break, which patrons can avoid at patreon.com/law. And, um, we'll get to whatever has Matt drinking.

0:02:49 Matt: It's a good news footnote. I don't know if it's delightful, but it is good news. Unqualified. So, yeah. All right.

0:02:56 Matt: Promise. Just hold out. Just hold on. You'll make it. We can do this. I'll

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0:03:15 Thomas: Okay. Well I'm in the dark here. What's going on, Matt?

0:03:18 Matt: Tell you, this was actually our top patron request this week. Patrons are plugged in and they know what I care about. And I really appreciate that. So, Recluse with a C has asked for a discussion on the refusal of bond hearings for immigrants recently detained. And No Country for Old Ben, full credit for that one, adds, if we can get a little explainer of Matter of Cue Lee along with this, I'd be grateful.

0:03:32 Thomas: Of what?

0:03:38 Matt: Now that might be Matter of Q Lee. I'll talk about that. That's would probably require more time and bourbon than I have to fully explain Matter of Cue. I'm going to try to give kind of a top level of explanation. And I want to tell you upfront, I've tried to tell people before. I've been asked more than once, including by a graduate student on the first day of class, which is the same strange strategy for a grad student, who raised their hand and said, hey, isn't immigration law just filling out forms? That person did not get an A, listeners. Immigration law is one of the, I think, honestly, just about the most complex major field of law that you can practice. It's constantly changing. And even in a way beyond the usual kind of law, it's made up all the time. And ICE really proved that this week. So I want to step you through what this is, because this is the kind of thing where they're doing administrative violence through a memo. And memos, of course, as we've talked about before, were responsible for Kristallnacht, right? I mean, that's how you get people organized and tell police chiefs it's okay to break Jewish property, as long as nobody else gets hurt. Memos are responsible for all kinds of horrible things in human history, and this is going to go down as one of those. So I'll tell you, before I explain it, Maria Sashetti wrote it up over the weekend in the Washington Post, and I've known Maria for a while. She used to write for the Globe, and she's now a Washington Post immigration reporter. She's great.

0:04:49 Matt: She got the scoop on this story. And I looked at the headline, and it read the story, and I was like, well, okay, ICE is saying they're going to be arguing now that pretty much nobody nobody gets a bond hearing anymore. And I thought, okay, well, they can say that. But also, I thought this was just going to be an extension of this case, Matter of Q. Lee, which our listener asked us to talk about.

0:05:06 Matt: And that was a Board of Immigration Appeals case that came out last month that kind of shook things up. And, I'm going to have to explain some of the concepts before I explain the case, but just say for now, I was assuming this memo would be implementing that case. But instead, what ICE did is they took that case and they ran with it several time zones. They ran with very, very far, to a degree that I'm gonna tell you that I believe is is flatly illegal. And now they're getting judges to go along with it. And I'll tell you how this played out because I was there on Tuesday morning in Conroe, Texas, appearing virtually. Because I want you to understand when I'm talking about all of this arcane immigration stuff I'm about to get into, what it looks like when you get into court. Because what it works like is an immigration prosecutor, before this entire docket starts, you've got a whole room full of men on video. There were probably 30 guys in there, including my client. And the ICE prosecutor announces up front on Tuesday Morning, a couple of days after this memo has become official, that he's going to to be telling the judge that anybody who entered the United States without permission is mandatory and can't be granted bond as a mandatory detainee. This has never been done before. This is not an argument that has ever been accepted or made before in my 19 years of practice in the immigration court. You have to understand, I know that that sounds like he's just going to be making an argument. But to me, this was like going in and announcing, I'm going to tell the judge this guy is orange, and we're going to go with it. We're just going decide this guy is orange today.

0:06:20 Thomas: I thought you said this guy is orange. I was like, are you talking about Trump? What's how's that? What does that connect it? No, the sky is orange Yeah. Huh.

0:06:24 Matt: That we could agree on. Yeah, this guy. I was saying that this is like walking outside and tossing a softball into the air and just watching it disappear into space instead of hitting the ground. This is how disorienting it was. Because I knew from reading Maria's story that they were going to make this argument. I did not realize that they Were going to be making this argument and what he did is he basically just kind of threw together some immigration words. He cited INA 235, which we'll talk about without actually explaining why it mattered or how it applied and the judge who was an obama appointee and again an immigration judge not an actual judge right so just remind everybody immigration judges are administrative judges appointed by the attorney general their immigration that's

0:07:02 Thomas: And the whole thing takes place in a strip mall, too. I was going to say that when you were painting the picture. That was one thing I didn't really think about. It really is like not at all real court, but also more important in a lot of ways. Wait, what was your quote that you had?

0:07:10 Matt: Yeah it is and in both of those things oh these are yeah death penalty cases in

0:07:19 Thomas: The death penalty cases in traffic court.

0:07:19 Matt: Traffic court that's correct and that's yeah those from yeah my first appearance

0:07:21 Thomas: Yeah, that was from, gosh, what, episode one-ish? Yeah, the first thing we ever did to get to know Matt. I forgot about that, and that's important to remember right now.

0:07:26 Matt: That's fine the former head of the immigration judges union I didn't I didn t come with that one, but she gave us that. And yeah, this is actually in a detention camp in somewhere in the middle of Texas. I don't even know where it is. So this is remote. So the judge is an Obama appointee, and again, appointed by Eric Holder, not by Congress, but by the attorney general at the time.

0:07:46 Matt: He's a DOJ lawyer in a robe. That's what immigration judges are. And he just says, sure, yeah, mandatory.

0:07:47 Thomas: What?

0:07:52 Matt: And I asked the judge, I'm sorry, we've never heard this argument before. Can you make some findings? Can you explain on the record why you think that this man who has has nothing on his record that would suggest he's mandatory. Usually mandatory detainees are either certain kinds of entry we'll talk about or they're people with serious records.

0:07:53 Thomas: What?

0:08:08 Matt: McClendon didn't have any of these factors. He had been caught inside the United States after four years of being here, not something that has ever been argued before that I've ever heard. And the judge got very angry with me. And I said, I just want findings. We're going to have to appeal this. Counsel, he starts yelling at me. I said judge, this is a novel argument. And both of them got very mad at me when I said that because it's gaslighting. They're just trying to tell us this is how it's always been, then I shouldn't be arguing with it. And this is what I'm hearing from my colleagues around the country, is that they're just coming in and they're making this argument just straight up as if this has always been the law, as if Eurasia has always been at war with whoever.

0:08:27 Thomas: What? Oh yeah.

0:08:42 Matt: I mean, this is the new reality and this is what we're doing now. And this is the kind of thing you expect from the Trump administration, but they can do it because they're in administrative court. This would be a lot harder to do in front of an actual federal judge. So what's starting to happen is judges are starting to stake their claims on how how they feel about this thing. And I'm just giving you the overview here. But the reason I'm extra concerned, of course, is because of the birthright citizenship injunction issue that we've talked about a couple of weeks ago. Because what is going to happen is we're going to end up, I'm certain at this point, because we can't have a universal injunction.

0:09:12 Matt: We can't it apply to everybody who's in custody that this might apply to. And also because there's so many different kinds of potential class members, I don't think it's gonna be possible to form a proper class out of this. It's gonna to be very difficult. There's so much different possible legal situations.

0:09:22 Thomas: Boy, Matt, it's almost like they've step-by-step undermined all the protections for a certain group of people in a real premeditated way. And we've covered every step of the way and yet still it's shocking and it should be shocking.

0:09:27 Matt: Yeah. And here we are. And what's going to happen, I'm going to predict now, is the Fifth Circuit is going to find this is fine, and the Supreme Court will let it stand. And even if the First Circuit here in New England correctly finds that, as it already has, I mean, the District Court of Massachusetts actually looked at this argument already in the last couple of days and decided that it was not an appropriate argument and granted habeas relief on it, pretty much. Yeah, so let's get into the argument.

