 Welcome, friends and fans of thinktechawaii.com to the second episode of our program, The Will of the People. We are talking about immigration issues today, and I am your host, Martha E. Randolph. We are going to be discussing the Trump immigration policies concerning the separation of parents and children from incoming undocumented immigrants who are crossing our southern and southwestern borders. My guest today, I am happy to say, is immigration lawyer John Robert Egan. Some of you may recognize him from other appearances on thinktechawaii programs. John is a senior immigration lawyer for the Migration Council and has taught and developed humanitarian law and disaster management curricula for the Richardson School of Law at UH Minoa. He's done this for a number of years and he was kind enough to offer us his perspectives on recent immigration issues. Welcome John, and thank you for being here. It's my pleasure. Glad to be here. I'm so glad you are. Now, before we continue, I would like to remind everyone that today happened to be the day that the courts had given the immigration authorities as a limit to buy the time they would have to reunite families would be today. Now, we are talking a massive number of people and they are not going to meet that deadline. There will still be many people ununited with their children, especially there are some questions about the parents who were already sent back to their original homelands without their children and how they are going to get together. So John, I'd like to pass that over to you and ask you at the same time to tell us what about this word that they have put in the law about the appropriate or allowable or permissible children who are qualified for immigration. That's not the precise word. It is somewhere in my notes. But you know the word I mean. It's the one that allows them to say this is a person who qualifies for reuniting and this is a person who does not. Well, it sounds like you're talking about the requirement that has been imposed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to determine which children are eligible to be returned to their own parents. The word was eligible. That's a pretty curious thought. If you think about that, how does somebody who just saw this child for the very first time a few hours ago determine whether they're eligible to be given back to the parents that they were stripped away from? Not to mention the children who were taken away from their parents months ago or their children who are very, very young or possibly approaching adulthood in the ages of 17 or something of that nature. So there is no specific definition of the word eligible? Well, what they have imposed and you really have to take this back a moment. Why have they imposed any eligibility requirements at all? Indeed. The reason is to slow the process down because they knew they were not going to be able to actually bring these kids back as quickly as the court had required. So they patched in some kind of an additional requirement. Well, we just can't give them back. How do we know this is really their parents? How do we know that their parents are not in disguise as human traffickers? How do we know that they're not criminals? How do we know they're children? Right. So they've made up all of this sort of stuff. We're going to take your child away, but we're not going to give that child back to you until you've proven to us that you really deserve to have your own child back. That's crazy. That's true. That's absolutely true. In fact, I believe I read today that in USA Today and an article from them that some of these legalities that the immigration authorities working under Trump who have used these as excuses for questioning whether these are honest people, whether these immigrants are honest or criminals, have been such minor infractions that in the normal course of events they would be settled with a $12 fine. Now that sounds to me a little bit like the word eligible, a way to create a criminal out of somebody who has not performed any crime, except maybe they didn't dot their I or cross their T. Do you think that that sounds like another example of saying we can't reunite these people because, oh, he's a criminal. He has to appear in court. He stole a candy bar or he could not prove that the money he had on him was not legitimate or something in that nature. Is this another excuse? You can kind of sort of change this around, turn it around and think if someone came to your door, took your child away without your permission by force and then said here's a long list of things that you have to do to prove that we can give you your child back. How does that make any sense? It doesn't. It doesn't to me. It's a crazy idea and it should be just identified as being ridiculous and unworkable. Absolutely. Maybe, John, it would help our viewers if we give them some historical background as to this entire concept of removing children from their parents. After all, there is a difference between saying this parent is abusing them or this parent really is a gun runner or a criminal and just arbitrarily removing children from their parents. And this goes back quite some time, although recently with the no-tolerance directive in April, this became something involving thousands of people as opposed to just a few. Can you give us some background on that and feel free to throw it back to me because I've got my notes? Well, there's a number of things going on here. First, the problem with people coming to our southern border and seeking refuge is not a new thing. That did not start with the current administration. It's been going on for quite a long while. So how do we dealt with that? Well, we actually have some international agreements that are important to keep in mind. The United States government is a signatory to the International Convention on Refugees and Stateless People. That says that anyone who comes to your border and asks you for asylum, you're supposed to actually let them in and make their case. The problem is that we then had quite