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And yes, my name is Jim Santel.
I am your host.
here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media.
Delighted and honored that you have chosen to spend some of your weekend time with me and with my producer Max.
We're coming to you from the studios of Civic Media and Radio Park Racine.
And as always in our weekend broadcast, we are doing our weekly review of all things justice related, government related, rule of law promoting.
And that includes lots of things pulled right from the headline.
of just this past week.
I'll tell you about our syllabus, our academic schedule in just a moment before that.
I want to remind you, as always, that you can be a part of and should be a part of our discussion by calling into Max and to me.
That phone number is 855-752-4842.
One more time, that's 855-752-4842.
You can also drop a comment, a question, an observation.
Your inquiry about anything on our syllabus into the Civic Media Dropbox, we will take a look at those, make those a part of discussion as well.
Here on Amicus, a law review.
Again, delighted honor that you are part of our discussion this weekend as we launch in to some of the major decisions, major rule of law events and occurrences of just this past week.
They fall.
under a number of big ticket items.
That includes necessarily another revisiting of immigration issues.
Yes, we talked last week about this major decision by the Supreme Court to permit the Trump administration to suspend the temporary protected status of about 350,000 Venezuelans.
Well, it turns out the Supreme Court added once again late this past week, affecting now 500,000.
500,000.
half a million immigrants rescinding, suspending a concept, a program, a plan put in place by the Biden administration, providing what's called humanitarian parole.
We'll tell you about what that's all about.
We'll talk a bit about the history, a lot about the history.
understanding what that's about and why it is important, the significance of the Supreme Court's decision.
Also, as we've talked before, a part of its emergency docket, this shadow docket, making decisions without explanations of what they're doing, some signed orders, some dissents.
We'll get to those as well.
All of that happening in the area of immigration just this past week.
We also have breaking news throughout the week, including late in the week, having to do with academic
schooling, education in America and beyond.
Yes indeed, more events having to do with that war, that continuing battle between the president, the White House and Harvard University.
This time, this time a judge in connection with this injunctive work.
that federal district court judges do routinely, a judge blocking Donald Trump's ban on international students will tell you about who that judge is, what that judge has done, and at the same time, almost contemporaneous with that, an announcement coming from the Secretary of State, his name is Marco Rubio, saying that the government, the State Department is going to, in his words, aggressively revoke, aggressively revoke the visas of Chinese students in this nation will tell
about the categories that are going to be affected by that decision, again, inside the academic area, lots of things having to do with the rule of law.
We will talk necessarily, yes indeed, there's a connection between tariffs and yes, yes, yes, international economic issues and the rule of law, a major decision, plural decisions coming out of different courts, federal courts, something called the United States Court of International Trade.
initially suspending in major ways the capacity, the authority of this president to do what he's been doing, starting, stopping, re-initiating, halting various tariffs around the world.
We'll tell you what the Court of International Trade did just this past week to upend, much if not all of that, and then a subsequent decision in the category of whipsawed by the federal courts.
and decisions that reverse and overturn lower court decisions.
We'll talk about the federal circuit, the federal circuit and what it did with that decision coming out of the United States Court of International Trade.
All of that, all of that difficult dizzying even to follow in the area of tariffs and the intersection of international economics, domestic economics, obviously prices and monetary policy.
and the rule of law, justice and government.
We're also gonna talk necessarily about, once again, these injunctions.
Yes, indeed, that injunction having to do with Harvard, but also another injunction, a temporary restraining order entered by Judge Gallagher.
We'll talk about her, we've talked about her before, with respect to one particular immigrant who is almost certainly now still in El Salvador.
What did she do, and how does that decision?
fall into a larger consideration of all of these judges.
We'll talk, give you some inventory about what's going on generally when it comes to injunctive relief, these temporary restraining orders.
Why is that important?
Because yes, indeed, it's also inside this so-called big, beautiful bill.
There's now passed the House of Representatives.
You know that.
I suspect that very few members of Congress, very few Americans have read the 1000-page bill, but nestled inside that a number of very concerning, hugely dramatic changes in the way that America works and operates among those, among those, a provision.
that would tie the hands of federal district court judges when it comes to reviewing the applications for these injunctive orders and then entering them, having them enforced.
We'll talk about what a bond is, why that's so very important under a rule of civil procedure.
We'll talk about what that big, beautiful bill would strip, would remove from the capacity of federal judges to do.
when it comes to reviewing, at least preliminarily, the merits of these many executive orders, now somewhere approaching about 170 altogether, probably well in excess of 250 lawsuits.
We'll do some inventory of that as well.
We'll talk once again about necessarily those Venezuelan immigrants taken to El Salvador.
We'll talk about the entire corpus of cases involving injunctive relief sought
in front of the federal district courts and again the involvement of our legislature now.
in restricting potentially possibly the capacity of your federal judges to do just that.
