 Aloha, welcome to another episode of Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Today, we are going to talk a bit about immigration. We're going to learn about some of the things that have been going on in the last, I guess, a week or so related to immigration. We have Ms. Claire Hannes. Hannes. Hannes. I knew I was going to get that wrong. It's a tough one. We have Ms. Claire Hannes, attorney, joining us today. She's an immigration attorney, working on federal cases, and we are going to learn as much as we can about the most recent Muslim ban put in place through the executive order from our current Republican administration. We're going to learn a bit about that. We're going to talk about some of those parameters, and we're going to learn a bit about what's going on here in Hawaii from an immigration perspective and some of our concerns that we may have. So welcome to the show. Thank you. It's nice to be here. Excellent. So you've been here before. You've been on before. I have. A couple times. So you know what to do and how to get there. An old pro. Excellent. Excellent. So no, I do appreciate it. Okay, so first of all, tell us a bit about you, where you work and what you work on and why. Sure. I'm an attorney. I practice exclusively immigration nationality law. I actually went into law school because I was interested in immigration law, and I've been practicing for the better part of a close to 20 years. And I practice both in the nonprofit sector on my own as a solo practitioner. And now I'm with Damon Key-Leong, Coptuck Hastert, a law firm here downtown. That's a lot of words. Hit it again. Damon Key-Leong, Coptuck Hastert. Excellent. Excellent. So if anybody has any immigration questions, that's where you want to go. Thanks for that. Okay. All right. So let's jump into, we know that we actually saw each other recently, but we know there was a protest demonstration at the airport here in Honolulu this last Saturday, Saturday or Sunday. Either way, Sunday. And that's an important thing. Some people say there was 100. Some people say up to 300 people who showed up. But it wasn't only in Honolulu. It existed really nationwide. Right. And multiple airports, people showing up in opposition to this. 30 to 40, 30 to 40 airports, at least 30 nationwide. Right. Which is so relevant. We really need to recognize that people are really standing up. And this, you know, from the Women's March to a number of different groups, people are standing up saying we don't agree with this. Right. And that's a relevant piece. And we need to know that that matters. Right. And find more ways to make that matter as well. So that's all based on this Muslim ban executive order put in place by our current Republican administration that no one seems to understand. No one seems to understand why. So one question is, first of all, let's start on the table. The president doing an executive order about anything, but in this case, a Muslim ban for entry into the United States. Is it legal? Executive orders are legal. There's nothing that expressly discusses them in the Constitution, but presidents have been doing this for centuries. So from the very first president, George Washington? I don't know if it was George Washington, but somebody shortly after him started. And in Obama, every president issues executive orders. And it's one way for them to kind of come out after the election with, you know, making good on some of the promises. That they made during the campaign. What is the force of them? I mean, in this instance, his executive order was an immediate... Well, right. So Congress makes the laws, right? So they can't create new law. But there is, you know, within the Constitution and within the executive power, certain things that the president is allowed to do or is allowed to try to do. One of President Obama's executive orders was to close Guantanamo. That didn't happen in eight years. But it was symbolic, and he made it, and I guess he tried. One of his other executive orders concerning immigration was to provide additional protections for what are called the dreamers, people who came to the United States as children through no fault of their own and have lived here to give them a temporary protection from deportation and the ability to work. And then he tried to expand that to include parents of children who were U.S. citizens or permanent residents. And then that failed in the court. So once the president issues an executive order, a number of things can happen. One is it can just sell by. And some of the less controversial ones do. And there have been many executive orders that we've never heard about and probably didn't have much impact in our lives. But some of them are biggies, okay? And the ones that President Trump has been rolling out have been kind of biggies. And they can either get rescinded by the president or they can be challenged by Congress if they're overstepping on congressional power or most likely they're challenged in the courts. And so President Trump on Friday night issued this executive order. This is the third executive order he's issued regarding immigration. And they've all been someone who's an immigration attorney and advocate. They've been pretty bad, but this one just kind of took the cake as far as what it was prohibiting. And so... What were the