We've Only Now Seen a Fascist Ice Memo Kept Secret Since May

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:01 Thomas: Is literally the stormtroopers looking for R2-D2 like door to door and unless you are a Jedi who can mind trick them you're screwed oh

0:00:17 Matt: Know it mentions in the memo that plain sight doctrine will still apply so can't search the house it's not a search warrant it's just you break down the door sometime between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and you can grab somebody if you know that they're in the house and they have a removal order.

0:00:31 Thomas: Hello and welcome to opening arguments. This is episode 1235. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is real life attorney on Epstein Island, Matt Cameron. How are you doing?

0:00:40 Matt: Jason, to Epstein Island. I'm pretty close.

0:00:41 Thomas: One's using it now. Like it's fine. It's right. I mean, yeah.

0:00:44 Matt: That's true. I will admit, I actually googled boat tour Little St. James today, just to see if somebody would take me over there. To get close to the news. And there is actually like a pizza party that's like right off the coast of St. James, because apparently there's like great turtles to look at. It um my conspiracies continue yeah uh having a great time I've slept more than four hours for like three consecutive nights now so I'm feeling awesome um

0:00:57 Thomas: Let me guess. Is it cheese pizza? Cute, huh? Yeah. Of sleep, just for reference for people. They wouldn't otherwise think that.

0:01:10 Matt: That's much sleep I feel great

0:01:15 Thomas: Awesome. Well, let's do a great episode then.

0:01:17 Matt: No this will be a good one and honestly I'm here with good news I'm on vacation I'm in a good time him. A lot of good news to talk about. It's just one of those days where I just feel like we should make sure we cover it.

0:01:26 Thomas: Matt's vacation, good news, good mood is going to apparently transfer to all of us. So I'm excited. What are we going to be talking about today?

0:01:31 Matt: That's right. Well, we got all kinds of good stuff. We have, of course, big update on Ramesa Oster. I'm going to explain what went down there and why her case is looking so good. We've got great news out of Oregon about warrantless arrest by ICE. We have a corollary story about ICE's belief that it can go into your house without a warrant. I'm gonna just rip that apart for you. And I think the first federal judge to get their hands on is going to rip it apart too. We've got the blocking of the termination of temporary protected status for Haiti, which is huge news in my world and extremely good for Haitians in this country and for all of us. Decision from Honoré, as I wanted to talk about. And we've some awesome news about tariffs also, which news to Congress. And that ties into my footnote, which was actually about a very interesting thing I learned while trying to send some pants to Minnesota this morning in the virgin islands so yeah you're not going to get the whole story but uh I'll just tease that one uh but No I've learned some really interesting things about the virgin isles uh one of our many U.S. colonies that we don't really think about very much

0:02:17 Thomas: Send some pants? Jeez. Yeah.

0:02:28 Matt: So I've got some fascinating legal stuff that ties into the tariff uh news from today so

0:02:33 Thomas: I got a question. Does it feel like we should still have colonies? Shouldn't we maybe not? Are there still called that too?

0:02:36 Matt: Great question uh they're territories but we treat them like colonies as I'm going to explain to you at the end here but yeah I love this place honestly said St. Thomas is a great place to hang out um don't do cruises or tours or anything we just kind of show up in places and see what's up and uh this is a really easy place just to show up there's only 50 000 people on the island so it's good times uh yeah what's plenty to talk about yes

0:02:56 Thomas: That's cool. Cool. Right. Well, good news day. Good, -slept Matt. Wow. Time. I'm excited. Didn't catch that news. I mean, I saw some headlines, but mainly I've been distracted by Pam Bondi being an absolute psychopath on the stand. We're not going to talk about it today, but I need to at least mention that she is being an absolutely psycho. I know what words to use just a rabid animal of some kind up if she can score enough roast points then that means she didn't do a pedophile cover-up I think I don't know what I don't KNOW WHAT LIKE GAME SHE'S PLAYING I DON'T KNOW What instructions of what board game name that she's read that she thinks makes this work. But I guess if she gets in enough roasts, then she didn't cover up for pedophile, I guess. I don't know. Is that, Matt, is that part of the law somewhere? Is that written?

0:03:13 Matt: It yeah uh as long as you uh you win you got to win congress it's totally fine actually The only time that I've heard any of this so far was actually the groundskeepers were gathering around and listening to some of it outside here.

0:03:49 Thomas: Have to win. Okay. Are you serious?

0:03:57 Matt: The Virgin Islands are really interested in this story. They all know the guy.

0:03:58 Thomas: Yeah, I bet. I bet I guess it's pretty close to where they are. I guess so what's the win condition though? Does she have to make a senator cry? Maybe that's it. Like the win condition if she makes a senator cry so as long as none of our democratic senators cry I think she's still covered up for a pedophile I think that's how it goes that's state of the law oh it is pathetic it. I'm not trying to say that our country or our institutions were amazing but holy shit they were better than they are now and it like we don't know what you got till it's gone and this is just embarrassment uh that's all I paid attention to but we're not going to cover that we're gonna we have a positive news day uh so I'm excited to get to why don't we take our first break lot of movies is out as promised it is out that was so much fun if you are liking the good times and want the good time to roll on uh fun that was a whole whole lot of fun. Weirdest show we've ever seen. Very, very bizarre. But in a way, I'm not normally like a good, bad, I don't like watching bad stuff for entertainment. This was so bad in such an interesting, weird way that I did, I confess, I did kind of enjoy it. I at least enjoyed doing a lot of awful movies of it. This is Kim Kardashian's Law Show, All's Fair.

0:04:15 Matt: Think there's some kind of body that actually determines whether she's owned Congress or not. So sure do. Oh, yeah. Law show, yeah,

0:05:09 Thomas: Yeah, it's not really a law show.

0:05:09 Matt: Loosely They passed on lots of cool opportunities to actually talk about family law, as we discussed. But,

0:05:15 Thomas: Yeah. And that's what I love about a lot of movies if you haven't signed on before often we make a better movie or a better show you know or we'll talk about like what the law could have been and it could have been could have some cool legal issues in that and so uh it's always a fun time patreon.com/law avoid the ads get the lot awful movies at that two dollar level above all right we'll take our break and then we'll get to it matt good news number one which one do you want to start with are

0:05:40 Matt: I'm gonna start here. Here in what I was going to say was my backyard, but of course my previous backyard last week, Boston, Massachusetts, Ramesa Osterich. We've been following the story pretty closely of the Turkish grad student who was taken by ICE in the street. An arrest I think that probably everybody listening saw at some point. Very scary arrest.