That is to review cases and determine whether or not at least preliminarily they should go ahead, whether the merits of them are sufficiently strong to justify a temporary restraining order or not.
The United States Senate now has in its lap, in its inbox, this major piece of
legislation that includes this provision having to do with injunctions.
We'll talk about all of that, all of that in connection with our returning series, our returning segment always called injunction function, the function of federal courts since time began in this nation, since time began under our constitution to do these kinds of things.
Now, now the federal legislature attempting for obvious reasons to stop
that from happening in a major way.
But we begin necessarily, as we sometimes do on Amicus Allora View, by talking as a friend of the community, talking about the Amicus, the information that is provided to you in that sense of Amicus, friend of the community, friend to all of our listeners.
about something else that's going on outside of our borders.
We have chatted about this before on Amicus.
A lot of you were going to revisit it again this weekend beginning right now.
It has to do with Mexico and the fact that for the first time this weekend, this Sunday, this weekend, Mexicans, the citizens of Mexico just to our south are going to vote for thousands of candidates on the ballot
to fill about 2,600 positions in federal, state, and local courts.
A daunting task before the Mexican citizenry right now.
For the first time in the country's history, the Mexican citizenry is going to be electing more than 2,600 judges, also including magistrates.
Some of those are going to be sitting on the Supreme Court of the nation, hundreds of other federal, state, and local tribunals.
It is a major, a major revision, a major recrafting, a recreation of the very judiciary, the system there in Mexico.
The move to this
a non-appointed but elective system is one in which voters, voters themselves will choose their judges.
Again, you know here in America and the United States, what do we do?
We've got a bifurcated system for the most part, federal judges, they're appointed, and that's the way that Mexico used to do things up until
this week and the coming weeks.
But there are also state court judges, including right here in Wisconsin.
The great majority of them, there are some provisions for a governor to appoint some of them on an interim basis.
But in the state systems, we do in fact elect our judges.
A subject of an awful lot of debate out there about which one is better.
What are the merits and demerits of having appointed judges, as opposed to elective judges, that also a part of the legislative review of this entire system in Mexico in recent times.
supporters of this overhaul argue that makes the system, the judicial system of course, more democratic and counteracts huge problems that undeniably exist there in Mexico like nepotism and especially corruption in the judiciary there.
Critics of this new plan to have judges elected as opposed to appointed there in Mexico are saying with equally strong voices that it risks giving the governing party
And that's where it came from.
That's where this legislative change came from.
Gives the governing party more power, opens the candidates who lack experience and qualifications to being subject to the whims of the electorate.
If you make decisions that are not pro-
popular it may well be that you'll be voted out we want that as a part of a system that's what they argue could be influenced by various groups including criminal groups political groups all kinds of things when you move from an appointed system to an elective system that decision has been made by the Mexican government and by the people of Mexico the experiment is so ambitious it is also as I just indicated it's very divisive among the Mexican
It is also admittedly confusing as the president of Mexico has indicated.
Difficult to know exactly how it will unfold.
A single day of voting, a single day of voting that happens Sunday this weekend will enact what is certainly the most far-reaching judicial overhaul ever by a contemporary large democracy.
Let me say that again.
It's the most far-reaching judicial overhaul by any large democracy in our contemporary times.
This is no small thing.
So what do we need to know about all this?
First of all, where did it come from and what happened exactly?
Well, we know.
That in the past there have been these allegations again that the appointed judges were corrupt that their staffs and maybe even the judges themselves appointed as a result of nepotism culmination of a very contentious process in which Moreno, which is the governing party and its allies because of their concerns about appointed judges
amended the Constitution last year.
We talked about this at the time it's happened and basically overhauled the court system.
That's what happened in the recent history.
The idea to elected judges by popular vote was proposed by the former president.
His name is Manuel Lopez Obrador.
And it was championed by the present president.
Her name is Claudia Scheinbaum.
We have talked a lot about her as well, including at the time that she was elected first female president of that nation, something in America has yet to do.
Claudia Scheinbaum, you also may know, very, very famous, notorious even recently because of her trolling of our president who has renamed, arguably renamed the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America.
Claudia Scheinbaum taking exception to many of the things.
that our president has done.
We'll talk about what Claudia Scheinbaum and her party and the party of her successor have done, changing the way that judges in Mexico are selected now by the people as Amica Saloraview continues.
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This is amicus a lot of you my name Jim Santel your host this hour and next hour as well as always taking your comments your questions your inquiries your observations at that civic media number that is 8 5 5 7 5 2 4 8 4 2 Be a part of our discussion this weekend as we consider a great number of issues in the area of immigration and academics and international tariff issues injunctions and yes begin
our two hours together by talking about something significant having to do with our neighbor to the south.
It is Mexico.
Is it relevant to understanding what's going on in America?
Sure it is.
Of course it is because the civics lesson here is that decisions about how we elect judges, those are made by the people.
Those are made by the people.