a sort of crowd coming into the border and this, you know, has been going on for years. It was going on in the previous administration as well and they were trying to find ways to slow this down. One of the thoughts that the, frankly, it was the Obama administration, before the current administration, is that well, you know, we could up the penalties for crossing the border without papers. And if we take those people and we put them in jail and they have children, well, that's kind of sending them a message that they shouldn't be doing this. Relatively quickly, the court said, no, you really can't do that. That's, you cannot punish children for the crimes of their parents and the crime of crossing the border is a misdemeanor. It's not a felony. Why would you take such draconian action for such a small offense? So that happened around when in 2014? Well, or do we know? Do you have even a guesstimate as to the time? Honestly, honestly, this has been going on for a while. They've been modifying it. The problem at the southern border goes back dozens of years. There was an agreement, the Flores agreement, in court in Southern California. That was during the Obama administration. And they said, no, you cannot incarcerate children with their parents. That's not an appropriate way to deal with that. They tried to do family detention centers. There were problems there. But all of that was really small numbers. They were testing this out with relatively small numbers. It's the current administration that said, well, actually, we're thinking this is a really good idea. Let's expand it quite a bit. And that starts back from April of this year, the zero tolerance program. And they were intending to send a strong message to people coming up from Latin America. No, you're not really welcome here. And we are going to treat you in this very harsh way as a deterrent. Right. Okay, so ladies and gentlemen, just to make sure you know, there are many links on our website, which will take you to the facts and figures that we've been discussing. And I have some information for you here, which does tell us that the children crossing alone, you might remember that, ladies and gentlemen, that the there was an influx, especially I think from Honduras of children who were being targeted by local criminal gangs and being killed for no reason that we know of whatsoever. And they were coming in alone, their parents were sending them as refugees or potential refugees to this country. And these rules in 2014 were even made more important. Because what do you do with a child who comes across the border illegally, and throws themself at your mercy? I would also like to clarify for all of you that there is a difference. You cannot classify everyone as an illegal immigrant, just because they present themselves to your border, without paperwork that allows them to. In fact, that is how refugees usually show up or people who are applying for refugee status. They show up, they legally go to an entry port, they say, I would like to be a refugee. And the Trump administration is treating everyone the same as if they all somehow snuck into the country, determined to live here without permission. And that is just not the case. John, do you know what the numbers are like? I believe when you and I were discussing this earlier, we talked about, I talked about certainly, why hasn't this issue made such a public presentation before this? After all, I have not even did not even know existed until the news came that the Trump's immigration policies had caused the separation of as much as 2,500 families. And then they were ordered to get these people back together. There are easily 500 or more children separated from their parents. There are parents who are sent back to their homes under the understanding that that was how they'd get their kids back. There is chaos here. And I'd like to know how does this happen? And why is it just now coming to our notice? Why did the American people not realize this was going on before? I'm not sure that the American people in general didn't know. Clearly, as the crisis has sort of grown and become more clearly a problem. Yes, it becomes more newsworthy. But you have to remember that this administration has been throwing out chaos after chaos after chaos. That seems to be part of their their plan is just throw stuff out there so quickly and change the news cycle. You know, there's a certain amount of overload. And just briefly, was there someone representing the Trump administration who was supposed to be overseeing this who we can really say may be responsible for the level of chaos that has ensued? I think you were telling me about the name of the person that the Trump administration put in charge of all of this being someone who definitely supports this entire idea. Well, there is a person who was delegated the responsibility of handling the children. Now, the bureaucratic framework here is a little bit complicated. But when refugees come to the United States and have made a claim and need some kind of housing or other social support, there is an office for refugee resettlement, which is not actually within the Department of Homeland Security. It's not under Jeff Sessions and the Attorney General. It's under Health and Human Services. So it's a little bit of disconnect. Do you remember the name of this gentleman who's in charge? Scott, I think his last name is Scott. If you haven't, you're known. You're welcome to look at them. We are going to be going to break in a short minute. And I love people to know the name of that person before we go to break. And for you to make a note of it, ladies and gentlemen, and please Google it and find out more about this individual. His name is Scott Lloyd. He was a sort of a conservative advocate for actually curiously enough, he had nothing to do with refugee work prior to this nomination. He had been working in the pro-life movement and first came to know one of the very first things he did in his job dealing with refugees, you may recall the case early, later part