0:05:57 Thomas: One of the first ones right is my memory one of the early ones yeah of

0:06:01 Matt: And around the time of Mahmoud Khalil and based on the same grounds, which I want to be sure to remind everybody just how thin these grounds were. Know, this was just such an injustice, even beyond Mahmoud Khalil, because at least with Mahmood Khalil—and again, I'm both completely unjustified—but, you know, it came out in Discovery, we now know for sure. There was a question at the time, and it doesn't seem like there's anything else, but we know for sure, it's because she co-signed an editorial with a couple of other tough students in her student paper, just taking a pretty standard take on Gaza. Like, it was not an extreme take at all. Was clearly supposed to be something that was going to scare foreign students and make them feel like they didn't have First Amendment rights and they could be picked up any time just for saying things. Just as a reminder, the provision of law that the Trump administration was relying on here for both Ozturk and Khalil, and I think these are the only two. As far as I know, I feel like they'd be publicized if there were more. There might be somebody else we don't know about, but INA 237 A4C, and I would be lying if if I I say said I'd heard of this before. I don't think most immigration lawyers had

0:06:10 Thomas: Course yeah yeah wow

0:06:54 Matt: Because it's just one of those interesting little curios in immigration law that you skip over when you're looking at INA 237, which covers every possible reason that somebody can be deported or be deportable. Just one of those weird little things of like, when are they ever going to use that?

0:07:06 Thomas: Well the answer is when a fascist regime wants to do whatever they've gotten really creative they've gotten creative is

0:07:09 Matt: They sure have. And this is why I have continued to fail on some of this because I'm just not evil enough. I'm creative, but I'm not evil enough to see this stuff coming.

0:07:19 Thomas: Why you're near Epstein Island you're hoping maybe some of the evil like rub off and you'll be able to think think evil thoughts yeah

0:07:22 Matt: That's right. It just absorbs some mana. Let me read out, though, because this is so extraordinary. This is a grounds of deportability. They can put you into immigration proceedings and say that if you're an alien whose presence or activities in the U .S., the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States. So the previous time that this had been published, we talked about it was on Ruiz Masiu, which is a BIA case that went up to the— It actually was reviewed by Donald Trump's sister at the time, Judge Trump -Berry. Circuit appeal didn't really matter. It ended up they had to dismiss it on different grounds. But the BIA appeal, Board of Immigration Appeals, is the only published case on this. And that actually involved the former Attorney General of Mexico. It was extremely corrupt. And branch was arguing in that case that this is somebody that's in our best interests of relations with Mexico to get him back to Mexico and not let him stay here. Actually died before that appeal finished so we never knew what happened there but this provision again that makes sense right that is actually undermining foreign policy to keep somebody like that in this country that

0:08:24 Matt: Mexico would like to deal with um that you know is otherwise wrong to mexico maybe that looks bad but a grad student who just signs on to a first amendment protected editorial um know that's actually uh contemplated in the law law, that is actually a peaceful First Amendment protected speech, you can still deport somebody, but the Secretary of State has to show a much higher standard. On top of anything else, they could say, and again, I don't agree with this, but with Mahmoud Khalil, they could at least say that he was involved in student protests that maybe could have turned violent or that there's something else going on. Proceedings continue, and I'll continue to comment on them, but I don'T think that those should clear it either. But the important The important thing about this section, the reason I'm so excited about this decision, is that 237A4C, under the Board of Immigration Appeals determination previously, they essentially said that as long as the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, just writes a letter saying that this meets the qualifications that we believe it does, there's

0:08:34 Thomas: Ridiculous right right hmm

0:09:15 Matt: Not a lot of grounds for review. We don't have the full immigration judge decision, but I'm proud to say it was out of Boston. There's an immigration judge I appear in front of pretty frequently who I think is very good. Rupal Patel, issued this decision. Now, we don't have a copy of the decision because immigration court decisions are not public. It actually only came out because the litigants updated the Second Circuit where her habeas appeal is still pending. It's a little confusing because she's out of custody, fortunately. But her conditions of release are still being reviewed and still on appeal before the Second Circuit. So they had to update the Second circuit to let them know. And this is going to sound a little strange, but the underlying immigration proceedings have been terminated. She's no longer in deportation proceedings. But government can, and I'm sure will, still appeal, which means, unlike in a criminal case, when something is acquitted, they can still appeal it. They can still take it up and hold you up forever. So they're saying we need to keep the habeas case alive because we expect the government's going to appeal. And I want to talk about that appeal because I'm really excited about this because it's goingto go in front of the First Circuit, my home turf, and they're much better on this stuff than the Fifth Circuit would have been where she was held. This is such a good test case for this because it is the most innocuous possible conduct that you could possibly have, I can imagine, right? Just

0:10:19 Matt: Signing editorial, co -signing editorial, which, I agree with the editorial, but it's nothing unusual. She's not saying very much that I don't think most people who think about this issue, you

0:10:21 Thomas: Being against child murder these days is a fringe position you

0:10:32 Matt: But it was a defense of Gaza, you Know, and the rights of Gazans. And that's certainly something that most people can at least understand is protected speech at this point. I'll say it that way. Is going go to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is now stacked with Trump judges. It's very likely that they will reverse the judge's decision and it'll have to go up to the First circuit. And I think it has a pretty good chance of a very good decision from the First circuite. Know, honestly, if one of these cases has to go to the Supreme Court, it should be this one, because the Supreme court, I think it's going to be very hard for them to say that the secretary of state wasn't completely out of line in doing this.

0:11:00 Matt: Like you have to have limits. You have to Have somewhere where you can say, you can't just write a letter and get somebody deported. Right.

0:11:05 Thomas: Will this put them in the position again where you is gonna have to say like well actually we can do whatever we want you can't review it kind of thing.

0:11:13 Matt: Yeah. Definitely going to go for that. Yeah. Well, also simultaneously arguing they can.

0:11:17 Thomas: Right. It, it hasn't seem to work with this court. So maybe they'd find a different tactic, but maybe, but it seems like that would be the question, right? It have to defend the idea that as long as the secretary of state said it, then it's, that's just what it is and that nobody can challenge it. Right?

0:11:32 Matt: And even the president, Rose Masu, didn't say that it was completely unlimited. Of it. They said there's just a very strong presumption that you're going to have to go with what the executive branch says. Have to be able to show that the Secretary of State made a facially reasonable and bona fide determination. And I just think it's objectively facially unreasonable, especially under that enhanced standard where it's First Amendment protected speech, like where he has to show there's actually a real serious interest and not don't see it, but again, I'm, I're not in the BIA, um, and I'm not in Supreme Court. So we'll see. I'll keep watching this, but great news for the moment for Ms. Osterich and very proud, of course, of my Boston Immigration Court.