0:09:51 Thomas: The argument being just, we said so, right? Like, what do you mean by the argument? Like just, yeah. Well,

0:09:56 Matt: Let me tell you a few things, because I want to do some legal explaining now that I've given you the top line about why it matters, because I think if I didn't tell everybody why it matters, they might really really start to lose it.

0:10:03 Thomas: Actually let me, let's finish the why it matters. So that would mean everybody, How is that even practical? Because it sounds like that would mean just everybody they pick up is detained with no bail. Is that what you're saying?

0:10:05 Matt: And up to now, that would be very hard to do because we have about 56,000 beds right now. But of course, Congress just opened up the money spigot. And most of those new facilities are going to be built in the Fifth Circuit, which is, I think, going to easily uphold this. So you're going to have people that are held in a jurisdiction where the law doesn't matter and doesn't apply. And in Florida, I'm sure the Federal Circuit will uphold it too, very likely. They're counting on it, certainly. So that's what the consequence of this is going to being.

0:10:38 Thomas: This is really scary.

0:10:40 Matt: It is. It's very scary because these are people that would have previously... I mean, just to give you the idea. The client that I was going in for, he has a three -month -old daughter. He has a U .S. citizen fiance. He's got everything to stay here. And he can't get out on bond because an immigration judge decided to go along with something they made up literally last week. And one way I know they made it up last week is because I started going back and looking to see what our enemies on the other side of these issues have been saying. I haven't seen anybody even try to make this argument. Samuel Alito had a chance to make this argument, didn't make it. But let's back up here and I'll just explain a couple of things about how we got here. So you'd think, first of all, that the question of whether someone has actually entered the United States is a question and you could just settle by GPS, right?

0:11:15 Thomas: Sure.

0:11:15 Matt: Like, where are you right now? Did you enter the United States? But there was a big overhaul in immigration law in 1997, which eliminated what was called the entry doctrine, which was basically trying to figure out if you've entered to the point where you can be in deportation proceedings versus exclusion proceedings, we're trying to keep you out. And deportation procedures give you more rights and you have the ability to raise more claims. So they combined what used to be exclusion proceedings and deportation proceedings into what's now called removal proceedings. And I've tried to explain this before, but I don't like the word removal. I think it's very abstract. I like to continue with the word deportation, even though hardcore immigration nerds will tell you, obviously, deportation proceedings haven't been a thing since 1997, which is true.

0:11:49 Thomas: Interesting.

0:11:50 Matt: But I think that removal just doesn't sound like something you do to people, and deportation does. It's just an act of violence. So as it is, there's this concept that goes way back that's called the arriving alien or arriving non -citizen, if you want to be a little better about it. And that is somebody who's coming to a port of entry and seeking admission. So you're trying to come in in the United States through a port of entry. And if you're admitted that way as an arriving alien, the immigration judge does not have jurisdiction over your custody. So I'm just trying to keep this as quick as possible. But if you came in on the parole process we've been talking about that Biden authorized for a lot of people or other humanitarian programs, if you come in on a certain other statuses, other ways, if your admitted and inspected that way, you're an arriving alien. And that means that only ICE can decide what to do with you once you're in custody. An immigration judge can't review it. It's been generally accepted. I mean, it's the law, I should say, that arriving aliens are also applicants for admission, right? You're coming in and trying to seek admission to the United States. Admission is a very technical word. Here's where it gets really confusing because if you enter the US without inspection, if you come across the border, you're considered to be an applicant for admission because obviously you're trying to get in. You just didn't ask anybody, but they're not arriving aliens because they're not being processed through a port of entry. So you can have basically a non -citizen who, Because it's broader. The category of applicants for admission is broader than arriving aliens. You can have people who are applicants for permission who aren't arriving aliens, so what that amounts to is you have people that entered without permission who are still able to get bond review, and

0:12:52 Thomas: Trying to get in. Okay.

0:13:17 Matt: This is what matters so much because if you are denied bond, you're going to be held in hellish conditions in the kinds of places we've been seeing, and you're gonna be much less likely to try to fight your case, and so this is what they want. They want to drive people into accepting voluntary departure or deportation orders and get them out as quickly as possible. This is a key part of Trump's mass deportation plans.

0:13:36 Thomas: All right. Yeah. Are you able to give us like the average person that you're talking about in each of these? Because you've got a couple of categories. You've got like people. So I think just to, again, keep it short and simple for everybody, because I know you're trying to give us a lot. The typical person who crossed the border illegally, they're the applicants, but not arriving aliens. And so in the times past, the arriving aliens, it sounds like it's quote unquote sort of like the right way, or I know that's probably not right because there's also other things going on. But like, I guess the thinking is since they've come in through official channels, they have like a bit more process is that what it is they have more rights okay and

0:14:10 Matt: It's a little strange, but because they were processed in through the system, the same system has to review them. But if they were not, then the immigration judge can review them is kind of how it comes out.

0:14:18 Thomas: The thinking being like if it was every time ice caught someone who's just jumped over the border or something if they would every single one of them had to be reviewed by that whole process that's obviously impractical they wanted to be able to just process them and so that's when you said ice is just kind of in charge of those people okay

0:14:33 Matt: But you get an extra level of due process when you're in deportation proceedings, when you're trying to be removed, right? And that's how it should be. And typically, if you're asking that, like an arriving alien, a good example is somebody who walks up to the border and seeks asylum. So that person is not crossing the border. They're walking up to a port of entry and they're being processed in so they can have asylum proceedings or someone who's been paroled in through the humanitarian programs that Trump has just ended. A lot of people in that position right now. So Matter of Q. Lee was a Board of Immigration Appeals case. Now, remember, the Board of immigration appeals is also part of the immigration court. So it's not an actual court. It's an administrative review board. And they came out with a case a couple of months ago called Matter of Qi Li. Li is a Chinese name, I believe. And it is incredibly complicated, but it basically carved out a new category of people that we weren't really sure about where they stood in this sort of spectrum. And It said that these people, if they were caught after entry, even if they'd been released in a certain way, can't

0:14:37 Thomas: Okay okay hmm okay

0:15:24 Matt: Be reviewed for bond. Now we're seeing this completely new approach. So I'm going to try to explain, there's two statutes that are in play here. And one is 8 U.S.C. 1226A. And 1226 has to do with when you're caught in a warrant, the administrative trade of warrants that we've been talking about. And that's mostly what ICE does is goes out with a list of people and they're trying to find them. Or if they catch you in the spot, they write up a warrant and that they serve it on you. And it's a warrant that they believe that you're here unlawfully and they'RE going to send you an immigration judge. So the really important thing here is that under 1226, an alien may be arrested and detained. So that's discretionary. It's very important. The government may continue to detain you and they may release you. There's three mays in this statute.

0:16:00 Matt: I'd say that's very important. So they can release you either on bond or conditional parole on their own initiative. And they hardly ever do that. So generally, Generally, the position has always been, let the judge decide. We'll take you in, and you can be detained, but you have the right to a hearing. You don't have an absolute right to bond, but we have a right to be heard, and the judge can decide.

0:16:14 Thomas: And sorry which people are these that they're taking just anybody they get anywhere that they inside the U.S. okay

0:16:18 Matt: Inside the US, these are internals. So these are the people in deportation proceedings, the ones I'm most concerned with when we're talking about here.