And again, in our Constitution, almost 250 years ago, the decision made advocated for by people like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and John Jay as well, all of those folks advocating and securing the notion that in the federal system, we appoint judges.
The president nominates.
The Senate confirms if at all, that's the appointed process in many, if not all of the states.
in the United States, the opposite is true.
We vote for our judges, merits and demerits to both sides of that operational approach.
And the answer is, of course, that it's the people who decide how to do that.
In Mexico, in Mexico, they had a constitution that prescribed, used to prescribe exactly what we have, which is appointed judges.
And what happened was that the former president, his name once again, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador,
Pushed a plan.
After the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court there in Mexico issued a series of rulings that blocked some of his major initiatives.
Didn't like what the Supreme Court is doing there.
Does that sound familiar?
It should.
And among other things, according to the former president, those decisions by the Mexican Supreme Court weakened the electoral watchdog agency, put the National Guard under military control, all kinds of things that the president did not like.
And after federal judges issued orders,
to suspend some of the former president's basic flagship projects, including some environmental concerns.
The president went to the Congress and said, we need to change this.
We can't go ahead with continuing appointed judges.
Let's change the Constitution.
And yes, they did.
They went to the people and the people of Mexico spoke, not without great controversy, not without great objection, great objection.
And the people of Mexico by vote changed their constitution, something that we could do if indeed there is enough of support in America to do this.
If indeed that's what Americans want to do, Mexicans did it.
And as a result of what they did last fall, now we're seeing the effect of that, specifically in the wake of what the president called these politically motivated decisions.
By courts across the country he urged the population to support the control of the Judges in the hands of the people no small thing large majority secured by the party during last year's general election Allowed its lawmakers to pass these constitutional changes that overhauled the system once again the single biggest largest most significant contemporary change ever
by a contemporary democracy, a Western, a free and fair democracy in our lifetime.
So what happens?
So Sunday of this weekend, voters will elect now half, one half of Mexico's judiciary, the rest in a couple years in 2027.
That's how this system is being put into place this year alone.
in the following hours, nearly 880 federal judges from district judges up to the Supreme Court.
The highest court in the land will be up for grabs.
And the people of Mexico will decide who those people are.
19 of the country's 32 states will elect local judges and magistrates to fill about 1,800 seats.
That's going on in Mexico this weekend.
More than 7,700
100 candidates are running for those jobs.
77 people.
on the ballots this weekend for those judicial positions.
And unlike the regular elections where political parties can finance their candidates' campaigns and do other things, pouring a lot of money into these campaigns, again, does that sound familiar?
Absolutely, absolutely, here in the state of Wisconsin, other states around the country.
Aspiring judges in Mexico are not, are not allowed to rely on public or private funding.
Either one of those can't get
monies from either one of those sources, public or private.
And what does it do?
Of course, it forced them to instead use their own resources.
Yes, indeed, if you are still economically able to do so, you can fund a lot, but also requiring they depend an awful lot more on things like social media.
visits to specific communities, town hall meetings, going door-to-door the kinds of grassroots campaigning that we still see here in Wisconsin, their places around the country, but forcing them not to do that with the support of public or private monies.
And so interesting to try to help help voters along the way.
The agency overseeing this vote now, the government agency responsible for administering how this is going to happen, created an online platform.
so that Mexican voters, people can familiarize themselves with the candidates.
You go online, you pull up a name, you pull up a great number of people, you read about who they are, what they stand for, whether they are in favor of the fair and equitable disposition of justice, how do they describe themselves?
Are they so-called activist judges?
Are they judges who apply the law to the facts?
Do they follow the rule of law?
All those kinds of things that animate our discussions.
Still,
even with all of that, some supporters of the overhaul acknowledge.
It'll be difficult for voters to make those informed choices among thousands of what are admittedly very much unknown candidates.
A recent poll mentioned by President Scheinbaum, the present president, during one of our news conferences, she said that 72% of about 1,000 voters surveyed so the judicial elections were needed.
So you've got huge support for doing it this way, the new mechanism there in Mexico.
but only a small fraction of them, she reported, 23% knew who the candidates were, knew who the candidates were, about 23% going into the selection, now happening, hours from now, this weekend in Mexico.
When we come back, we'll tell you a little bit more about that, when we're going to hear the results of that, and then we will come back to the United States and talk about immigration and academics and tariffs, all of that coming up on Amicus, a law review.
This is Amicus Solar Review here on the broadcast stations of Civic Media beginning our discussion this weekend about this more than significant change in the way that Mexicans, the country of Mexico, identifies and selects its judiciary across the board.
This weekend, a change being made unlike any other.
in contemporary democracies on the face of the planet, Mexico going from an appointive system, which we have with respect to the federal judges, to an elective system, which we have with respect to most situations involving our state court judges.
Again, on Sunday, this weekend, voters in Mexico electing half of the judiciary.