0:12:06 Thomas: All well what's uh what's next on our good let's keep the good times rolling matt

0:12:10 Matt: Right. Well, I got two related stories. Uh, one of which is unequivocal good news because now we have three jurisdictions that have made this finding and the other one, which I think is going to be future good news. I will put it that way. It's currently not great news, but it's, I think it's going to to be okay. Jurisdictions now have held that, very recently this week, Oregon have held that immigration agents can't just arrest people on the street without administrative warrants. I've talked before about the administrative warrant and how it's a lot less than a judicial warrant because you can just sign it yourself as an immigration agent. It's not a lot of protection. In this circumstance, the thing that we were just talking about on Wednesday's episode about what made the Minneapolis and Chicago and a lot of the California scenarios different from the way that ICE usually does business is that ICE, believe it or not, has not generally just gone out in the street and looked for non -white people and arrested them. That's not generally how they've done business at all, you know, all this time. It was inevitable. You give them enough people, that's probably where it's going to go. Now if they're doing an arrest with an immigration administrative warrant, we'll talk about this in a second kind of the details of them, but they require at least probable cause from an agent to say, I believe this person is unlawful in the United States. Usually they know that because they've just run some kind of background check or they've got an admission or they have some of the reasons they're looking for them. Other factor in that is that if you believe that somebody has a high risk of flight, you can arrest them without a warrant on the spot, basically, if you think that. But even with a warrant, you're supposed to assess an individualized determination as of if this person could be trusted to come back to court. And of course, we're hearing so many stories of people who have been here a long time. They've got kids, they've got jobs and businesses, they own homes, right? These are people that don't come to court if you tell them to come to court. So they should be doing that. And Washington, D .C. have also issued rulings just like the one that just came out of Oregon. Lyons seems to have caught up finally with at the head of ICE and issued a memo, which as I understand it says that they actually shouldn't do this. Basically, they're going to have to follow the law along the lines of what Oregon has just found. So that's very good news potentially. One of the plaintiffs in this case was a 56 -year -old grandfather who's been here since 1999, has a valid work permit, pending visa, and lived in the U .S. for so long. And this is a classic flight risk determination. ICE should actually have to determine whether or not somebody should be related to come back. Time. They used to catch people and say, you're going to get court notice in the mail, the same way you would for a speeding ticket or anything else. And you can come in and

0:14:23 Thomas: Then they started branding that as catch and release and then the right lost their minds about that right oh

0:14:29 Matt: Yeah. And every administration had done it, but of course they didn't have the detention infrastructure, which they're goingto have much more so pretty soon, unfortunately. So this is very good news for stopping mass detention. It is the right direction. And I think that That every district court, at least all the sane ones, where you can bring the same challenge, would find the same. Law says that there still has to be an individualized determination. You can't just stop people on the street. And again, this is how U .S. citizens are getting pulled in, right? Non -white U .K. citizens. Non -White U .C. citizens, they'll that they are U citizens ICE has this software, did you see about this? That they're being told they can trust the software above even a passport or birth certificate that somebody gives. Of AI thing, of course. It's already had major mistakes, as you'd expect.

0:15:03 Thomas: Geez yeah sure it's just an ai version of the family guy meme with the skin color thing that's all it is yeah

0:15:13 Matt: Exactly. The colored bars. Yeah, exactly, exactly I need to talk about the less good news side of this, which we touched on on Wednesday's show a little bit, but I want to get into some detail on it because this is outrageous and talk about how it might get to court in some interesting ways it might be challenged. Of those moments that we have to stop and mark in the history of American fascism, because this is, so far as I know, it's the first time that any federal agency has argued that they have a right to enter somebody's house without a warrant, without any exigent circumstances, right? Course of business, somebody has an arrest warrant for Thomas Smith. Can come to your house if they think that you're there. That's basic Supreme Court precedent. They have reasonable cause to believe that Thomas Smith is at home, they can get him. Now they can't get him in Matt Cameron's house because that's somebody else's house.

0:15:51 Thomas: And they're like is it a day that ends in d -a -y thomas is at home okay reasonable he's

0:16:00 Matt: Might be editing. There's a very good chance. Of course, in a third party's house, you'd have to search warrant for that third party, but an arrest warrant, criminal arrest warrant, this is very important, of course. Criminal arrest warrant generally carries over to your house, and there's not a Fourth Amendment violation to go in if they think you're home. Of course there's also exigent circumstances, you know, if you're seen the crime and then running into your house, they can grab you without a warrant, but that's different.

0:16:02 Thomas: There editing yeah that's yeah

0:16:24 Matt: The criminal standard. Now I'm going to send you, so you can fill one out for yourself if you want, I'm gonna send you an immigration warrant, and you can see just how flimsy this thing is. Let me pull up an I -205 for you, and time. This is the warrant, so the result.

0:16:36 Thomas: Yeah I like this isn't the first time you're sending me this very thing what's so what's the difference there all

0:16:44 Matt: The detainers is where they send it to a different agency and say, can you hold on to this guy for us? The warrant gives them permission to arrest somebody on their own. And you can see just how easy this would be to fill out if you just wanted to stick somebody's name in there. It's really nothing at all.

0:16:59 Thomas: Yeah okay it looks like just a standard microsoft word form okay foreign approval uh who entered yeah signature of immigration officer title of immigration officer date and office location that's

0:17:16 Matt: Notice what's missing there. The signature of a judge.

0:17:18 Thomas: Nothing nothing from a judge yeah not even like a manager yeah

0:17:20 Matt: Magistrate, no judge. Exactly. Like a supervisor should have to sign off, right? Because Lyons, the head of Vice was encouraging is that basically, okay, well, don't do warrantless arrest, but just grab them and then immediately write up a warrant in the car or whatever, right? But you still have to do the flight risk analysis.

0:17:35 Thomas: That seems not legal go yeah

0:17:37 Matt: That doesn't seem great at all. In terms of the escalation of how they've been doing this, their ability to go out and just arrest people without warrants has escalated so much of what we've seen in Minneapolis and other places. So it's just an important development if it can be curtailed and if it Can actually be held to.

0:17:52 Matt: I've sent you is the I -205, which is relevant to what I want to talk about now, which is their newfound belief, which we've only just learned about, that they can break down people's doors and go into their homes and arrest them without a judicial warrant, just an administrative warrant, the way you're looking at it. Which, as you can see, the only basis of this warrant is that I believe that this person who came in this place and date is subject to removal slash deportation from the united states based on a final order and right pretty much

0:18:17 Thomas: Is literally the stormtroopers looking for r2d2 like it's just go door to door and unless you are a jedi who can mind trick them you're screwed oh

0:18:28 Matt: Yeah public this is how this would work usually they would follow they'd you around and they do this all the time they do some basic surveillance they'd figure out your schedule they'd arrest you on your way to work or as you're coming home or when you're picking up your kids and all the things we've been seeing right and and just remind everybody But generally speaking, ICE ICE enforcement is and has been list -based. So they're going through lists of people with these orders, lists of people with records, or records and orders are the most popular targets. And there are a lot of people in the United States right now who have final orders of removal because all of the final orders of removal are issued while you're not in custody. So you can go home, you can appeal it, and you can wait it out. There's another issue with Board of Immigration Appeals, which we're going to talk about another time, where they basically decided the Board of Immigration Appeals no longer wants to do immigration appeals. They're going to stop doing most of them.