0:16:24 Thomas: The ones they're trying to sweep up in the in the raids right now

0:16:27 Matt: Yeah, yeah, right. And the ones that are trying to streamline these deportations. And so in these cases, the judge has the right to take a look and see, first of all, is this person dangerous? Do they have a record that suggests dangerousness? And are they going to return to court? Can they be counted on to show typical questions for bond. And so more often than not, we win our bond cases. Very proud of that. We do a lot of detained work and a lot of people don't. And I think it's a really important part of our practice. At least it was until Tuesday. We'll see what happens. So the other statute that's in play here is 1225B2. And that's about aliens who are applicants for admission if they're not clearly and beyond a reasonable doubt entitled to be admitted and they shall be detained. Now, this isn't a specific circumstance. This is people who are subject to expedited removal, removal. People were caught at the border, typically. And ICE is arguing that this applies to certain people seeking admission. They're now saying that anybody they find in the country at any time is an applicant for admission, which means they have to be detained. I'm trying to be as general as possible. I know this is confusing, but let me give you an example of one

0:17:24 Matt: Reason why I know for sure that this is wrong.

0:17:24 Thomas: Let me stop because I might have misunderstood I thought when we talked about those two groups of different folks I thought both of them were applicants for admission but one wasn't

0:17:31 Matt: So yes, technically, this is where it gets really messy. Technically, anybody who's crossed the border or come in any other way could be viewed as an applicant for admission. But the question is whether you treat them under 1226, which is the discretionary thing where you allow a judge to review them, or whether you treat them as mandatory because they're subject to 1225, which was for the people who came here more recently. Now, arguably, I could see this. This has never been decided. But I could see in my read of the statute how this could apply to anybody who could be subject to expedited removal, which we've talked about before, people who have been here for less than two years. So that's not a lot of the people I'm working with, but that is a lot of people. So we might have to lose on that point. It might be that anybody who's been in here for less than two years, even if they haven't been charged under expedited removal, even if there are in removal proceedings under INA 240, may actually still be subject to mandatory detention. That's an open question. Matter of QLE, again, may come into play there.

0:18:28 Matt: And I'm really trying to keep this top line. But I also just want to give people a taste of what we have to deal with all day. Because the minutiae of this, and all of the different possible fact patterns and all the weird ways that people can end up being processed, there's so many different ways you can be released. It is so far from black and white. But I want to tell you in a very simple way that I think will make sense to anybody about why I'm sure that this argument is wrong. And that's because Congress never intended to write this in a way that anybody who ever crossed the border has to be detained without bond. I just know that. And the reason I know that is because, unfortunately, as I've complained about several times on this very program, back in January, they handed Trump this enormous gift of the Lake and Riley Act.

0:19:06 Matt: And that was the last time that but they amended 8 U .S .C. 1226. So as recently as five months ago, they passed this bill, which as I've complained about before, Democrats could have stopped and did not have the backbone to do. And that expanded, vastly expanded categories of mandatory detention. Mandatory detention typically has been for people with serious records, but they expanded it to people with minor theft offenses, and not just minor theft offences, but minor theft arrests. That was a completely new territory, not just convictions, but anybody who'd ever been charged arrested. So you could give small town sheriffs this enormous gift of allowing them to create mandatory detainees by just charging people with bullshit shoplifting offenses or whatever.

0:19:43 Matt: Bad. But the reason I'm looking at the Lake and Riley Act right now, and the reason that I know that Congress never intended for people who are simply here without permission to be treated this way, is because in January, when Congress had the chance to write the worst possible law, they still wrote this in a way that said to qualify for this mandatory detention, you have to both be inadmissible under 212 .6a, which is basically people who were here without permission, who entered without permission, and you have to have been charged with or convicted of one of these offenses. So they're saying that just being here, having crossed the border in itself is not enough. They're creating this category of people that are now mandatory, recognizing. So this would be superfluous, right?

0:19:41 Thomas: All right wow yeah

0:20:22 Matt: This would be, if they just added this for no reason, you know, that this is not how the law is supposed to be.

0:20:24 Thomas: Like a law they just wrote like five seconds ago wouldn't make any sense usually you don't that's one of of those like tenets of jurisprudence where it's like you're not going to go for an interpretation that renders a bunch of the law meaningless like that would be a less favorable

0:20:36 Matt: Exactly. Is that the law of parsimony? Let me just actually double check. Might be the one. We're reading as carefully as possible. That's just the general idea that you should read things is the one that makes the most sense with the fewest assumptions.

0:20:39 Thomas: Interpretation parsimony uh parsimoney yeah yeah I don't think that's it but

0:20:48 Matt: I think that's probably true. But basically, this would swallow what they're arguing, would swallow the entire concept of this differentiation. I should say, we don't have this memo. It is secret. We have to guess what's in it. It has an internal memo. I actually personally wrote to Maria Sechetti and asked if I could have it because I've known her for a while. And she very politely said she was not able to give it to me. And I appreciate that. She's a good reporter. She is trying to do what she has to do. But every news source has looked at it, but nobody's been able to release it. So we're just making some guesses.

0:21:13 Thomas: You can't? I assume it's being FOIA'd or can it not be

0:21:16 Matt: I'm sure somebody's working on it.

0:21:17 Thomas: FOIAed or what just takes

0:21:18 Matt: But it is, it's internal internal communications in the lawyer's offices and ICE. But one way we know what's in it, besides the weird garbled nonsense that I got on the record on Tuesday, is that Kelly Zimmerhansel in our office, one of our great attorneys, got a response today, got an notice basically letting the court know that they were going to be applying this argument in one of her bond cases. So we actually do have something in writing which spells out what they think it means. And they note this Jennings case that Alito wrote in 2018. And the best they can do is say the Supreme Court suggested suggested that INA 235B applies to all applicants for admission. Suggested. So we're working with a suggestion.

0:21:47 Thomas: Time. It's not usually what they do yeah wow you track down what it is? It's Alito.

0:21:52 Matt: We're going to detain millions of people because Alito suggested something. Sure. And it's not. So the other thing is that Alito, in a different section in that decision, without comment, talks about 1226, which I still believe applies here, and says that 1226 generally governs the process of arresting and detaining that group of aliens, the people who are already here, pending their removal.

0:22:11 Matt: He just says that without comment. Along with Alito—who I trust to come up with the worst possible version of anything—we've also got Andrew Arthur, who is the former immigration judge who works with the Center for Immigration Studies, which is, I probably mentioned before, one of our great arch enemies, just an openly racist anti -immigrant group. It's classified as a hate group, but it's at the Poverty Law Center. Andrew Arthur testifies before Congress all the time, and he provided written testimony in May, in which I went back and looked to see, because I thought they must have previewed this somewhere, like somebody's sitting around cooking up this argument, right? Did not give any indication in that testimony that he believed anything other than what I just read you from Alita, that people already inside the country have the right to bond hearings and that it is discretionary and that we don't treat all people who cross the border as applicants for admission who would be denied bond hearings under INA 235. And again, I know I'm going quick here, but I just want you to know I know what I'm talking about and I'm angry about it. And this is going to play out in ways that I still am working through in my mind.

0:23:04 Thomas: Gotta make sure I followed you so So one of the attorneys that works in your law firm got a memo that this argument was going to be applied. And they're a totally different thing from what you were talking about at the start from your client that you had, right?

0:23:06 Matt: It's along those lines, but that attorney barely spelled it out.

0:23:18 Thomas: And so you got a little more info there. So you still don't know what the whole like memo is, but you got enough to say it's about something that was suggested in this Supreme Court case.

0:23:27 Matt: So that's part of it.

0:23:27 Thomas: But then everything you just told me seemed like it was not that at all. So did you, did I miss it or did you track down what they're actually talking about?

0:23:32 Matt: So it's the difference between whether, and I know this is gonna sound so technical, but it's a difference between whether 8 U .S .C. 1225 applies to people who are here and have been arrested well after entry or 8 U。S. C. 1226, right?