other two? So, well, one was to build the wall, right? Okay. Okay. I know, it's funny. That was huge news. And then that was two days before. And then this one, and then with the environmental challenges that are coming up, one quickly gets overshadowed by the next. Some people refer to that as a shock event. Let me do a thing that's going to get everybody up in arms and then they won't really be paying attention to other things. Right. Right. The other thing is we're all paying attention. Which is good. There's only so much to do. Yeah. Airtime. Right. We're paying attention, but... And it's really, I mean, following these and the rapid succession of these executive orders and what they mean, and the implications is kind of a full-time job. Yeah. Which most of us don't have time. And again, this is only... We're only talking about focus on immigration. I'm not sure what's going on in other areas but I'm also very, very concerned about it. And the other executive order had to do with enforcement priorities. And it actually kind of criminalizes some parts of the immigration act or actions by immigrants that were not criminal before, that were civil offenses. And so we're concerned about more and more people being caught up who have no criminal records, but being caught up in the immigration act. As a result of being an immigrant. Right, right. Being an immigrant. Being an immigrant. And specifically these targeted undocumented immigrants which fall into kind of two groups generally, people who've come on valid visas and have overstayed. And there's lots of them. And they're not all Mexican. A lot of them are Korean and Japanese and Irish and from all over the world. And then there's the unauthorized immigrants or people who had unlawful entries into the United States. And combining those groups, there's about 11 million. So it's a huge number. It's a huge number. It's a huge number. There's a lot of talk though, people back and forth on the issues. On one side there's the compassionate view and there's the American principles we want to allow people in and make sure that we're providing better opportunities for a lot of people. And that's what some of that is about. But then the other side of that is great, spectacular. Do it legally. Yeah. Well, the problem for a lot of people is there is no path. There is no legal path to reside in the United States and work and be with families. So we have a lot of families separated. We have a really unique situation in the United States where we have this 2,000 mile border to the south. And it's really kind of a, think of it as a simple term, the largest first world, third world border in the world. And that's going to obviously present lots and lots of challenges. And then we have the U.S.-Canada border, which presents a lot fewer challenges. Because it's not a first world, third world. Because it's not a first world. And people generally in Canada are very happy to stay in Canada. So just because of that and that history, and the history also of a lot of the United States, what is the United States now? It was Mexico, right? A lot of it was. Not that long ago. And so these historical and these family ties, and then the economic world order that a lot of us in the United States benefit by being able to buy cheap things, while the people who make those cheap things get paid peanuts, often not enough to feed their families. And so they're searching for a better future for their families. So when you say that there's no legal path in for them, why is it because they don't have the money for that legal path? No, because generally to get legal status in the United States, to get that green card, you get it one of two ways. It's either through a family member, a qualified family member who petitions for you. And it can't be a cousin. It can't be an auntie. It has to be a spouse, a parent, an adult child. So this whole thing of anger babies is really silly because a kid has to be 21 before the kid can file a petition for the parent anyway. Or a brother and sister. And depending on the relationship, there's either a short wait or a long wait. But you have to have that initial relationship. The other way in is through an employment-based visa or employment-based green cards, which are really, really super hard to get. You have to, right? And for a protecting American job. Visa versus green card. The visa's the first step and then the green card follows. Okay, green card means what? Okay, so green card. Right, right, right. No, that's good. So a green card, if you're a green card holder, that means that you're a lawful permanent resident. Okay, okay. Whether you can, are you a dual resident, potentially? Well, so you're still a citizen of the country that you were born in or the country that you're a national of, right? So say you were born in Canada. You came to the United States as a student, met your wife, she was a U.S. citizen. She filed papers for you. And nothing's automatic, right? Everything is kind of step-by-step. And then you became a lawful permanent resident. You got your green card, which allows you to live and work in the United States indefinitely. Indefinitely, okay. And then after you have a green card for either generally three years or five years, you can apply for naturalization, i.e. citizenship. Got it. Okay, so