0:19:06 Thomas: I didn't know you could just do that

0:19:10 Matt: Thought of that. Decided now that they can only take an appeal if a majority of the Board of immigration appeals, which I think now has 20 some people on it, agrees to take the appeal. So they are going to act like the Supreme Court instead of like as of right appeals court, which is what they are. Going have removal orders getting final a lot faster very very soon here.

0:19:23 Thomas: Come on well how can they just do that I don't understand yeah

0:19:29 Matt: It's a great question. And I really think that an actual federal judge is going to have problems with this, with the Board of Immigration Appeals fundamentally restructuring. Haven't even had time to look at the Federal Register notice yet, but I know it can't be right. I created them to review immigration appeals. They can't just decide to only review some, you know, or just a few. There's not going to be very many with this current court. They're not going to agree to take very many. And you still have to spend $1 ,000 for the privilege of having them look to see if they want to take it. Know.

0:19:41 Thomas: Unreal

0:19:55 Matt: Is especially important right now because they're clearly trying to fast track these appeals that otherwise would take years in some cases. And they're trying to make sure that a final order can be enacted upon as quickly as possible. About this only a few weeks ago, but apparently Todd Lyons, head of ICE, signed this memo back in May 25th of last year.

0:19:54 Thomas: Oh

0:20:14 Matt: I really enjoy about this memo is it's You know like that last stage of Scientology where It's where you find out about the real sci -fi stuff in Scientology, about all the South Park stuff, right? They have to put you in the room and tell you at that point because clearly you've learned enough Scientology that I guess it'll make sense or whatever. I don't know. I've read some pretty funny descriptions of what happens when they actually tell you this and you're supposed to believe it. It's like that. You can't actually see the text. Everybody who has seen this memo has been orally briefed on it.

0:20:13 Thomas: Wow uh sure. Sure. Wow.

0:20:41 Matt: A great sign that your policy has gone right right that you're doing something right that can't just email the memo to people yeah

0:20:48 Thomas: Is insane. So is that just to try to create less paper to be able to like complain about, like for people to be able to say like something's wrong here. They're just keeping it more and more. It reminds me, I don't know if this is an apt comparison, but I Remember when Canon was trying to issue orders like in the margins of the decision? And And she's like, you can't appeal that. I just wrote it on a sticky note. There's sticky note, sticky note appeal.

0:21:11 Thomas: Is it kind of like that? Or if you could keep it unofficial in certain ways that it's harder to or

0:21:17 Matt: Doesn't exist yeah yeah the good news of course is that it got in front of the wrong person and they took a picture of it and we have a screenshot of this memo and

0:21:25 Thomas: Unbelievable. That's how we have to learn about these fascist orders is like a whistleblower for a memo. Like an official memo. That's not how the government should work, Matt, I'm pretty sure.

0:21:36 Matt: The head of ICE. Yeah, no, it's not even like a top secret memo. It's just like, don't show this to anybody, I guess. I don't know. It's not really classified or anything. The Whistleblower Aid Project has put this out with a long letter explaining why it matters. And So I was having kind of a fun conversation with Casey over dinner the other day about like, well, what would, if I were an evil ICE lawyer, how would I do this?

0:21:53 Thomas: Up the island, it's influencing him. Feeling its powers course through his veins. Okay.

0:21:58 Matt: I'm getting the waves.

0:21:59 Thomas: Right, evil Matt. Gets a couple hours of sleep and all of a sudden he's evil. He's like the opposite of most people. If he hasn't slept, he's good, Matt. He gets some rest, he says, I have the energy to be evil again.

0:22:05 Matt: That's right. That's it. Is right. Let me think of the worst possible policy. I mean, it is a fun game to play to try to figure out what your opposition is doing.

0:22:12 Thomas: Well, it is actually kind of important these days, you

0:22:18 Matt: It is. You have to anticipate it. And so I am sitting here. Before I read the memo, I know I have got a link to it. I am going to get ready to read it. It's talking about it. Here, I am just going to take a bet. I think that what what they could say is that it is probable cause for a crime that someone is still in the United States after removal order, because it's possible that this is a stretch, but it's possible they could have left the country and come back, which is a crime to re -entry after removal. You'd have to know, you'd probably cause they'd left the county and come out. But they could still try to say, well, you know, you've been here for eight years. Who's to say that you haven't left and come back at some point. So let's just call it a crime and figure it out later. That's the I could come up with, evil Matt.

0:22:53 Thomas: Did evil Matt do?

0:22:55 Matt: Pretty bad.

0:22:56 Thomas: Yeah. More evil than that.

0:22:58 Matt: I'm not evil stupid, Matt, is the problem.

0:22:59 Thomas: Oh, evil, stupid man. Okay.

0:23:02 Matt: Got to take a much longer vacation to get this stupid. The problem, this is incredible. I am just going to read this paragraph to you verbatim because I would not believe it if I weren't reading it verbatим. The Department of Homeland Security has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone loan to arrest aliens subject to final orders, the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U .S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the Immigration Regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.

0:23:29 Thomas: Translate that. What is that?

0:23:31 Matt: Our lawyers have told us this is constitutional and statutory and regulatory. This is within lines of all of that. A three

0:23:40 Thomas: So they didn't even go to the trouble. Oh, okay. This is the equivalent of being like, well, we've determined that we don't have to follow the constitution or anything we're doing follows the constitution, basically. Basically, like if it was like it was not an immigration thing, I'm trying to think of like how to make this make sense in my mind. If this was like a like a search and seizure thing and they put out a memo like the police, let's say our local police put out an internal memo. That's like, hey, we got we hired a new lawyer for the local police station here. They said that we can just search anyone anytime. It's actually fine.

0:23:42 Matt: Didn't even try that's

0:24:13 Thomas: It kind of like that?

0:24:14 Matt: That's said the constitution doesn't prohibit it it's totally okay yeah as

0:24:17 Thomas: OK, so literally, if as long as you got somebody who calls himself a lawyer to justify your crimes, then you're fine.