0:23:47 Thomas: Yeah, that part I get it. So that's the part where, okay, just to make sure we're all on the same page. That's the part that gives this extra bit of process to people who have been here a little longer and didn't just hop over a borderline. Now, what part of that case are they saying? Because normally when you cite the Supreme Court, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not the lawyer. Normally you say this case held that this, but you're saying they're like, well, it was suggested.

0:24:16 Matt: So Alito does talk about section 235B and talks about it as a catch -all provision. And that basically it applies to anybody not subject to INA 235 section, whatever, whatever. I'm trying not to get too detail on the sections here. But that is a complete misuse of that part of that case. It's not the holding of the case. And Jennings has to do with a whole other category of people that are being released and not eligible for bond and whether they deserve bond hearings. You should get them. And the thing is, they're kludging together this suggestion from a Supreme Court case from 2018, along with matter of Cooley, which just came out. And I'll read you the holding in matter of Cooley is that an applicant for admission who was arrested and detained without a warrant while arriving in the United States, whether or not at a port of entry, and subsequently placed in removal proceedings, is detained under Section 235B. So they said clearly, that's 1225, that somebody who is in the process of arriving. So, they're going to stretch this argument to say that somebody has been here for decades is still arriving in United States.

0:25:15 Matt: I guess. Yeah. Because they haven't been admitted. They're still seeking admission. They are still hoping for admission, right? They're just hanging out here. It's a pretty broad read. I will put it that way. That's being polite.

0:25:24 Thomas: And Just to clarify is the problem not with q lee but with the way they're trying to use it because I what would you have said forget everything else going on would you said that q lee was like a really bad result or

0:25:31 Matt: Keeley is a very bad result, but I can't argue with it as much. So it is a fair read. And again, we have all kinds of ways of distinguishing our cases from the situation in Keele, which is weird and specific. But it is, you know, a pretty straightforward read of if you're in 235 removal proceedings before you're put in removal proceedings, which are the expedited removal when they process you in a certain way. And there's also the question of whether or not you're arrested with a warrant. And most of the people being arrested in the interior of the United States are issued a warrant at some point. So that invokes 1226 or 236.

0:25:37 Thomas: Okay so which part of

0:26:06 Matt: And so I know, I really am trying. I know it's a mess.

0:26:05 Thomas: That okay yeah no no I'm just trying to make sure I'm

0:26:11 Matt: And that's part of it too, is I don't know that a lot of attorneys and judges are taking the time to really parse this out and think it through. Because I think that in Stephen Miller's mind, who is not a lawyer, of course, QLE is something that they could just stretch into oblivion. That it's just, okay, well, we've just had a finding that anybody arrested, whether or not a port of entry and subsequently placed in removal proceedings is now subject to mandatory detention. That's not what it says. And I will note, too, that this thing that Kelly received, this response in her case, they styled it not as a motion to have the judge find this. They styled the title I've got in front of me here, Department of Homeland Security's Notice of the Respondent's Ineligibility for Bond. Yeah, that's so bold. And that's part of the coverage of this that's been bothering me, too, is that the coverage is saying that ICE has just decided that these people are now going to be held this way. But I'm sorry, they have to go in front of a judge. The judge has to decide that. So you can't just give the judge notice. Right.

0:26:47 Thomas: Following wow

0:27:06 Matt: That's an argument, not a notice. You can give the Judge Notice you intend to argue that. I actually, I had some fun with this because there's a settlement in Massachusetts that requires a certain category of people married to U .S. citizens to not be detained or put in proceedings. So I've been issuing my clients a notice of ineligibility for ICE arrest. And I highlight that.

0:27:03 Thomas: Yeah they're arguing

0:27:26 Matt: AndI just think that's funny to have them hand that to the ICE officer of like, well, my lawyer has a notice for you. I mean, because it's true. I mean, the settlement applies to them, but why not give it back to them? But my thing is clear because they clearly meet the terms of the settlement.

0:27:30 Thomas: That yeah yeah yeah

0:27:39 Matt: This thing is totally unsettled. So the origin of this was there's some immigration judges in Tacoma recently that got into their heads that this was an interpretation they could run with. And Tacoma has a big detention center.

0:27:49 Matt: Yeah, it's huge. And I went to Pacific Lutheran University, actually. So shout out Tacoma, underserved and underappreciated city. But this thing was overruled in habeas by a district court in Washington. This argument was shot down. It was shot done recently, as I said, in Massachusetts. But I don't think it's going to matter that places like Washington and Massachusetts correctly apply the law if Texas and Louisiana and Florida don't.

0:28:10 Matt: The district court's there. And we're not talking state law, this is just the federal district courts. It's who gets to look at it.

0:28:09 Thomas: Random yeah and once again you You already said it, but we're not getting an injunction. Those apparently don't exist anymore. So, I mean, if there's a circuit that just wants to do really, really awful things to people and the people within who have the power within states of that circuit want to do that, well, they've created an entire system, like step by step, really like an amazing number of steps to what seems like a really premeditated way to make it so like that could just be a lawless zone of hell for a certain group of people. I mean am I exaggerating? That's kind of what sounds like you're telling me. Everybody can be picked up no bond now does this do anything regarding like picking up the wrong people not that it makes much difference morally but like another level of worry is well that person looks illegal and then them getting swept up in something that where they have no process that's truly like that's happened it seems like but does this say anything about that does this make that more probable or easier for the fascists to do

0:29:03 Matt: Oh, absolutely. Because you're going to have to be stuck there. I mean, if they just picked you or me up, like, I mean obviously we could have somebody drop off our birth certificate, right? I could find it eventually. I know we're somewhere in my closet, but you'd be held during that time while they figure out that, you know, you can, if they want, if have, if can just issue their own little administrative warrant. Yeah?

0:29:16 Thomas: Because they get to assume you've come in illegally essentially. And then because of all this, you're saying you can't get bond. Wow.

0:29:29 Matt: Right. Yeah. If you can't prove how you came in.

0:29:32 Thomas: But it can't be that bad to just sit in an immigration detention facility, right?

0:29:35 Matt: Sure.

0:29:35 Thomas: That can't be bad.

0:29:36 Matt: Surely there's an Xbox or something. Yeah I heard it's like summer camp. Yeah no. And we've seen the pictures from these facility that I don't even and I think its official name is actually Alligator Alcatraz now.

0:29:45 Thomas: Dear God.

0:29:46 Matt: I don't want to call it that, but that's literal cages. Let me just actually double check that while I'm talking. Yeah.

0:29:52 Thomas: It's actually big, beautiful alligator Alcatraz.

0:29:54 Matt: No, that is the actual official name of the facility in Florida in the swamp. I mean, we are just, this is all happening. This is happening. And I'm sure you've seen the pictures. It's actual bunk beds and cages, barely air conditioned, surrounded by alligator and python infested waters. That's what we're dealing with.

0:30:11 Thomas: I don't even understand. This is not here nor there. I get it. Are escapes from immigration detention a big thing? Like not for nothing. Is that a big problem?

0:30:21 Matt: Not hardly. No. Every so often.

0:30:23 Thomas: Like it's already bad enough that we're going to detain everybody. And that's the horrible stuff. But like this attitude, they're like, oh, oh yeah, but we need alligators and a moat. Are they getting out? I don't understand. What are you talking about?

0:30:33 Matt: Right.

0:30:33 Thomas: What's wrong with the normal terrible facilities that are already awful? The level of just childish, fascist, evil bullshit thinking that goes into this. It's just like, it's something to behold. It's truly something.

0:30:35 Matt: Yeah, it really is. No, and it's the way they're talking. I mean, the t-shirts, the alligator Alcatraz t-shirts, right? The Republican Party of Florida is selling that you can just buy. Anybody who would wear a t -shirt like that, honestly, that's who belongs in a cage. I mean, to be honest, if you think that's appropriate.