7,700 candidates running for these positions
880 federal judgeships, 1800 other seats in the counties and local entities, judges, magistrates across the board, all of this coming in the wake of last year's decision by the people of Mexico to change their constitution.
Again, encouraged by former president López Obrador, very much embraced by president
Claudia Scheinbaum, she has recently commented that while she supports this, she also knows that there's got to be an awful lot of education going on.
She noted that in a recent poll, about 72% of the 1,000 voters surveyed said they have did in fact support this notion, but only a very small fraction of those actually know who the candidates are, requiring them, yes, to go online to take a look at what these candidates stand for, requiring the Mexican
residents and citizens to take a look at who these candidates are as they go door to door as they convene in town halls.
It requires an awful lot of specific.
particularized engagement with the judiciary.
That surely is a good thing.
And the other big thing that this accomplishes, again, based upon the constitutional changes made by the Mexican population, is that money is out of this.
You can support your campaign a bit independently yourself, but unlike our nation where, again, Citizen United, that Supreme Court case of many years ago now that basically said that indeed it is a first
I'm an issue to be able to support candidacies.
The money that floods into, yes, even our judicial races, as you all know well, in state systems and in local systems, the support of electing judges through monetary contributions that they don't have anymore in Mexico.
And so the people are going to the polls this weekend to figure all this out.
So once again, when do we know the results?
Well,
And paper ballots the Constitution requires there that there be paper ballots We have that here certainly the state of Wisconsin and in other states in our system of course our Constitution our federal system says that the terms and circumstances the trappings of elections What are they left to their left to the states right and that's why all these decisions about how elections are conducted our matters for state election commissions including right here in Wisconsin to be decided by them
certainly to be reviewed if there are challenges to them by state courts but their decisions made by states and not by the federal government.
Under the Mexican regime now the structure for this new voting system all of those paper ballots have to be counted by hand.
have to do it by hand.
And unlike other Mexican elections, when preliminary results are known typically on election night, because of that, the results for at least the federal judiciary, the judges who are in the Supreme Court and the other federal judges in Mexico, those have become clear in days.
Maybe later this week, maybe even down the road, the nationwide vote counts will determine the final results.
Again, will take place on June 15.
So it's gonna be a while.
before we know the results of all this.
No small controversy, even as Mexicans go to the polls this weekend, subject of an awful lot of debate before the Constitution was changed.
Renew debate right now in Mexico to our south again supporters of the election talk about a system That is rife with corruption and nepotism when judges were appointed Justice was more easily accessible to those who could afford it could engage in bribery and corruption and dozens of judges being co-opted by one or more of Mexico's violent cartels That was the allegation when you had appointed judges subject not to review by the people but rather
by the results of corruption and payments.
In fact, Mexicans perceive judges, according to polling, to be among the country's most corrupt officials, judges, the most corrupt officials, second only to traffic agents.
That fueled plainly an awful lot of the movement now completed now being put into effect to change the way that judges are selected in Mexico a system in which judges are elected Proponents say well sever those ties that some have had with these powerful criminals there corrupt officials and members of an elite portion of the citizenry They argue that judges will now respond to the interests of those who voted for them who are those people those are the Mexican
citizens, the people themselves, choosing who it is who's going to take their places on the benches of justice around the nation.
Critics, critics can see that Mexico's judiciary faces huge problems.
Absolutely.
Those are known in need of deep reform, but they say this is not the way to do it.
Don't fix it this way.
Well, that decision has now been made.
Several on that side of the argument have argued that the overall will politicize courts, make the individual judges who are running for these positions more political, and they will no longer be able to hand down justice independently, not being concerned about how the local citizenry, the nationwide citizenry views their decisions.
The governing Morena party, which already holds the presidency and the Congress, will now wield some extraordinary
over this vote.
That's the concern about the system now, now in place.
They've also said that a system of direct elections risks letting under qualified candidates, people throwing their names onto the ballot, becoming judges and opening the door to greater cartel influence, inexperience, lack of sophistication on the bench, all those kinds of things coming from an elective system.
They basically track.
those arguments, the kinds of things that James Madison in particular addressed in the Federalist Papers advocating for the federal system of having judges appointed.
Again, on the opposite side, state judges for the most part selected by the people.
Take a look at the Federalist Papers.
You'll see the very argument that's been going on in Mexico in this century, just last year, being repeated, being repeated in the Federalist Papers.
a couple of hundred years ago by our founding fathers.
The issues don't go away.
It is a great civics issue.
It is a great learning issue for all of us to understand that there are decisions to make here and that one set of approaches, one set of structures to select judges has its merits and demerits as does the other side as well.
Mexico now going in the direction of judicial elections, voting for thousands of candidates.
to fill more than 2,600 positions in federal, state, and local courts.
That happening just to our south in Mexico.
Let's come back to the United States of America and talk about our Supreme Court.
and something significant that it did in connection with immigration, migration, and these continuing issues coming out of the president's serial executive orders, and yes, serial challenges to them, decisions and actions undertaken by Kristi Noem and the Department of Homeland Security by our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio,
and others to deport large numbers of people ever since the president became our chief executive.