0:24:25 Matt: Yeah because the framers the constitution didn't mention administrative warrants so because this didn't exist obviously nobody was contemplating anything like that um for the low standards that I was expecting I'm appalled um it's that bad

0:24:37 Thomas: You know, it's this actually fits in my universe, though, because it's just like when when we found out that Epstein was actually just an idiot and all his emails and texts were like misspelled. And he's just a complete dummy and you're like man I thought the evil like ring guy was gonna be like smarter evil but it turns out no yeah

0:24:58 Matt: At least like a quasi mastermind but no not

0:25:00 Thomas: We can't get a good mastermind anymore come on we used to be a country a proper country wow

0:25:05 Matt: Class a criminal I tell you yeah interesting about this though is that you know it mentions in the memo that plain sight doctrine will still apply so basically you can't search the house it's not a search warrant it's just you break down the door sometime between 6 a .m. and 10 p .m., and you can grab somebody if you know that they're in the house and they have a removal order.

0:25:22 Thomas: Okay they wider time window than the Comcast guy.

0:25:24 Matt: That's true. Know for sure, by the way, they were doing this before. This is just them really talking about it. I know für sure I've had clients that have had their doors broken for this purpose, and they just have done it, and there's nothing we can do. What's interesting about this is, think about the scenario in which, and again, this is unlikely, but it's possible, the scenario in which they arrest somebody in their house is remove order and it happens that I don't know they live in a meth lab they're just doing breaking bad right there in front of everybody so right there now have probable cause for an actual crime except that they were in the house based on a secret ice memo that nobody can read so it's actually possible this could come up in a motion to suppress, and the judge would have to review whether they should have been in the house at all, and they might have to throw out a criminal case because of this. Know, obviously it's going to come up one way or another when somebody's challenging, you under which they were taken to custody in a habeas.

0:26:12 Thomas: Like you said this has been since May, right?

0:26:14 Matt: Yeah.

0:26:15 Thomas: They managed to keep this secret for that long

0:26:17 Matt: Yeah, that it was official policy. Policy, because makes it a lot easier to challenge when you know that it's policy. But the other, the whistle blew sometime in January. Until then for somebody to send that screenshot over.

0:26:26 Thomas: Now had they never sent that screenshot how do we still not know based on like someone appealing something or whatever like how did we need someone to send a screenshot and this didn't already come up in some sort of proceedings

0:26:37 Matt: We'd have to know it's officialized policy. The plaintiffs, you know, in a habeas, the petitioner would have to know for sure that it was something they were told to do from the top and not just rogue agents or, right.

0:26:45 Thomas: They would just okay because they would like something this stupid crap happens that in their appeal or their whatever they're gonna say like yeah this I this rogue ice agent just like came in they're not necessarily going to know that this is a an actual policy okay I see what you're saying wow hey whistleblowers thanks for whistleblowing like keep keep that up keep doing that that's in general pretty good we'll

0:27:08 Matt: Little late, but, you appreciate it. Six lot of people with removal orders won't end up getting lawyers anyway. They're the hardest cases to do. It's very hard to reopen a removal order, especially if you rented after removal. Just in terms of the triage we're doing right now, those are the lowest priority for us. One way or another, I think this is going to have to get in front of a judge pretty soon now that we've seen it in writing because it's just so stupid.

0:27:10 Thomas: Take it yeah yeah I'm

0:27:27 Matt: It's dangerous. It's really dangerous. Is. Kind of exception, once you start carving it out to say that an administrative warrant is good enough, that Officer Matt Cameron can just sign anytime he wants to and just go into somebody's house, I think that's got to be stopped. Basic Fourth Amendment stuff here.

0:27:40 Thomas: Right I I really think for if we can win back power I is not going to happen but like I think we need like a seal team six of okay here's what we're gonna do and we'll be we'll be upfront about it here'swhat democrats are gonna do we're going to take every loophole that you guys did and we'regoing to use it to target conservative christians that's all we're literally white conservative christian whatever it is we'regonna until you patch it up we're We're going to say, hey, it was reasonable that suspicion that you came in, you're an illegal immigrant from, you know, one of the white countries. We don't know. If you're Christian, that's actually a sign that you're coming from, uh, you knows, one of the White Christian countries somewhere. That's a good indicia, you

0:28:23 Matt: There's a good chance at this point, if you're a Christian, you support some form of terrorism. So let's look into that.

0:28:25 Thomas: That's true. That's a good point. And we obviously designate basic MAGA as terrorism. We should do everything they did, but against them. And then if they want to do some reforms or they want to like learn that maybe that wasn't the right thing to do, fine. Or, you know, we just round up a bunch of the MAGA and just lock them up until they figure it out. That's fine with me.

0:28:47 Matt: I'm getting there.

0:28:48 Thomas: Would be under President Thomas Smith. I'm getting there. Again, it's like the gerrymandering that I'm going to talk about a little bit with Jenessa on Monday. It was always the right answer and I started, you know, saying this in 2017, pretty early 2018, that the only answer cheating is, okay, I guess that's the rules. Let's cheat and cheat harder. That's the only solution.

0:29:12 Thomas: Arnold Schwarzenegger decided that, no, it's actually better if you unilaterally disarm. And it's somewhat admirable to try to say like, well, for our state here, we're not going to gerrymander. We want our citizens to have the right to vote. But yeah, okay. I get it. But you can't pretend the national elections don't exist and that this doesn't have any impact on that and it's it's the same thing it's like the only thing they'll understand is when it's targeted toward them they the amount that they cried about covid masks being the new fascism or whatever and then they're just doing stuff like this that is just outwardly from that freaking movie with natalie portman with a guy with the mask with elrond and the matrix guy who was in every movie for like 10 years and then disappeared yes v for vendetta that's it boy that guy was in in every single movie for a very short period of time.

0:29:55 Matt: Made v for vendetta yeah yeah yeah it's true hugo weaving yeah

0:30:02 Thomas: Yeah, here you go. And then I haven't, I don't, I haven't heard from him. I hope he didn't die. I don't know what he's doing. But anyway, point is, it's from that movie. Like this kind of crap. I used to find those ridiculous. I thought that movie was absolutely absurd. It was kind of silly. No, it's like, oh, okay. Maybe I was wrong on that one. Like this is getting there. We're getting there

0:30:03 Matt: It's great yeah totally yeah uh weaving actually just played an american on slow horses if you've been watching that he was great in that so

0:30:25 Thomas: Did he switch to TV?

0:30:26 Matt: Worked oh yeah but slow horses is more than tv that's good stuff but we should move on oh that's great

0:30:29 Thomas: God, I don't know. I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to besmirch it.

0:30:32 Matt: But yeah, we're going to come around to one more thing, actually, at the end that Republicans may have finally started to realize is applying to them. So that's a good topic. But before we do that, we've got to talk about temporary protective status. We should probably come back and do that.