there's no, nothing's automatic. There are all these steps and you have to have a pathway in. Okay, so the pathway begins with I have a job or I have family. So I need to apply for some visa to get me there. Right, right. Once I get there, maybe there's a scenario that allows me to get a green card. There's non-immigrant visas and there's immigrant visas. The immigrant visa is kind of an automatic green card. The non-immigrant visa is some of those you can convert. Okay. But it's just kind of a long story short. It's tough to get in the door, right? And then you have a lot of people who kind of came in the door and they weren't supposed to come in the door. Or they came in the door as a tourist and they never went home. Right. And they fell in love and they got married and they had children and they're doing everything right. Sometimes that's their plan. You know, for some people, for some people probably yes, for some people no. Yeah, you never want to paint one brush on everybody. No, it is very, it is very, very individualized and that's the problem where we win, win and it's easy for people to make sweeping generalizations, right? All immigrants are wonderful. It's not true. Not all native-born people are wonderful. No. All immigrants are bad. Not true either, right? Right. So... Okay, so which agency, let's go to the next step. Okay, so there's this process and it isn't easy and it isn't available to everyone. Right. But they still need, they're sort of looking for a better opportunity, a better life, so that's where we ended with illegal immigration. Right. Right. How to handle that? Well, which agency or agencies handle that? So, the federal agencies is the Department of Homeland Security, which was set up, it was a new agency that was set up after the September 11th, 2001 bombings. Okay. So what was INS, Immigration Nationalization Service, was brought under this large new umbrella agency called the Department of Homeland Security and so that's made up of Customs and Border Protection. Okay. Those are the folks at the airport and at the borders, what are called ports of entry, right? So any airport, any international airport is going to be a port of entry. Okay. That it's also made up of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Our local USCIS office is down at what was Restaurant Rail, I don't know what it's called now, but at Punchbowl in Alamoana. Yeah. Okay. Right, right, right. So that's Citizenship. People refer to it as Restaurant Rail and probably as well. Like Don Quixote, Holiday Mart is a Don Quixote. Also, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the ICE. Okay. ICE is, as it says, enforcement and that's also located in Alamoana, kind of across from Restaurant Rail in the old beautiful historic building that's set back a little bit that people see when they're racing up in Don Alamoana. All right. So where does the Department of State come in this anywhere? Oh, so the Department of State comes in overseas. Only the Department of State can issue visas overseas. Okay. So they have, they have a very, very special role in this. Okay. And so the whole, the whole issue kind of jumping back to Friday night in this executive order. Basically, you know, the executive order did kind of three major things. One is that it barred all people from Syria indefinitely from entering the United States. All people indefinitely. All Syrians indefinitely. We're going to hold on that for a moment. Okay. Barring all people from Syria indefinitely is okay. So all right, we're going to take a quick break. This was really, really quick anyway. A quick break, we'll be back in one minute. Thank you. Aloha. My name is John Waihe. And I used to be a part of all the things that you might be angry at. I served in government here and may have made decisions that affects you. So I want to invite you in. I want to invite you into Talk Story with me and some very special guests every other Monday here at Talk Story with John Waihe. Come on in, join us, express your opinion, learn more about your state and then do something about it. Aloha. This is John and Danilya from Thank Tech Hawaii Keys to Success. We'd like to thank all of our viewers for tuning in and enjoying the show as we enjoy giving it to you. We're very grateful for all the wonderful feedback we receive from our viewers. My name is Danilya, D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. We thank you all. Aloha. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. This, again, we're talking about immigration. We're talking about, yes, the most recent ban from last Friday. We're talking about all of the aspects and we're trying to learn what we can about what is going on and how it impacts everyone, where it can impact everyone. And what we just learned before the break was that the entirety of the country of Syria has now been banned from entering the United States. So let me first... So let's jump back to one of my previous questions. It's temporary, though, right? No, Syrians are not temporary. Syrians are not temporary. Syrians are not temporary. Syrians are indefinite. The other two groups have time. Does everyone know that Steve Jobs was Syrian? From Syrian... Anyway. I did not know that. Yeah, Steve Jobs was from... If what I've read is correct, Steve Jobs was from Syrian immigrants. There