Questions about the authority to do that, the mechanisms, the statutory basis for doing that, we've talked a lot about the the Alien Enemies Act invoked by the president and by those who support doing this over the many months of these deportations.
All of that subject to review by the courts whether or not that is a proper basis upon which to do it.
We talked just last week about the decision of the Supreme Court basically once again.
on its shadow docket, its emergency docket.
What is that?
Once again, running to the Supreme Court before the litigation, the underlying litigation is done, before the challenge to it has been heard by a court, by a jury adjudicated to judgment, running to the Supreme Court and saying, you must stop something from happening at the lower courts.
And that's something almost universally, unanimously has been to stop.
the executive orders of this president, the executive branch, the Solicitor General running to the Supreme Court a week or so ago in saying with respect to about 350 Venezuelans that something called the temporary protected status could no longer exist established again by virtue of the Congress invoked by President Biden to protect 350,000 Venezuelans.
We talked about that decision by the Supreme Court.
While this underlying litigation is going on, the decision by the Supreme Court to permit, to permit to allow the administration to go ahead to begin to deport any of those 350,000 Venezuelans, that was last week.
It has happened again this week.
This time the number is even much greater.
Supreme Court now allowing the Trump administration again as a part of its shadow docket.
What does that mean once again?
We are not getting the benefit of briefing.
Lawyers coming before the Supreme Court and providing them with great detail about the reasons why these things should or should not happen We're losing the capacity in oral argument which we talk about routinely on this broadcast and others of civic media where we can hear the arguments
Even if you don't want to read through all the lawyer stuff in all those documents, you can hear what the justices are concerned about.
You can hear the merits of these cases being argued.
That's what you miss.
That's the transparency in the shadow docket.
And perhaps most importantly, you do not get, you do not get the expositions that, yes, indeed, sometimes tens of pages, often hundreds of pages of documents of writings by our Supreme Court members explaining what they're doing.
transparency from our judiciary.
That's the problem with the shadow docket.
And indeed, it happened again this past week, an unsigned order, unsigned, providing no reasoning.
And again, that's typical when in fact the justices rule on these emergency applications running to the court and saying, you've got to do something right now.
The Supreme Court, this time as late as Friday of this past week, allowing the Trump administration for now, at least for now.
even while the litigation goes on to revoke, to stop, to reverse a Biden-era, rather, humanitarian program.
And that program was intended to give temporary residents to more than, hold on, 500,000 immigrants.
Half a million people in this country right now from countries that are facing war and political turmoil.
Now, even though the order
Again, affecting 500,000 immigrants, a half a million people in this country right now.
Even though that order unsigned, we don't know exactly the reasons for it.
We know that a majority of the Supreme Court said, yes, indeed, Mr. President, you can go ahead with your deportations of these individuals, even while the underlying claims have not yet been adjudicated to judgment.
We know that there were some dissents.
Katanji Brown Jackson, Associate Justice, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented.
She said, the majority has not given enough consideration, this is her quote, to the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and the livelihoods of nearly half a million non-citizens while their legal claims to stay here are pending.
Wow.
The ruling exposes migrants from Cuba and Nicaragua and Venezuela and Haiti to possible deportation.
It is undeniably the latest in this series of emergency orders by the Justices in recent weeks.
Last week, again, 350,000 Venezuelans.
This week, 500,000 immigrants, a flurry of these applications coming in.
Now, the
Two bases upon which these two decisions have been based are different.
Humanitarian parole, which is the basis upon which President Biden put in the protections for these 500,000 individuals present in our
nation.
This is amicus a la review my name Jim Santel on this weekend broadcast We're spending appropriately some time talking about this latest decision of your United States Supreme Court unsigned order No analysis no exposition of the reasons for their doing this.
We've got some dissenting justices who talk about the failure of the court
to address this in a way that is balanced and an understanding of the true merits of this precipitously precipitously making a decision here according to Katanji Brown Jackson but nonetheless saying that the Trump administration can now proceed
to deport about 500,000 people in this country, previously protected under a humanitarian parole program.
Let's talk about what that means.
This is not, this is not a program cooked up by the Biden administration overnight to keep people protected.
It's been around for decades, used to admit nearly 200,000 Cubans during the 1960s, more than 350,000 Southeast Asians after the fall of
gone during the Vietnam War again, situations where individuals apply again on a case-by-case basis when there is concern about their own countries of origin facing war, political turmoil, making the applications presidents on both sides of the political aisle have invoked this concept, this program in the past to protect people in that category.
It is a humanitarian parole program described that way because it's humanitarian.
Biden administration announced a humanitarian parole program as a part of this decades-long tradition by all administrations in April of 2022 for what group of people?
Ukrainians.
Ukrainians fleeing after the Russian invasion there.