0:30:42 Thomas: Right yeah we'll take a break and we'll talk about that uh right matt this is uh back back firmly in the good news column right best

0:30:52 Matt: Best news. This is so exciting, honestly, because we work with so many Haitians, a lot of Haitians in Boston, Haitian community. In the Thanksgiving episode, we met Sylvie, our Haitian interpreter, just a delight to work with. Have been really nervous because I have been optimistic about this. I about the hearing back in January with Judge Ana Reyes in D .C. District Court, seemed to be really down on what the government was trying to do here, so I was feeling good about it. But the problem is that she reserved her decision until literally the night before. 350 ,000 people were about to lose their status. So you can imagine, you've got all these people that don't know if they're going to be able to work tomorrow, like legally work.

0:31:24 Matt: Yeah, that's because it's tied to that status, temporary protected status. So people in good jobs doing well for themselves that literally don't know if they're going to be able to work. So we've been trying to come up with backups for a lot of these people. Right now, justifiably, of course, in the Haitian community has been like nothing we've ever seen in any of these. Ana Reyes delivered this blistering opinion the night before it was supposed to expire. I want to take you through a little bit because it's so good. David from Brooklyn, one of our top patrons, requested this, and I was actually looking into it anyway, but I really appreciated David's passion for it.

0:31:51 Thomas: Love david from brooklyn I

0:31:54 Matt: Really appreciate the question. Patient TPS holders of the plaintiff's here, and they did a great job in selecting a great range of plaintiff. Reyes makes the point of saying, even when she's introducing the the plaintiffs that they are not, in a merger, quote, killers, leeches, or entitlement junkies, which of course are things that Trump has called Haitians.

0:32:10 Thomas: Right. Of there's that thing where it's like, look, obviously this is wrong no matter who it is, but it's, like, you're going to try to find your best presenting, you unquote victims, I guess, in a way. Your best You're going to try and find your most favorable. Doesn't mean that it's okay when this is done to bad people or something, or average people, but you're obviously going to want to go with the case that you can, right?

0:32:30 Matt: Yeah, and it's not hard to do, knowing plenty of TPS holders as I do. Because to qualify for TPS, just to remind everybody, you have to have been here, first of all, when the earthquake happened in 2013. That's how TPS works, is we designate people who get to stay here after something. Syria was a good example. Ukraine, obviously, you'd expect that we want to protect these people when they're here and long as you continue to renew your status every 18 months you get to keep the status and that requires another background check every time so we know these people it doesn't take long to derail it if you have an arrest or conviction so you know off the top you're going to get a pretty solid group of plaintiffs no matter what and is well

0:32:59 Thomas: First thought is that sounds like a real waste of resources to be doing that many background checks on people who are probably better than your average US citizen in many ways.

0:33:08 Matt: Get to pay for it is the problem right it's uscis so everything is funded by filing fees it's very expensive to renew tps um for the right to work I know and not have have to go back to Haiti. Lead plaintiff is Fritz Emanuel Leslie Miod, who's a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer's disease. Pretty solid lead plaintiffs.

0:33:13 Thomas: That's obnoxious. Yeah. Come on, geez.

0:33:25 Matt: Got Rudolf Seville, a software engineer at a bank. Marlon Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant at a toxicology department. Marca Marlene Laguerre, a college economics major. And Wilbur Dorsenville, a full -time registered nurse. A lot of Haitians in healthcare, too. Really important part of our system. Reyes wrote up this 83-page decision, and I talked a bit about this with Aaron Reikland -Mellick of the American Immigration Council, one of my favorite guests of last year, of about the basis of the TPS terminations. Because there's two ways, essentially, that the secretary can take back, secretary of DHS can takeback a TPS designation. And as the name would suggest, TPS is temporary. It's supposed to be temporary. Salvador still has it. That's It's kind of the big TBD designation right now because of all the inroads that Trump has made with Bukele. It's possible that we might be holding onto it a little longer. But El Salvador has had TPS since 2001. It's the longest running as of now. Think there's a point at which it's just not temporary anymore. But as Judge Reyes points out, it can go on indefinitely. There's no limit under the statute. There are essentially two ways that they can do this. They can confer with the Department of State and determine that circumstances have changed such that it's basically safe for people to go back. And if anybody has been following the first thing about Haiti right now, you know, it is not safe for anybody to go back It's it's in turmoil barely have a government holding things together. There's gangs in the streets of Port -au -Prince, you know It's bad Everybody tells me this and people who just really would love to go and be with their families are telling me this

0:34:45 Thomas: Actually tend to want to live at home like things being equal yeah

0:34:47 Matt: Yeah, for sure for are very proud of their country, right? And Reyes goes through all of the horrible things that Trump has said about Haitians, of course, about Springfield and eating the pets and the cats and the dogs. Reminds everybody that in 2017, when the Trump administration tried to terminate Haitian TPS before, that judge found specifically that there was racial animus behind it because he had said that they were a shithole country. That was one of the countries he was talking about.

0:34:51 Thomas: Yeah right What?

0:35:10 Matt: And because it was basically canceled on racial grounds, it got to the point where the appeal stretched out. And this is what I'm hoping will happen in this case as well. All, that the appeal stretched out to the next administration. Right now, Judge Reyes's order preserves TPS for everybody throughout the pendency of this litigation, which could be quite a while. So that's the good news here. I just want to mention, there's the two different ways that they can rescind it. And the first is if they find the circumstances have changed. And Judge Reyes had a really interesting back and forth with DOJ about this on the record. Actually said she was so incredulous, she actually quotes herself. She has this long excerpt from the record, like a gavel -gavel style transcript, just to make sure that you understand that she tried to understand this. Because it was 53 minutes between DHS, a staffer, emailing the Department of State and saying, hey, what do you guys think about this Haiti thing? 53 minutes later, this Department of State responds back, state believes there'd be no foreign policy concerns with respect to a change in the TPS status of Haiti. This was it, the full extent of the supposed consultation of the appropriate agencies.

0:36:10 Matt: And she quotes herself basically in the record with all this, saying, you know, how could this possibly be a consultation? There's no study, there's no back and forth, there's not even a meeting about it. That's easy. Other ground that I think that Christine Noem is relying on is that it's in the national interest to terminate TPS. And she has some beautiful language here about how it's absolutely not in the international interest to deport all these people to Haiti, they're contributing to our economy and society and everything else, and strongly rebuking Trump for the way that he talked about them. I think it's just, it's a great decision. Is the one you might have seen. I just want to read it out because it's so good. There's an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table. Secretary Noem, the record to date shows, does not have the facts in her side, or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side or at at least, has ignored it. Having neither, and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X, formerly known as Twitter. So good.