0:30:57 Thomas: Yeah, just to clarify the thing that I'm hung up on now that I feel like I haven't heard anybody say really, but I don't listen to a lot of stuff because I can't, you know, I want to keep my mind pure of the cable news bullshit, even from their perspective, Even from and I guess I won't say there isn't like the most fascist evil, whatever, because what, you know, screw them, whatever.

0:31:17 Thomas: But like even from the hypothetical steel man of, well, we got to have laws. They have to set up that binary. Do we have laws or not? Do we Have a border or do we not? Because that Oh, wow, you've got what a what an argument you've you're right, we have a border. So therefore fascism, I didn't even think of that. But But like set that aside, the steel man argument of like, yeah, well, they need these facilities. They're overworked. They need more beds. They need More whatever. That's one thing I disagree with it. And I worry about how many more people are going to be detained under the thing you're talking about and all that. But when you talk about this alligator Alcatraz bullshit and we talk about like the moats and the whatever and the swan, like all that crap, that is just terrorism because there is like, again, if there was some big headline that we all saw a year ago that was like, Like, well, there's one detention facility where all the immigrants rose up and they took over and then they escaped and they got out and then they killed a whole city or something. You know, like if there's some story of like they're getting out, they're escaping.

0:32:12 Thomas: There's none of that. So literally all this talk about the security and the alligator Alcatraz and the bed and all that, we need more, you know, harsher and harser treatment. It literally isn't even just for the already fascist enough idea that we need to get a bunch of people out of the country. Like that's already something I disagree with. I want to make very clear that we need to get all these people and you round them up get them up even if you agreed with that this whole bullshit about alligator alcatraz and all the energy behind that is purely terrorism and theater designed to emotionally abuse an already vulnerable group of people that you're trying to kick out of the country

0:32:46 Matt: Yes. In just the same way that Kristi Noem going down there and standing in front of the Seacott, in front of those guys, right? Behind bars in these horrible conditions in El Salvador. Same thing, right? This is where you're going to go. She says that directly. This is what we're going to send you. Trump touring the facility. I just got to call it something else. But yeah, this is the system that we're gonna be increasing by 364%, $45 billion that Trump has just signed off on in the bill on July 4th.

0:33:09 Thomas: And what's amazing is their evil almost gets in the way of their evil if I were someone who believed this crap I'd be like well don't waste your time building something in a swamp build something where there's like endless room so you can just make a zillion beds because sounds like that's what they need

0:33:22 Matt: Right. Yeah. No, and Texas is working on that too. Big tracks Tracks of land there. Yeah. Oh, sure. Well, like sending people to Guantanamo, right? We were talking about that months ago about how expensive that was.

0:33:26 Thomas: Right sure I guess they're doing both but like just just going to show how truly divorced from anything resembling a good faith argument this is it's just evil core

0:33:40 Matt: Just like completely over the top expensive that wasn't. They still do it occasionally, but they have not done it the way we were concerned that they're going to do it. But no, I mean, these people, there are some big winners out of all of this though. And I want to play a clip of one of them so you can really appreciate the evil that is at work here. Just to set this up, this is Damon Hininger, the CEO of of course, Civic, which is one of the big private detention companies. Yeah. Yeah.

0:34:02 Thomas: Civic is that that shouldn't be allowed I almost said that before when you said like the immigration research council or whatever they said we need in the project 2029 add it to the list whoever's keeping track of project 20 29 the government bureau of you have to have an appropriate name for your evil.

0:34:05 Matt: No, it's terrible. Right, right. Yeah.

0:34:18 Thomas: There's no more, well, the child research. No, you're the anti -vax pieces of shit that are trying to kill kids. That's your name now. Sorry. That's, I don't, I, we, I was going to say, I Don't Make the Rules, but yes, we now make the rules. That is your name. And then for this, yeah, the pro polio love. Exactly. Yeah. And so Corsific, what is their actual, what should their actual name be in Project 2029, Matt? Who are are these people yeah

0:34:30 Matt: Yeah. You're the polio lobby. That's who you are. Big polio. Yeah.

0:34:45 Matt: Hell Incorporated? I don't know. I mean, this is,

0:34:46 Thomas: What do they do though this is core civic how would you know from their name do they teach people civics lessons I don't

0:34:49 Matt: Yeah, I doubt it. They're just a private prison company. That is what they do. Yeah, big industry in America.

0:34:54 Thomas: Like private prison okay just want to make sure that that got through on the recording that's all

0:34:59 Matt: So, let's hear Damon. This this is a sales call from February, but it really is apropos here.

0:35:04 Thomas: Sales call from a private prison kind of

0:35:07 Clip: Let me start with this. I've worked at CoreCivic for 32 years, and this is truly one of the most exciting periods in my career with the company. Upon inauguration, President Donald Trump issued nine executive actions intended to secure the borders of the United States and remove illegal immigrants. We believe CoreCivic is exceptionally well-positioned operationally and financially to meet what we expect to be a sharp acceleration demand from

0:35:15 Thomas: Okay jesus fucking christ well they sound like a fantastic investment for my portfolio I'm gonna buy a hundred shares the darkness that this belongs in like american psycho or something thing.

0:35:35 Matt: You know, it gets worse.

0:35:43 Clip: Our partners, particularly our key federal partners, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and the United States Marshal Service. We're anticipating significant growth opportunities, perhaps the most significant growth in our company's history over the next several years.

0:36:01 Matt: I mean, fascism is a boom industry. It's very good for business. And the CEO of GeoGroup is the other big one in America, the other thing.

0:36:08 Thomas: Oh, GeoGroup, do they do mapping surveys?

0:36:09 Matt: Yeah, no, no. Just more private prisons. And just for context, the Geo Group stock on the day of Donald Trump's first inauguration, I think was more than 150 % jump. And I think they're doing better now. But he said in a piece I found recently that I couldn't be more impressed with ICE right now. It has become laser -focused, and we're obviously very excited to support the mission that's at hand.

0:36:30 Thomas: I'd love to thank them, but I can't see any of their faces, but you know, I'm sure that whoever they are doing a great job.

0:36:36 Matt: These masked men. J.

0:36:36 Thomas: Nameless heroes.

0:36:37 Matt: David Donahue of GEO and Damon Hininger, once again, of Core Civic. Those are our villains of the day here. Can't do it without them. Can'T detain all these people. We're talking about right now, as we speak, there's about 56 ,000 people in ICE custody. By the time that the congressional funding is all done, we're going to be getting up to 125 ,000 and probably more. That's what they're working with. So that's why they're so excited. That is why these guys just can't wait to get to the bank.

0:37:01 Thomas: I better call my broker.

0:37:02 Matt: Also, yeah, anybody listening, if you want to check your portfolios and check the various places you might have your money and make sure it's not going to this horrible American industry. But I do want to note in the bill, which we haven't talked about that much, I'm sure I'm going to be touching on it back and forth here, but it didn't really increase the immigration court budget, which concerned me at the time because it really got me thinking they're going to find ways to do way more arrests, way more detentions, and not send as many people to court. And that's what we're doing here, because they're going to force people. Because again, bond proceedings are just a review of your custody, but mostly immigration court exists for what's called removal proceedings, where you actually review somebody's case. And I already saw it even just in the session I was in on Tuesday, where all these people were taking voluntary departure.

0:37:04 Thomas: Earnings call of, yeah, sorry. It's so dark. Yeah.

0:37:40 Matt: The judge was trying to push them into voluntary departure, what they call the privilege of voluntary departure right there. You get to pay for your own ticket. That's the privilege that you get. That is what a lot of people are going to be fighting for now, is just the chance to leave without a deportation. That s the best you re going to able to do, because it's bleak. I'm not going to say it's not.