They have been prectored under this humanitarian parole program by an officials that introduced the program for Venezuelans in late 2022 and yes indeed for Cubans and Haitians and Nicaraguans in January of 23 again all of them making specific particularized applications based upon the problems
back in their countries of origin.
With a stalemate in Congress over immigration, we have seen that before.
The incapacity, apparently, of our Congress to pass any omnibus legislation that would address these things.
Therefore, you've got a president who's doing what the Congress does not.
It has vacated the field.
criticism on both sides of the political aisle about that, a sharp increase in border crossings, the programs then by President Biden cleared the way for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from those nations to enter the country legally.
Mine officials had hoped of course the programs would encourage immigrants to fly to take to the air the United States come here and apply for entry in an organized fashion Let's provide some some structure to all of this rather than traveling by foot
coming north into this country, crossing the border illegally, those images that are bandied about on the media.
Fly in, make this root-nized, make this regular, and we can apply this humanitarian principle to you in that organized way.
When the program was adopted for the Venezuelans, official ports of entry had been closed to migrants since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and that produced additional incentive for those intent on reaching the country to take more dangerous routes we know
that well to cross the border illegally.
And no one wants that, right?
And so after the administration introduced its policy, border patrol apprehensions of migrants at the border from those countries actually dropped.
They dropped sharply as a result of the Biden administration and its humanitarian parole problem.
the policy rather than it put in place addressing this problem.
Texas and some other states filed lawsuits during the Biden administration seeking to block the parole program arguing that it burdened them by adding the costs for health care and education law enforcement.
The courts routinely upheld
the legality of that program.
President Trump, again, when he came into office, moved to end this program, humanitarian parole, for people from Cuba and Nicaragua and Venezuela and Haiti.
He did that on the first day in office.
That's one of the
quite literally tens approaching 200 executive orders that he has issued in that time.
Trump administration has not tried to revoke the status of 240 Ukrainians who are also protected on this, at least not yet.
And so what happens in the wake of the president's decision, the migrants sue.
And they argue, of course, that the termination of this humanitarian parole, some other related parole programs are contrary to law, that they're arbitrary and capricious.
You've heard that phrase before.
Again, that means that they're senseless.
They were simply doing this without any directive sense of mission and purpose out there.
A federal judge in Massachusetts pauses, stops, and joins the administration's revocation of the program way back in March and found that Homeland Security and Kristi Noem
lack the authority to categorically revoke parole for all 500 national numbers, 532,000 people without providing an individual
case-by-case review.
And what does the court say?
If these applications are coming in case-by-case, you've got to revoke them, if at all, looking back at the applications on a case-by-case basis.
In early May, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals from the First Circuit, they uphold the lower court's temporary block.
They find that Ms.
Noem, their secretary, had not made a strong showing that her categorical termination of humanitarian parole for all these migrants was likey to survive.
A court
challenge.
Emergency application goes to the Supreme Court May 8th.
Our Solicitor General, we talk about him routinely.
His name is John Sauer.
He argues that Secretary Noam had, in his words, broad discretion over categories of immigration determinations and that federal immigration law permitted the Secretary to revoke that parole whenever its purposes had been served by blocking the Trump administration from ending the programs.
The lower court, he said, had needlessly upended.
criminal critical immigration policies.
that are carefully calibrated to deter illegal entry and had undone, according to your administration, your Department of Justice, had undone democratically approved policies that featured heavily in the election results.
That coming out of the Supreme Court just this past week, when we come back, we'll move from immigration to academics into tariffs and injunctions once again in the second hour here on Amicus, a law review.
This is, of course, our weekend review, our analysis.
our examination of those major stories in the areas of law and government and the rule of law, justice, government, all those kinds of issues animating our syllabus every single weekend and animating our syllabus this weekend as well.
Just concluding now, our decisions, the review of our decision of the Supreme Court decision having to do with immigration in America once again, the Supreme Court on its shadow docket, permitting the Trump administration to proceed.
on the deportations of more than 500,000 people, more than a half a million people who have alleged that they're facing dire humanitarian crises in their home countries.
Supreme Court's saying you can now go ahead, Mr. President, to deport them, even while the underlying litigation...
as to them, their specific particularized applications are still under review.
It is significant, of course, that in this, as in other areas, we're not getting analysis, we're not getting exposition by our Supreme Court justices, aside from those who are dissenting to this, explaining why it is happening.
We do in fact always encourage you, our listeners, to engage with us.
That number is 855-752-4842.
you can drop a note into our chat line as well.
And that's indeed what Mark from Prairie du Sac has done, just in connection with this issue from our first hour, Mark notes that some 12,000 Afghans face deportation back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and likely punishment or death.
Mark notes that's ironic in his view, given the criticism that the previous administration received, not getting more Afghans who supported the US efforts
there, out and back to the United States of America.
And also underscores, Mark's comment does, who these folks are and the impact that this will have upon, upon our nation.