are a lot of Syrians who have contributed greatly to our country, I am sure. And that's the greatest point. Everyone in the United States of America, other than Native Americans, are immigrants who have brought a great deal to this country. We need to remember that. We are all immigrants except for the Native Americans. Okay. All right. So what we were just talking about again was, yes, all of the Syrians. So it's not... Definitely, indefinitely barred. Right. Then refugees... Unless there's a change or another executive order saying... Oh, right, right. Well, I mean... So there's an... Let's go through the groups and then we'll talk about the challenges to it. Okay. That might be easier. So all Syrians indefinitely. And then nationals or citizens of... And I wrote it down. The seven countries, right? Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen. Barred for entry... Well, yeah. Barred for entry four basically 90 days, at least 90 days, but there was a 90-day period put in. Barred from... So if you were from Somalia and you had been issued a visa, say you were a child and your mother lived in Somalia and she had filed an immigrant petition for you, you went through all of the processing, right? Which takes at least a year and a fair amount of money as well. You finally have that visa issued. You think your goal... You're set to fly to the United States and meet your mom. And then you're stopped at the airport and you're told that the visa's been revoked. And that's what they did. They automatically revoked all of the visas that had been issued. And one fell swoop. So this did not require the legislature, the Congress. No. This was because the president said this and because he has that authority. Over the Department of State, right? Whereas we could say in an executive order we're going to close Guantanamo Bay and it doesn't happen. This one is we're going to ban people from these locations and it happened immediately. Right. Right. So that's why people were scrambling the next day. The other big group of people that was affected and this is really... This was shocking to me was all refugees who were scheduled to be resettled in the United States barred them from entry for 120 days. Didn't matter where they were from. Burma. Wow. Right. I mean some of the places with pretty bad human rights records who had been... And to get to the point where you've been declared by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and you've been... I mean the screening process is extensive. It takes 18 months to two years to get to the point where you're issued a visa. And most people are not. So it's a very, very select chosen few. And the international NGOs work with nonprofit organizations in the United States who prepare places for them to live communities to one another. By the way, NGO is non-governmental organization. Right, right. And so all these people who had been in the pipeline who had been victims of torture victims of war some of them had already had family who were here who were trying to reunite their lives were completely put on hold. I heard a story of an Iranian a gay Iranian man who had been granted refugee status he had been in Turkey awaiting his... he already had his visa he was in the process of getting his ticket to come he's now completely in limbo. And these are people who've sold everything I mean they thought the next step was clear for them finally and their lives have been put on hold. It's an example of not understanding or not caring perhaps of what the ramifications might be. Right, right. So the ramifications went far and wide. There is one local organization that works on refugee resettlement they have two families that have been held up. Here in Hawaii. I also heard a story of an Iranian student whose spouse was supposed to come to the United States and was denied entry a broad entry to the... So you get to the airport you're in line to check in and they look at your passport at the ticket counter and they say oh no sorry your visa's actually been revoked. Wow. And then you're detained and or sent back? Well these are people who never even made it who never even made it. There were a few groups of people there were the people who were in process of coming to the United States so some of them were stopped at the airport and sent back. A group of people who were already in transit overnight including and this was the big case in the lawsuit on Saturday an Iranian...no I'm sorry an Iraqi who had been a translator for the US military whose life was in grave danger in Iraq for what he had done for the United States he made it here but then he was detained. Now they were able eventually to get him out but there were we don't know how many people are still trying to calculate who made it here they're stuck indefinitely abroad. Students from these seven countries who had been abroad for holiday or for family members for research they can't get back into the United States. But again ramifications you have to hope that they just weren't aware of it and hope that it wasn't that they didn't care because if they weren't aware of it then that's bad enough to not have thought through this is such incredibly gross negligence and it was as has been suggested it was just to fulfill a campaign promise it didn't matter who had impacted or how and the