0:37:53 Thomas: Well, Matt, do we have a border or do we not though, is the thing. Do we have laws or do we not? I've just made a really good argument.

0:37:56 Matt: Well, it was or whatever ICE now says they are. So that's where we're at. And again, I'm naive. I knew all this. I wasn't prepared for some of this, but just seeing it slap you in the face, honestly.

0:38:11 Thomas: Now, anybody out there who feels the urge to say, what did you think was going to happen? Did you just shut the up and go do something useful? That's not useful. It's not useful. What did you think? Well, what did you expect? Yeah, we all expected this. That's helpful. That actually is worse. I made the point before. All that does is normalize what's happening every time because we actually need the shock. We need the people to be like, holy shit, what is this?

0:38:23 Matt: Yeah,

0:38:36 Thomas: I, a naive idiot, had no idea this was going to happen. Like we actually need that energy because that helps.

0:38:33 Matt: That's right. That's right, yes.

0:38:42 Thomas: What doesn't help is yeah, no, totally was going gonna happen always knew it and

0:38:45 Matt: And I think there has to be value in me, frankly, a very experienced deportation defense attorney who's been through four presidents now, I guess, maybe five, I don't know, way too many many administrations since 2006 coming in and telling you, this is insane. I've never seen anything like it. And even if we expect it, because I knew in theory, they're going to find ways to keep people from all of their rights in these proceedings, right? But it's just seeing it play out and having to watch it happen and having a whole docket full of people suffer and having to tell my client that this bond that we've been preparing for for weeks, I can't even do it because in 30 seconds, the immigration judge just arbitrarily decides to go along with something the government just made up last week.

0:39:20 Thomas: So that's what happened by the way in your case you're saying that the judge was just like yep I've seen enough and there's no you have no recourse like you can't what do you

0:39:21 Matt: That's what happened. Yep. I mean, I'm appealing it, but the appeal would take months. I'm filing an appeal to make sure we file the appeal because it doesn't cost anything. Yep. Right.

0:39:37 Thomas: Right oh and the whole point is keeping someone from being detained in the immediate time and so if an appeal takes months and months what do we even they've won then

0:39:40 Matt: I mean, unless you really are absolutely terrified to return to your home country and know you're going to be killed when you go back.

0:39:44 Thomas: Okay this is why I'm extremely worried about all parts of it but yet another step the pick up anyone you want call them in quote illegal and then do this to them and then well you can't there's no bond. That's just, we've said it. I said, there's no bond, so there's a bond. Good luck appealing for months.

0:40:02 Matt: That's it. And the judges asked for written findings. The judge sent, I mean this is a joke. This is a bad joke. The decision I got was bond is denied because, and there's a check, you know, and he just wrote mandatory detention.

0:40:12 Thomas: Just wow. What?

0:40:12 Matt: That is it. No provision of law, no case was cited, no regulatory authority, just mandatory detention because I say so.

0:40:18 Thomas: So just to make clear the equivalent in everyday court, you know, it was like, if I'm suing Matt for damages for, uh, we'll say defamation or something. And then he's like, well, what's your argument? I'm like, well, I have this piece of paper that says Matt has to pay me damages. And then judge is like, oh shit.

0:40:34 Matt: Oh, he did a defamation. There you go.

0:40:34 Thomas: Okay. Hey. Yeah. Uh, sorry, Matt, you have to pay damages. Cause he has a thing that says you pay damages? I don't know. And you're like, what? Yeah.

0:40:43 Matt: And the judge issues an order that says defamation, that's it. And that's how you appeal.

0:40:45 Thomas: It just says defamation with no other. Yeah. So that's like the equivalent of what's going on here.

0:40:50 Matt: Right, exactly. Because he knows that I'm going to file an appeal, but my client will be long gone by the time, because he's going to get volunteer departure and get out of here. Also, I mean, obviously ACLU is immediately going to start working on this and we're going to see this play out in all kinds of litigation. I'm sure we'll be following it, but I should also mention the Supreme court on top of everything else, severely limited a few years ago in a case called Nelson v. Priap and a whole other line of cases along with that. The Supreme Court has limited the ability of people in custody to form a class action to seek the review of their custody specifically. So that's already been cut out. So we don't have universal injunctions. We don't have class actions available to people in ICE custody. What else do you have? You just have to do it case by case and circuit by circuit. And we have to try to...

0:41:29 Thomas: And we only have one mat. No, we have more mats, but not enough of them.

0:41:33 Matt: Yeah. And not enough of them in the South, to be honest. There are not that many immigration attorneys in these places. But you can log in as a citizen Listen, I'm going to be talking about this another time, but you can log in as a citizen and watch these proceedings anytime you want to. They're public proceedings. If you want to watch an immigration judge do these things, you can't say anything. And you cannot, I want to be clear about this, record them or put them on YouTube. I'm not telling you to do that. That is a federal crime. But you can watch.

0:41:57 Thomas: Yeah don't do that for real.

0:41:59 Matt: Seriously, don't do that, yes. But yeah, I mean, these are public proceedings and don't watch the ones in Boston. We're doing fine. Go watch what's going on in Texas, Louisiana, and Florida, New Mexico. That's where the real injustice is really happening. So that's my week. This is what I've been thinking about, Thomas. And I just, you know, no, I would try to find a way to tell you if I thought it was going to get better, but I think our whole practice is going to change and how we approach detained cases is going to change. I don't know what to tell people who are in the middle of bond proceedings right now, where we've been working for weeks to put together cases to get them out. It's very hard to get immigration bond to begin with in this environment, but if they just cut the legs off the whole thing, then here we are.

0:42:18 Thomas: No this is bad. Well Matt, we got to take a little break and I think I was promised some sort of like good something. I can't remember. It's hard to remember. That was all of 50 minutes ago when like I had a very different view of the world.

0:42:42 Matt: We'll go out on some good news. Yeah.

0:42:46 Thomas: But yeah, let's take a break and then go out on a better note. This episode is brought to you by Quince. Always love when I can talk to you about Quince because I wear Quince wearing some right now wearing my Quince shorts. Why do I always say I'm wearing my quince shorts? Because I'm always wearing myquince shorts and I'm a straightforward guy that's as simple as that. And Quince has the kind of stuff you'll actually wear on repeat, heat like breathable flow knit polos crisp cotton shirts and comfortable lightweight pants that somehow work for both weekend hangs and dressed up dinners and here's the absolute best part everything with quince is half the cost of similar brands and how is that possible well they cut out the middlemen who likes middlemen I don't think anyone quince sure doesn't because they cut out said middlemen and give you luxury pieces without the markups and quince only works with factories that use safe ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. We're fully in the throes of summer. It's July. And so I'm wearing my Quince shorts more than I, I'll go ahead and own it every day, pretty much every day. But here's the thing. I got a bunch of different pairs of them. So it's not as weird as it sounds. And they've got stuff you'll want to wear every day。 It's so comfy. It lasts. That's my favorite part. Doesn't just disintegrate after going through the washer like some other stuff does that I won't name. And it's affordable. So what's not to like? So stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from From Quince, go to quince .com slash OA for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q -U -I -N -C -E dot com slash OA to get free shipping and 365 -day returns. Quince. Com slash O -A.

0:44:29 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:44:30 Thomas: All right, what you got for us, Mr. Good News?