of this last year, early part of this year, where a young female migrant had been raped in the process of getting to America, became pregnant and wanted to abort that. Yes, I do remember that was him. The fellow who said, No, we're not going to allow that. This this young woman is going to have to carry this child to birth. And eventually, the court stepped in and said, No, that's not really your job to make that decision. But that's the guy. That's him. And he is he specifically wrote an order that any decision about releasing these children back to their families had to be vetted by him personally. And of case by case, and he had to sign off on every reunification. Well, 3,000 of these, that was just never going to happen. Yes, it was it was simply a way of stopping the program from succeeding. Okay, all right. That seems to me to be a situation where this could open the US government to all sorts of lawsuits based on violations of human rights or violations of international agreements, or abuse of all sorts. I don't know if we're going to get to this completely before the break. But if we don't, we will return to this subject. John surely some of these actions do violate agreements we have made with the international community. Is that so? Or am I just thinking that we pay mouth credit to these various agreements, and we never actually became signatories of them? No, not at all. We we are signed to any number of different agreements that relate specifically to this. For example, the the convention on refugees and stateless people has a very clear statement about how we treat people when they arrive at our borders for this. However, you have to really understand that's not like a law here where, you know, if you get caught speeding, a police pulls you over and takes you out. And if you're drunk, they take you to jail and put you. No, there's no there's no international police that go around and arrest the president of the United States for doing a stupid policy like this. Absolutely. There's no enforcement. So so there's no method to have those types of international agreements bite in a situation like this. And if you really think about it, why would anybody want to do that? The people who would enforce the rights of the refugees in this situation have to be other signatory parties exactly to that treaty. Exactly. Now, which signatory party to that treaty wants to stand up and kick Donald Trump in the knee? I don't think anybody's planning to do that on behalf of these people. And if you think about it, for example, this body of law that relates to how we treat refugees is administered through the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Okay, they are responsible for some 30 to 50,000 refugees around the world right now. And who is their major funder? The United States of America. So do you think Antonio Guterres, the High Commissioner for Refugees right now wants to pick a fight with his major funder? He certainly would not. I think we're going to be going to break soon. And so let's before we go further with this, let's just go to our break. And then we can come back and follow up with this because I think most Americans would think that if your child was taken away from you, you would certainly want to take someone to court and see if you could get some money because they did it. And I don't know even if that's legal or possible, but I'd like to come back to that after the break. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to take a brief break and we will be back in just a few seconds. And please take this opportunity to look at some of the links that we have posted online and get some background information and do as much research on your own as you wish. Thank you very much. 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Hi, everyone. This is Martha Randolph and this is program The Will of the People. And we are talking about the recent immigration issues that have come to public notice that were instituted by the Trump administration. My guest today is John Robert Egan, immigration attorney with the Migration Council. When we went to break John, we were talking, I was talking about surely this is slightly, this sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen, but it is true that none of these people are American. They are citizens of another country. They have the the image of having been an illegal immigrant or a refugee who had not been granted status. Is it possible that there is any kind of legal option out there for them to take the Trump administration or the way in which the immigration issue has been handled recently to some kind of court to well make them pay, which is the money is less important than the fact that it gets brought to public notice? Or is this simply not within the realms of possibility for these people? Well, I think it's probably important to understand that the reason there was a court order to reunite these families is because there is already a court action underway. Now, that particular action was taken by the ACLU, the American Civil Liberties Union. So, so that's not an action on behalf of each or any of the individual families. But there is a court action underway right now, and that is going to make a lot of presidential rulings about how this is going to play out. You mentioned to make somebody pay up. I don't think that's really what the initial problem here is. I don't think these families are looking to get money. I think they want to get their children back. And I think that's the first and most important thing. If there is punitive stuff to happen later, well, maybe so. I don't think anybody's gone there yet. I don't think it's relevant at this point. I think the first thing is there are still it sounds as of the news today. There are still over a thousand possibly as many as 2,000 children who are separated from their families because of the actions of this administration and getting those children back into contact with their families is the most critical thing. All right. Yeah, I think that's pretty