agencies are saying that it wasn't fully vetted through them what would normally happen is you'd kind of go through with the agencies all the different scenarios and then you would tweak the policy to not have some of these bad results that was not one of the things that happened was the acting AG the acting attorney general just fired because of this let me ask this question first of all what role does the attorney general have or the attorney general have in this case so there are multiple I don't know how many lawsuits but there are multiple lawsuits filed nationwide over challenging various provisions in this executive order and they're challenging specific provisions so it was interesting the ACLU attorney who Anthony Romero who argued the case in New York on Saturday said that it was very clear that the attorneys for the Department of Justice really had no clue about what to say, how to answer the judge's questions they were completely taken aback the attorney general Sally Yates who was sacked on Saturday I mean the role of the attorney general is to help decide what's lawful what's not lawful and then what position the government attorney should take as far as defending her position was that she thought that this was an unlawful executive order so she directed the attorneys hundreds of however many thousands of attorneys underneath her not to defend this unlawful act well that was too much for President Trump and promptly our Republican administration fired her immediately yeah and called her a traitor she had been a federal prosecutor for like 30 years if you don't agree with me you're a traitor and apparently she knew apparently I had heard stories that she knew by opposing this that that would happen she was ready to take the fall so good for her she was in a position it's letting people know and it helps to continue this conversation so that we can hopefully get to a better place eventually so talking about the roles of attorney general our state attorney general came out along with 16 or 17 other state attorney generals immediately opposing this symbolic the attorney general isn't going to be directing attorneys this is not going to be challenged in the state court but what a great message what a great message that Hawaii was out there in front the people who are supposed to be helping to ensure our laws are being followed and that are enforcing those laws are saying at least on the legal side are saying we don't agree with this and that's the statement that's being made and that's where it needs to be better understood so okay another thing that happened is and this goes into the I guess the final thing that we'll do here is when the federal judge what was her name? Donnelly when the federal judge came out and made her statement or her ruling about it which was what exactly her ruling was to say that this was not legal or it should not be followed that the plaintiffs had a significant chance of winning the merits of their case of the executive order okay so that comes from the federal court and as a result or subsequent to that the administration said yeah we don't care their response was to say thank you but we're going forward anyway their response was a little tricky it said that it said that we will that we will respect the decision of the court they continue to believe that this is a lawful order it does not I've not read anything that has said that the government was going to defy the order but what's problematic is that there's been inconsistent application of the stay and so you still have I'm part of all these attorney listservs where volunteer attorneys have been showing up at airports from the beginning and they're saying that there are still people that are being turned back there are still people who are being held and they shouldn't be at this point they did clarify that green card holders it was in the national interest so is that happening at the state level state level people are doing this no these are all federal these are all federal employees what this brings up and unfortunately this is like the last thing and then we have to shut the show down unfortunately but this brings up the constitutional crisis issue and unfortunately we don't have time to go into this conversation but that is basically freedom of religion is what some people are saying is a constitutional issue with regards to this executive order and then the other side of that is the potential denying or the potential of going against and denying what the federal ruling was and those are the two areas where you discrimination based on religion and then the some where you set up this battle between the administration and this battleground between the administration and the courts I'm not a constitutional law expert but my reading of this is clearly unconstitutional because it's so specific in its targeting of protected groups and that's what people are looking at that's where the ACLU is out there that's where there's a number of groups that are trying to form the Hawaii coalition for civil rights there's a press conference going on right now there's 2223 groups that have banded together if we have any time left here thank you so much we appreciate it thank you for joining us thank you Claire thank you thank you to think tech staff and crew we will see you next week take care