0:44:32 Matt: Got a couple of things. The other quick story I want to cover, and obviously this bond thing is new, it's breaking, King. It's something only I'm really going to be able to tell you about, so I wanted to make sure we covered that in depth. But I'm going to talk about some judicial heroism in Southern California. We've got Judge, and I really hope I don't butcher this too badly, but Judge Mame Owisi Mensah Frimpong, she is a hero, has issued a temporary restraining order against the government in these general raids that have been going on that we've all been hearing about of Latino population. And I'm sure you've seen the video of the elderly father of three U .S. Marines getting beaten by ICE. Terrible arrest. There have been so many stories like that out of L .A. and the L .E. area since the disturbances that we were talking about a few weeks ago. But ICE has been running rampant in this area. So we've got a 52 -page order, which just in appalling detail takes you through what has been going on in LA right now. I don't have time to talk about it, but just smashing windows, picking people up, beating people up. Threatening them with guns, demanding to see I .D. without providing any reasons for stops, over and over and ever again. I don't know if time to get through all the different accounts, but at the end of the day, this is a very strong injunction that she has issued. She even was catching up with the CASA complete relief language.

0:44:52 Thomas: All right. Jeez. Yeah.

0:45:34 Matt: She actually says she's providing complete relief by and joining the conduct of all law enforcement engaged in immigration enforcement throughout the district. Because remember, of course, we've got every other kind of federal law enforcement also doing immigration enforcement right now. So this injunction, I mean, she's used such clear, simple language. It's got the moral clarity that I love in judges. And she actually says the parties basically agree that it's illegal to conduct roving patrols, which identify people based on race alone, aggressively question them and detain them without a warrant, without their consent, and without reasonable suspicion. She says, yes, it is illegal. She just says, Yes, it is.

0:46:03 Thomas: Didn't know I had to say it.

0:46:04 Matt: Right. One of those things. So she issues a very broad sweeping TRO against all federal law enforcement in the Central District of California. Let me just double check real quick.

0:46:13 Thomas: Was that mine? Probably.

0:46:14 Matt: I should be.

0:46:14 Thomas: Yeah, most likely.

0:46:15 Matt: Central District includes...

0:46:16 Thomas: Unless I'm, like, north. I might be north.

0:46:18 Matt: I'm not so good at California.

0:46:19 Thomas: So much of the population is in the south that the north district might cover a lot of geographic area.

0:46:25 Matt: I'm no good enough at California to know what I'm looking at, but there's nothing on the... Hold on. It's got to be an easier way to do this.

0:46:28 Thomas: Do you see Sacramento? Okay, do you see where San Francisco and the bay are?

0:46:36 Matt: There's no cities on this map. It's just lines.

0:46:37 Thomas: Do you see where the bay is? Like the obvious about the middle of the state? Yeah. Find a real map.

0:46:40 Matt: I should just send it to you. Central district of California, yeah. San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles County, Santa Barbara, Ventura County.

0:46:49 Thomas: Oh, no, that's way south.

0:46:50 Matt: No, the Southern Division. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Central Division. Now, what am I looking at? I'm so sorry. Why am I so bad at California?

0:46:55 Thomas: Just tell me the counties. I don't know. You don't have to be good at anything. Just talk. What's in the northern? Okay.

0:47:00 Matt: I'm just trying to see the... This is a very confusing map. That's all I'm saying. These things are all labeled Central District.

0:47:04 Thomas: Did you go to prankmaps .com slash ruin a podcast.

0:47:10 Matt: And of course, I keep getting maps of Central California, which isn't very helpful.

0:47:10 Thomas: No, that's not it.

0:47:13 Matt: I thought it included LA.

0:47:17 Thomas: For the central or for

0:47:17 Matt: I was assuming from what I'd read. Yeah. Would that make sense?

0:47:20 Thomas: Not really, but again, because of populations being really skewed, maybe you would think that would be south.

0:47:26 Matt: Jurisdiction map. Finally. Oh, this is the same one. It makes no sense.

0:47:30 Thomas: Oh, you finally sent me something. Okay.

0:47:31 Matt: But you have to explain to me where the central is here.

0:47:37 Thomas: Whoa. The Northern. Okay, I'm so glad that we did this because Matt has been victimized by a map. And I think you have a case.

0:47:38 Matt: This is why I'm so confused. See? Yeah.

0:47:48 Thomas: I think this is we could sue over this because I don't know what this map there's a part of it that's all one color that has two different names. It's both the Northern District and Eastern District, but it's one what in the okay.

0:48:04 Matt: I don't know. You would think there'd be...

0:48:06 Thomas: So it's got both districts. What is this map jurisdiction map for this? Oh, no, it says for the Central District. So is this just the Central District? Oh yeah. Okay. So that's what it is. So the thing you pulled up is just the central district. And oh, wow. So Southern District of California geographically is the bottom four and a half feet of the state.

0:48:27 Thomas: And then, so that's all of the South. Then the Central division, which, you know, you'd think of it like the Central, but again, I get it, population centers. Central goes up to about, you know, two feet of California. Like legitimately, geographically, is it maybe 25 %? And you've already covered Southern and Central. So then Eastern and Northern take over the rest of the entire state. It looks like I'm in the Eastern probably because the Eastern is like so big. And then the Northern district label they put in the wrong place. So I think that the Northern District is actually just that coastal one. I'm pretty sure.

0:48:56 Matt: I found a list.

0:49:01 Thomas: Okay. Here we go.

0:49:01 Matt: So I just sent you the list of the counties. And that makes a lot more sense. I've heard of these places.

0:49:04 Thomas: You know what? This actually, this cheers me up. Whatever. This is fun. Oh yeah. That's the Central. So we covered the Central District, but I thought you were trying to see the other ones. Were you just trying to see the Central?

0:49:10 Matt: Just, no, I just want to be sure what was in Central District, but it's just, I wasn't wrong about that. Okay.

0:49:16 Thomas: Oh, okay. Yeah. Los Angeles is Central. San Luis Obispo.

0:49:19 Matt: And Orange and Riverside. Yeah. Well, this has been Matt and Thomas Discover California.

0:49:23 Thomas: Okay, this is really a funny map.

0:49:25 Matt: It's bad.

0:49:25 Thomas: Like I actually it's I'm I'm going to put the map in somewhere, the show notes, because it's really funny. Like, no, it's not at all. Yeah. Do not confuse the Central District with Central California because it is not at all the same.

0:49:31 Matt: You know what it's not a map of? It's Central California. It's labeled as one.

0:49:40 Matt: Yeah. Okay. I'm glad I've been vindicated here. Victor. Vindicated. Yes. I'm fully. A lot of things.

0:49:43 Thomas: You've been vindicated. It's done a number on your brain, but look, Matt's not normally a drinker. It's, you know, it has an effect.

0:49:52 Matt: Anyway. Yeah. It's a really good injunction is my point. And it's the kind of thing we need to see from judges everywhere. It's very clear. The language is good. It guarantees access to counsel because they've been denying that too, of course. And it's written to be as enforceable as possible. So more of this, please, because this stuff really works. This does give us some teeth.

0:50:11 Thomas: All right. Well, because I really wanted us to be focused in on that really important first segment, Matt, I'm going to give us another ad break here to catch us up to our obligations. So we'll take a quick break. I'm gonna look at more maps. And Matt's gonna recover from being victimized. And then we'll talk about the football to get a footnote.

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0:52:08 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:52:08 Thomas: All right. Quick footnote. What do you got for us? Hmm.

0:52:10 Matt: Returning to our theme that fascism requires lawyers, this is some unqualified good news. So two pieces of good news that I wanted to highlight. First is that the division in the Department of Justice, which is responsible for defending Trump administration policies. This is the federal programs branch of the civil division, and it has just been massacred. Again, this is not by the Trump administration, just by people quitting.