important. Now, I had to ask that question because we're a litigious society and if this were happening to Americans, believe me, they'd want to do something about it more aggressively. However, what I would like to talk to you now about is if possible, can we discuss the recent Supreme Court decision that came down to respond to the Hawaii versus Trump challenge, the third version of the restrictions on immigration into this country. The Supreme Court basically decided that it was in the realms of the president's authority, which he has over immigration and national security matters, to suspend the entry of all or of certain classes of foreign nationals if he felt that their entry would be detrimental to the interests of the United States or that they needed to be properly vetted or anything of that nature. Now, can we clarify that a bit? Does this mean that the president can unilaterally decide who is allowed to come into this country and who isn't because I thought that immigration regulations were done by the Congress or series of laws that get passed that indicate if there's numbers or quotas or who comes in or who doesn't come in? Well, yes, to both of those. Yes, we do have laws. The laws are created by Congress. They set up quotas, they set up a system, and the law specifically says that these laws are subject to non-discrimination. And that's the law. At the same time, there is another proviso in the same law, the internet, it's called the Immigration and Nationality Act. And in that law, it also says that it is within the authority of the executive being the president in times where there is a national security issue to restrict entry. So both of those things are true. Now, what is a national security issue? That becomes a really important question. And we do have precedent for that. Interestingly, in this very same decision that came out from the Supreme Court, the court said that it was overruling a previous case, the Koromatsu case, which has a lot of residents here in Hawaii. That was the case that put Japanese Americans, many of them citizens, into detention camps in the Second World War. And in that case, they used the theory that there was a national security issue in order to justify in the national security, the detention, you know, removal of these people from their homes, put them in detention camps. The Supreme Court said that we're overruling that because that was clearly wrong. But what we're doing today with Donald Trump is actually OK. Well, most people who are looking at this don't really understand how that can be both true. And in fact, one of the reasons that the Koromatsu case has gone down in history is being a major mistake. The Supreme Court made an error by ruling in favor of the Roosevelt administration in supporting the incarceration of US citizens on a national security basis is that in the years after research has uncovered that it was false. The information saying that the Japanese American community was somehow a threat to national security has been proven now historically to be bogus. It was not true. It was not true at the time they did it. And they knew that it was not true. So what is history going to say now when we've years go by and we find out that actually that the doctors and engineers and psychiatrists and and all the different technology people from these Middle Eastern countries that are living here in the U.S. never were a security threat to the United States. And yet we used national security as the rationale for overstepping in this kind of. And actually Robert that John John that is something a question that I am interested in because there was no attempt as far as I can see for the government to prove that their assertion of these individual nations were a direct threat. They were not required by the courts to validate their statement to prove it in any way before the Supreme Court decided that the president has that power. And yet from what you're telling me there is a precedent a legal precedent that challenged a ruling based on the fact or overturned a ruling based on the fact that there was no proof. So I'm a little confused. Let me interrupt you there. Don't read more into what the Supreme Court said than was on the paper. They said we overruled it was a mistake full stop. They didn't go into all of the reasons why they're overruling it. It was what they call dicta. Dicta means something that the Supreme Court says in a ruling that isn't really related to the issue at bar. So at bar was the question of Muslim ban in their decision. They also said and by the way we overrule Korematsu. They didn't go in and talk about all of those other things. You have to find those in other sources. So no there is no direct. They don't articulate this as a contradiction in their history. They are actually saying consistent with our practice of fair play. We're overruling that one. But this one still is good. OK. All right. That's that's very clear. I tend to like to get to the essence of these matters. John I need to thank you very much for coming today. We needed a legal perspective on many of these issues and we have provided it. But we're going to close the show now and get everyone ready for next time. And I hope you will appear again as I think we're going to have a lot of legal issues to look into with the Trump administration. I have a suspicion that that's correct. Yes. OK. Thank you so much. So ladies and gentlemen and viewers and fans and folks I want to thank you for looking in today on this immigration issue program. The will of the people will be back in two weeks and my guest at that time will be Blake Oshiro who will be representing Compassionate Choices Advocacy Group. This is the group that recently got the governor to sign HB 2739 which is the Our Care Our Choice Act into law which does authorize the right of a mentally stable terminally ill adult to ask for medical aid in dying. This has been a very contentious issue and I hope you will join me in two weeks to find out more about it. Thank you very much and we will see you then.