Where are these folks?
Where do they tend to work?
They're principally, not exclusively, but principally migrants.
They tend to work in what are called essential jobs, oftentimes in lower wage industries, faced labor shortages in those areas nationwide.
Since the coronavirus pandemic, you know that.
Well, of those who arrived in 2023, the top industries affected by this decision and among the 520,000 or so immigrants affected by the Supreme Court's ruling, top industries of employment are hospitality and recreation.
and construction.
A large share also work in healthcare and education and manufacturing and retail.
Gosh, virtually every single major undertaking of our nation.
An awful lot of economists also saying that the harm will ripple across the nation.
Businesses losing workers they've come to rely upon.
Communities facing the loss of populations that they welcomed into their neighborhoods day to day life.
Immigration experts and economists also saying that these 500,000 workers are spread out across industries and also geographies be felt across the country and the significance of this as deportations are undertaken cannot be overstated.
The authorities, again, now entitled to pursue these deportations, not yet issuing formal guidance, but those who were granted humanitarian parole who could be affected by the ruling have already received some notifications from Homeland Security and from Secretary Noam that their work permits are terminated.
And that is according to many of the immigration attorneys who are working in this area.
As I indicated, it is the second time in this month the Supreme Court has permitted these actions to go ahead, even when the litigation as to their legitimacy, the particular claims proceeds in the lower courts.
And of course, we know that Donald Trump, this is a not insignificant footnote to this, is also seeking to roll back some other yet more Biden area protections
that have allowed hundreds of thousands of immigrants to remain in the United States while their cases play out, including the temporary protected status for about 520,000 people from Haiti.
From Haiti, that is expected to expire in August, just a couple of months from now.
Immigration issues continue to loom large in America.
They come in and they come out of the Supreme Court.
They come in and out of the federal district and appellate courts of our land.
as well most of them stopping these programs from being rescinded keeping them in place for all the reasons that the dissenters in this case and the lower district court judges have also articulated that it would be unfair that there's no basis upon which to do that that the government has not in fact shown a likelihood of success on the merits when these cases get to trial and yet and yet our supreme court for two times in the past two weeks has permitted the government
Homeland security to go ahead even while those cases are still pending.
That's the immigration world of justice past week the history behind the notion of humanitarian parole and temporary protected status and the Supreme Court decisions that are implicating not just those particular mechanisms long-established but also the lives of hundreds of thousands of people here in this nation both directly and also the lives of all of us
by virtue of what their decisions are.
Let's talk now about academics.
Let's talk about schooling and education in two different areas.
We have spent a lot of time on this broadcast in the past talking about this continuing battle, which is probably understating it dramatically, the battle.
between the president of the United States and Harvard University, beginning with his demand to that university that it rescind, that it stopped all of its diversity and other programs there, designed to ensure a diverse population on campus in all areas.
equity, inclusion, all of those important words that should not be politicized.
That's what our nation is premised upon.
And yes, indeed, people can have reasonable differences about how those things should be implemented.
But the notion that the entire concept is somehow bankrupt is simply wrong.
We know that.
We know that in recent history.
Our own Supreme Court has said there's something good on campuses.
Yes, indeed, public schools and private schools, when the people who are sitting
to the left and to the right of me in classes and in the campuses around our nation when the professors and the TAs and the staff.
Don't all look the same and have different backgrounds of various immutable characteristics.
What happens?
Education is promoted.
You get a better sense of what the world is all about.
You can hear things that you don't like.
You can reject those things, but education as a part of something growing out of diversity is a good thing.
We know that also because our Supreme Court has said so.
Brown versus Board of Education.
Brown versus Board of Education too.
taking that first case and saying, no, you've got to ensure that there's diversity in our schools and do that with all the liberal speed.
The Supreme Court basically articulating that same principle that separate, separate is inherently unequal and it is unequal because therefore it delivers to people.
of skins that are not white and education that is inadequate and yes indeed it's only by that diversity and that inclusion in school houses and in universities and colleges and two-year degree schools across the country that you get education that the Supreme Court said the Constitution
Requires and so once again, we have this continuing war going on every single week every single day between the president begun again with his
demand to Harvard University that they bring down those diversity and inclusion and equity concepts.
It began there and then heightened when the Harvard University leadership to its credit said, no, we're not doing that.
They sued as we have talked about before in federal court saying this is contrary to the Constitution.
You can't do it in violation of all sorts of constitutional principles, in violation of First Amendment rights.
Under the Constitution, in violation of the fundamental notion of what schools and academicians do on a regular basis, we have had judges once again who have said, yes, that's right, you cannot do it, stopping the attempted enforcement of those executive orders as to
Harvard University and oh by the way as to other colleges and universities as well president returns from those battles and says all right I'm gonna rescind funding from you those battles have taken place you have got judges once again saying that that too the Recision of quite literally hundreds of millions of dollars in support under Department of Education programs that are premised upon congressional
decisions to put those in place administered by the government to colleges and universities around the nation, there too federal judges injunction function using those those skills and those capacities that are indeed in our federal
saying, no, Mr. President, you can't do that either.