0:52:32 Matt: It's about two -thirds of its staff. 69 of 110 lawyers have voluntarily left since November. Think about how many cases right now are pending against Trump policies and the workload they must be under, and how many more are going to have to quit. And these are the most senior people in DOJ. These are really important jobs. And usually this would be a real problem, but for the Trump administration, this has unqualified good news that they're losing this many people that can and defend them in court because these are the people that go to the Supreme Court, the people that go to all the circuits, people that are really supposed to be at the top of the game and justifying this stuff to federal judges who are otherwise going to not have much to work with. So there's seven that just spoke with writers who said that it was just too much, they're working too much. And they felt like they just couldn't defend so many of these policies, including the Department of Education, which we weren't able to get to today, but I'll talk about later what's going on with that. So there is that basic theme that we've been talking about, about who is actually going to do these jobs? Who's going to go into court and actually say this stuff? Because we're still in the stage where federal judges have to review it and can actually say no. And you have to have lawyers that can justify it. So there's that. But there's also this amazing news that I saw yesterday that 21 out of the 25 ICE field offices, which are the headquarters around the country, including ours here in Boston, are seeking new field office directors. If you're looking for a really terrible job,

0:53:41 Thomas: Have a passion for evil?

0:53:43 Matt: That's right.

0:53:44 Thomas: Have we got the job for you?

0:53:45 Matt: You have to be in the senior executive service, like you have to be really high up in the federal government to get these jobs. Nobody wants these jobs. People have left these jobs and it goes to the point that yes, Congress has authorized 10 ,000 more ICE agents, but they still need leadership, right?

0:53:58 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:58 Matt: And I understand that without leadership, you're going to have a lot of chaos as well. But to get any of this stuff done, to have it be efficient, fascism has often been very bad and inefficient. You don't hear enough about that in Italy and Germany, how bad and bad things people were, because there was no good leadership willing to do a lot of the field offices right now, as of now, are empty. They have acting directors, that they need directors.

0:54:21 Matt: Now, we know that Trump loves acting directors obviously. But to run one of these things, you have to have been in ICE a while, which means that they're hurting for senior leadership, which is not a bad thing at all.

0:54:29 Thomas: So this isn't I just want to make absolutely clear. This isn't like get rid of all the Biden people won or something. It's not like that.

0:54:35 Matt: I was trying to find more about why these jobs are empty. I know that here in Boston, ours left voluntarily back before the election. I'm sure plenty of others have left voluntarily that were appointed in different circumstances that didn't want it. But I mean, there have been all kinds of shakeups. We don't have time to talk about it now. I want to talk more about the incredible shakeups at the top of ICE that have happened since February because Stephen Miller keeps yelling at people and keeps making it harder and harder.

0:54:56 Thomas: I don't care how evil you are. There's not a lot of people who would be happy about Stephen Miller yelling at them.

0:55:01 Matt: No, no. And the solution has just been to fire people and promote people that have no business doing it, to move people around all kinds of other places. And morale at ICE has never been lower from what I'm seeing.

0:55:10 Thomas: Good. Keep it going. Keep up the good work, everybody. These people should hate their jobs and their lives.

0:55:15 Matt: These shouldn't be jobs that people should have. And I'm going to tell you right now that the good news out of all of this is I believe that we together can abolish ICE. You can do it right now from your house.

0:55:25 Matt: All you have to do is just make working for Immigration and Customs Enforcement one of the least socially acceptable things you can do in America. That's all you have to deal with. And it's already happening. Public opinion has turned in a way that I am so excited about right now, including a lot of Republicans. But 54 % of Americans right now surveyed think that ICE is going too far now. And you can imagine where things are going. But massive numbers of people are disapproving of immigration enforcement, something like 70 % to 90%, depending on how you ask the questions, including people that would have been fine with it when they elected Trump. And I know this is nuanced, but I really believe that the cultural opinion of ICE, the social opinion, carries a lot more weight than any talk of violence or of any other kind of action against these people that is not going to result in anything productive. I think that the way to do it is together as a community to say there are some jobs that are beyond the pale. You don't represent, I don't know, cigarettes companies, right, to sell more cigarettes in these days. You don'T work for ICE. You know, these are equivalent jobs. You DON'T become a hitman for the mob. Like, that's generally a job that people think is bad. It's got to be on that level. And I think if we continue, I mean, think about the, you have the possibility of accepting accepting one of these field office jobs, because you've been working in the federal government for a few years, you qualify, you're at the senior executive staff level, you're looking at a job that potentially starts at...

0:56:37 Thomas: I saw your post 250 ,000 or so 200, 200 ,000.

0:56:39 Matt: Yeah. And imagine that maybe by taking that job, you know your grandkids will never talk to you again, or that you'll never be invited to a neighborhood barbecue ever again, nor nobody's ever going to swipe right on Tinder on you ever again. It should already be. Oh, no, but I'm saying, if you're coming from another part of government, right? Because if you're already in the senior Executive Service,

0:56:49 Thomas: Well, to be fair, if you're already in ice, it should already be that. So you're ready. That's already your life. So. Oh, OK. I thought you said they had to have the oh, they don't have to have the ice experience. I bet you said that have the ice. OK.

0:57:02 Matt: Yeah, I'm looking at the requirements are basically that you have to be part of the senior development program, executive branch, but they're going to be pulling from as much as they can, right? So, yeah. Only a two -page resume is required at the point of application to run an entire field office. The Boston field office runs all of New England.

0:57:18 Matt: So, uh, yeah, that's something. And, you know, I understand the argument that means that a lot of really terrible, unqualified racist people will get in, but honestly, if they're incompetent and if it becomes known that only horrible racist people work for ICE, then we're getting somewhere.

0:57:30 Thomas: Yeah well. Absolutely. Keep it up. These people should be afraid to show their faces. They are afraid to show their faces. And not because, again, not trying to inspire any violence, just pure unadulterated hatred and shaming. That's what, that's our God -given right as Americans. We're allowed to hate ICE and to say bad things about them. That is what the Constitution we used to have said.

0:57:50 Matt: That's right. And again, I want to be as clear as possible that it's not the position of this program or either of us that means, you know, vandalizing or throwing things at them or doing anything that would reproach violence. We can do this in a peaceful way and actually have these people be exiled for polite society.

0:58:03 Thomas: Absolutely. That's good news. Great footnote.

0:58:06 Matt: I think so.

0:58:06 Thomas: Oh, boy. Get the word out, everyone. This is, I mean, again. I really, I'm knowing you, Matt. People don't understand how like how much different this is than your normal demeanor. And your normal demeanor was already, I think, trying to be too delightful for how horrible things are. Which is good but also, like, that's where we're at now is what I'm saying. Thanks so much for giving us that, I would say pretty exclusive breakdown too, like you say. So you don't think people, the media has caught on to this?

0:58:30 Matt: It's been covered, but it's just like, well, here's a memo and here's the thing they're saying, right? They're not talking about how it plays out because only those of us who've been in immigration court this week have seen that. And, you know, all over Facebook and the groups I've been, I'm seeing people talking about it, comparing notes, trying to figure out what's going on, but you're hearing it from the front lines as I enjoy what I've been doing for you.

0:58:39 Thomas: Yeah, I actually understand it. Yeah. Well, thanks so much for that and I hope you get some sort of rest this weekend or something. And yeah, thanks everyone for listening and sharing the show and supporting. We'll see you on Monday.

0:59:15 Matt: Without commentary. Now, they're trying to cite... Sorry. I worked up.

0:59:21 Thomas: I just heard something. Was that?

0:59:22 Matt: That was my mouth, I think.

0:59:24 Thomas: Oh, I thought I heard like a beep or something. Could have been me. Okay.

0:59:26 Matt: No, I don't think that was my mouth. Okay.

0:59:29 Thomas: You're right. We have a border. So therefore fascism. I didn't even think of that. The government bureau of you have to have an appropriate name for your evil. Yeah.

0:59:38 Matt: Yes, Eastern District confused us greatly before. Now we're...

0:59:41 Thomas: I was aware of the concept of East, but I was like, man, it's funny that no one ever says Eastern California.