0:37:03 Matt: Kristi Noem has a First Amendment right to call immigrants killers, leeches, entitlement junkies, and any other inapt name she wants. Secretary Noem, that's currently italicized, is constrained by both our Constitution and the APA to apply faithfully the facts to the law in implementing the TPS program. The record to date shows she hasn't done that.

0:37:23 Matt: I'm sorry, yeah, the Administrative Procedures Act. So that means you can't just arbitrarily rescind your regulations. It's not as easy as people might think.

0:37:22 Thomas: What's sorry oh right right okay I gotcha right so the so the asshole person has the right under the First Amendment to be an asshole, but making the point that Secretary Noem does not have the right to do whatever and say whatever she wants, right?

0:37:41 Matt: Yep. Once Congress has confirmed you, you have a different role.

0:37:44 Thomas: You'd think.

0:37:45 Matt: So perfectly equally said, and I really appreciated it.

0:37:49 Thomas: Tend to have a hard time understanding that, where it's like, I don't get it. The president doesn't have a First Amendment right to undermine the election? No, you don't. Your rights as the president, as somebody in power. Seem to think if you're in power, you should should have all the rights in the world. Nothing, nothing should ever get you in trouble. No requirements. And it should be the exact opposite. Certainly Obama held himself to a pretty high standard and we held Obama to a very high standard. And we should be even higher, you that it's like they can get away with whatever they want because they're elected is just really frustrating. It's just classic, like authoritarianism, it seems like to me.

0:38:23 Matt: Yeah. This is a great check on it, and we'll see how the appeal goes. But this is out of the D .C. Circuit. I'm feeling pretty good about where this goes because I just don't see what they can argue with. They didn't do a consultation, and it is not in the national interest. So, I mean, that seems like the end of the road for me. But we'll see. We'll keep a watch on it.

0:38:39 Thomas: Right and then I think let's see the last one was the terrorist one in of our good news slate yeah

0:38:45 Matt: Amazing news this week from the House of Representatives. Mike Johnson just got deeply embarrassed in a way that I really enjoyed. We've talked before about the tariffs litigation obligation. That's before the Supreme Court. They're going to be making a decision any time now. An interesting thing that's been happening, where just a reminder for everybody that the Trump tariffs have been emergencies. Everything's done by emergency now. And it's an emergency under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Back in February, the one that we're talking about today is the canada tariff which is especially bad one of our greatest trading partners has been increased from 25 to 35 percent the original justification in february was because allegedly canada wasn't doing enough to keep us from getting fentanyl which is ridiculous is a really weird side effect that I'm going to talk about the footnote from this that I didn't realize that affects um -canada we'll get to that a minute the thing is that under the iepa every six months congress is supposed to come together and vote on whether they want to keep this emergency going, because obviously Congress did not want to create legislation in which the president has an unbounded ability to just create economic emergencies.

0:39:44 Matt: Mike Johnson did want to do that. And so what he did is he created a rule by which we've talked about these kind of dumbass rules before, but it's one of those things where they can say, for the purposes of the IEPA, there are no calendar days in 2025, right? One six months doesn't apply. Shouldn't be able to do that. They just shouldn't be able to do that for

0:40:04 Thomas: Because they don't go in session or something or they just get to say that I don't get it

0:40:08 Matt: Just for the purpose of this law, yeah, they shouldn't get to say that.

0:40:11 Thomas: So it's just purely an artificial we're just declaring there's no days in January or whatever the hell what

0:40:16 Matt: For this law alone. Yeah. Been extending that. They just basically set that rule and every 90 days they've been extending it again. And finally, At some point there has to be a mandamus because somebody, I think the Democrats should have run a mandatus earlier to just say we have to do our our jobs at some point. The law requires us to do this, to vote on it. Three Republicans did cross over earlier this week. And so they voted to end this rule and to clear the way for Congress to vote On this. And the House, with the participation of six Republicans, has voted to End the Economic Emergency. They have terminated it.

0:40:22 Thomas: That can't work there's what finally

0:40:49 Matt: And now they they just have to get the Senate to do the same thing. And if they can do that, then that should be good. Unfortunately, Trump does have the right to veto this, and they would still have to have a veto -proof supermajority to overcome it. But I think it's pretty telling that he's going to lose his party on this, potentially a party majority. And maybe there'll be enough pressure, at least on the Canada one, that he has to actually go with it. We'll see. But again, it's a major breakthrough at least that Mike Johnson wasn't able to control the Republicans on this one and something that's been so destructive. And it also had to put them on the record. All but six Republicans went on the recorded to say that this tariff with Canada was a good idea, that it's something the president should be able to do. So that's good too, for

0:40:49 Thomas: Good stuff okay yeah yeah yeah oh

0:41:24 Matt: What it's worth. So that is the last bit of good news I have. And now I want to talk about our footnote for today, which is a very specific Virgin Virgin Islands footnote.

0:41:32 Thomas: Right well uh now we get I don't even know if I got a preview for this footnote at all I love being in the dark on the footnote my favorite segment uh we're gonna take a quick break and then we will footnote it up all right man it's it's been a good news show and a footnote wait are you gonna switch aru us is the footnote like bad or something okay

0:41:50 Matt: No, this is actually more in the vein of my classic footnote, which is literally a footnote on a story I just told you, which is about the tariffs. It's an interesting footnote I think it's actually a very interesting problem that has that I just wouldn't have thought of because I don't think about the Virgin Islands. And if there weren't for Jeffrey Epstein, I don' think any of us would have been thinking about the Virgin islands. And we should because it's a beautiful place for wonderful people. And as we've talked about up front, they're kind of an American colony at this point. And have discovered, as of this morning at the post office, a way in which Donald Trump imposed another form of taxation without representation on the Virgin Islands specifically. For reasons not worth explaining here, I had to mail a pair pants that were neither my size or gender presentation back to Minnesota.

0:42:26 Thomas: This was the pair of pants one okay yeah I wasn't making the linkage yeah pants yeah I'm

0:42:29 Matt: Pants note. So here I am at the post office in the Virgin Islands being helped out by this wonderful lady who's telling me that Trump has forced them to impose tariffs on U .S. citizens. And I'm staring at her. I was like, well, I'm in the United States. And I didn't really know this, but I was pretty sure the postal code – I remember seeing this at some point.

0:42:50 Matt: I'm just sending pants within the United State here. I'm at a territory.

0:42:48 Thomas: Not importing pants you know like like uh art Art Vandelay, for any Seinfeld fans, importer, exporter of pants.

0:42:59 Matt: Pretty actually what's happened, Postal Code Section 2 .2 does actually say that customs can't be levied on U .S. citizens. And of course, everybody here is a U.S. citizen. There's a big but here. In the pants, just a big but. Is something here in which we are not actually, in the Virgin Islands, I'm not sitting inside a U.S. customs zone.

0:43:22 Matt: We're insular territories of the United States, not including Puerto Rico. So Puerto Rico is within the customs zone. And we were warned about this, that it's a 16 -minute flight to Puerto Rico, everybody should try it at some point. Were warn at the airport as we were coming in that it was going to be kind of a long way back because there's a long customs inspection coming back in. No immigration check because we're in U.S. territory with U. S. passports, so we're not going to check immigration, we're just going to customs. And Virgin Islands actually has this incredible customizable customs exemption. It's one economic boost for them is per person, you can get $1 ,600 of duty -free shopping as opposed to $800 most places. Not going to be doing that, but of this weird outside the zone thing. But my point is, when it came to my pants this morning, she said, I'm supposed to tell you to download an app and check to see if you have to pay tariffs on these pants to send them to Minnesota. And she said I see that these are just a pair of pants. I And, you know, I assume this is a gift. It's like, yes, I'm just sending it back to somebody. And she said, all right, well, I am not going to make it down to the app. It would be $2 .50 just to find out if you have to pay the tariffs to use the app to do the analysis.

0:44:25 Thomas: What?

0:44:26 Matt: I know.

0:44:26 Thomas: You have to get, like, the premium to get rid of the ads or something?

0:44:31 Matt: For Zonos Plus or whatever, yeah, I know, it's... But just the idea that you have pay tariffs to send something within the United States that a U .S. citizen is sending to a U."S. citizen. And reason for that is because Trump in August eliminated the de minimis exception for all countries outside our custom zone. So is for anything under $800, and was a great thing for small businesses and for people doing large volume of small stuff.

0:44:55 Thomas: I remember this. Yeah, this killed

0:44:56 Matt: It's huge.

0:44:56 Thomas: A lot of Amazon businesses. Is there a lot of just small business people?

0:45:01 Matt: Really important exception. And they were trying to say that people are using the de minimal exception to send fentanyl, which maybe that's true. I don't know, but I'm not.

0:45:05 Thomas: Fentanyl. Oh my. Yeah, because we could value that. Like you have to honestly value it. You're like, oh man, this is more than $800 worth of fentanyl, darn. Otherwise I would have sent it in, right? I mean, what?

0:45:20 Matt: Otherwise don't have to declare it, I guess. Yeah,

0:45:21 Thomas: I guess just the fact that you got rid of the de minimis means everything will have to be like kind of inspected or something. Is that what it is? Because otherwise why wouldn't you just say your fentanyl you like why would that have mattered before I guess yeah

0:45:33 Matt: Mean presumably you're sending the fentanyl in DVD cases or something like they usually do. But there has to be this individualized analysis to see if the de minimis exception should actually apply. It's very obnoxious. So Stephanie Plackett, who's the U .S. representative for the Virgin Islands in Congress, who of course doesn't have any real power but is there to represent her people, been trying to plug this loophole. Apparently there is bipartisan support for ending it for the insular territories because they didn't really mean to do that. Nobody really thought of it as kind of a weird outside thing. But it's like everything else.

0:45:56 Thomas: I find that very believable yeah

0:46:00 Matt: Exactly. Right. The Marianas, the Johnson Atoll, like all these other little places, Midway Island, right, that are just these territories that are not Puerto Rico. Basically everything that's not Puerto Rico.

0:46:10 Thomas: I don't know anything about this and I feel bad about it I don't know what the right answer is but it just feels like this can't be it like should people shouldn't have this nebulous status where don't really have rights they U.S. citizens right but it like puerto rico but but you're saying the only difference is they don'T even have the like whatever this customs thing is yeah how is that good for anybody oh

0:46:29 Matt: They're outside that zone. And And then you got Samoa. They're nationals. They're not even citizens. No, want to talk about this nationalism versus citizen thing.

0:46:34 Thomas: Wow so they don't get any people should have rights like you should if you live in a place you should have some like representation and say in the government and all that yeah

0:46:47 Matt: Think we should normalize calling these places colonies because that's what we're doing. We are colonizing them. I got to say, the people here have been wonderful. And I haven't been asking about their opinion. But I know that there's certainly a lot more controversy in Puerto Rico right now about how much they want to be attached to the United States. Actually, I meant to mention, I was in San Juan for the Big Bunny concert, which, excuse me, I said it again. I was at San Juan, I think, for the Bad Bunny concert. I understand there was also some football. Big Bad Bunny. Big Bad Voodoo Bunny. One of the greatest live experiences of my life, being amongst Puerto Ricans in a big place, just having the best time. Because, I mean, what an incredible show.

0:47:06 Thomas: Big bad buddy yeah boy I bet I bet that was a good time yeah yeah

0:47:25 Matt: Didn't watch the game. Love the show.

0:47:26 Thomas: I don't watch football anymore so I'm kind of like you when it comes to the old sports balling of the thing but it very clearly was like Like, oh, Seattle's way better than this other team. And then there's, like, the halftime show. That was my experience of it. Seemed good. I don't know.

0:47:39 Matt: I felt bad. I should be probably caring about what, you know, New England is doing, but

0:47:42 Thomas: Understood what was being said in the halptime show as much as I ever understand what's being said in the half -time show, which is none. Which is fine. I don't care. Whatever. Maybe it's not for me. I don't know.

0:47:52 Matt: I think the visuals really spoke for themselves. I mean, it was quite a show. I think it was the best one since Prince played Purple Rain in the Rain. That was my favorite, but it was fantastic.

0:47:59 Thomas: I think that' s right. Yeah. Well, that must have been really cool.

0:48:03 Matt: The worst. I'm having a good time. So appreciate working with me here on on vacation and uh happy to share some good news today that's

0:48:09 Thomas: Yeah. Thanks for still coming to us. And sorry about your pants, Tariff.

0:48:16 Thomas: All right. Well, That's Our Show. Uh, Matt, I hope you continue to have a restful, uh working vacation, I guess, kind of thing. Is that what it is? Yeah.

0:48:23 Matt: This is getting some writing done get some thinking done having a great time

0:48:26 Thomas: Good stuff. Well thanks for taking the time to still record with us. Uh And, uh thanks everyone most of all for listening. We'll be back with you on monday I'll be with Jenessa talking about some election related news there's a lot of election news voting rights news uh gonna get Jenessa back into talk about that so have have a great rest your trip matt

0:48:42 Matt: I'm excited to hear that one yeah thanks later

0:48:50 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon .com slash law. Contact us through Patreon or openarguments at gmail .com. Make sure to follow our blue sky at OpenArgs. But most of all, please share the show. Thanks for listening.

0:49:22 Matt: A big but here. In the pants, just my size or gender presentation back Bunny concert, which, Bad Bunny concert. I Bad Voodoo Bunny.

0:49:32 Thomas: Bad buddy