And now we've got the most recent thing of just this past week.
We reported on it in our last broadcast saying from the President that he wants to block foreign students from entering Harvard, saying that, in fact, if you are enlisting, if you're enrolling, if you're accepting the applications of foreign students can't do it, stop it.
And this time, we're going to do it by rescinding their student visas.
What happened just this past week?
Well, a federal appeals court, a federal appeals court, again, on just this past Thursday in Boston, said the judge said that she would block the president's latest effort to do just that, preventing Harvard from enrolling international students.
Again, part of this overall continuing battle, economic,
DEI-related, the judge's decision, undeniably, another victory for Harvard.
And I'd argue another victory for academic institutions around the country who are also facing these kinds of battles.
Again, it is temporary.
Why?
Because the litigation underlying it is still ongoing.
This ongoing confrontation between the White House and the Congress and Harvard.
in which of course the Congress has not weighed in another issue down the road to discuss.
White House press secretary suggesting even after the judge enters this latest order blocking the administration from preventing Harvard from keeping international students on its campus.
The press secretary, her name cares Caroline Levitt as you know, she suggested that a single federal judge had overridden and overreached.
in blocking the administration's effort to prevent Harvard from enrolling these international students.
She said this.
She said, if these judges want to be Secretary of State or President, they can run for office themselves.
And that certainly is true.
Everybody has the capacity.
They would have to resign their positions plainly.
But she's missing the point, right?
Once again, which is the issue of visas coming out of our State Department.
The issue of the capacity of our academic institutions to educate is paramount and has also been established not only by precedent here, but also by the Congress itself in putting together the
for these international visas for students.
The judge, her name is Allison Burroughs, we've talked about her before, said she would extend the order from last week blocking the government's attempts to prevent the students from enrolling at the school as the two sides once again continue to battle this out in court.
It is significant that the hearing in front of her played out fairly quickly.
front of a crowd that was jammed into the wooden benches in her courtroom there in Boston with court officers apologizing for the tight seating, a lot of focus on this.
Lawyers for Harvard and the government each spoke for about 15 minutes or so before the judge said she would indeed enter a preliminary injunction once again.
And we also know, of course, that Trump administration, consistent with what the press secretary has said, plainly going to appeal this as well as a part of this ongoing battle between these two entities, Harvard University and the White House, it goes on, it continues.
And it's also a part of the commencement ceremony of just this past week.
We'll tell you more about what happened there in connection with Harvard and this battle.
with respect to preserving the diversity of its student body when Amicus Allora View continues.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amicus, a law review, our weekly weekend review.
I wrap up our analysis of some of the major decisions and actions and events in the areas of government and law enforcement and the rule of law in America.
And yes, indeed, beyond our borders.
Spending some time now talking about this continuing battle.
can only be described that way between the White House, the President of the United States of America, and Harvard, and many other colleges and institutions around the country, this one reaching a fever pitch in recent weeks as issues related to funding hundreds of millions of dollars.
President trying to rescind those over the objections and the injunctions of federal judges, now telling Harvard that it cannot keep its international student base.
A federal judge, Ellison Burroughs, saying just this past week, oh no.
Harvard can in fact continue to do that, directing the administration not to rescind those student visas for the students there from international countries.
And along the way, as is happening on campuses around the nation, around the world this week, commencement exercises, graduations, right?
Graduate students and undergraduate students, indeed those in Cambridge as well gathering,
to graduate from Harvard, the many programs there, the president of the university presiding over those proceedings.
Even as that is going on, a Merber, a Merber went through the crowd of people at the commencement exercises there at Harvard.
followed by some sporadic cheers.
When word got out about what the federal district court had done, families, students began to learn of the federal judge's decision to block this Trump administration ban, its efforts to prevent Harvard from enrolling international students, even while the commencement is going on.
Perhaps taking his cue from that may be a part of his already designed comments.
Ellen Garber, who is the president of Harvard University, speaking to the graduates that day, says he could only say welcome before the crowd rose to its feet for a long and deafening ovation in support of the university president and his efforts in all of these areas, the DEI initiatives, the executive orders there, the economic attempts to try to bring the university to its feet by defunding various programs, and now this international
student ban.
The crowd they're taking to its feet as the President Garber says welcome and he receives a standing ovation.
obviously as a part of the effort to resist all these things coming out of the Trump administration and in that category perhaps encouraged by the response of the crowd gathered before him President Garber welcomes he says this is his quote students from around the world just as it should be that's what he said more applause more wild ovations during the course of the commencement exercises at
Harvard just this past week.
Have we heard the end of this?
Absolutely not.
There will be more appeals obviously going on to the courts of appeals, perhaps one day heading up once again to the United States Supreme Court.
We'll see how that plays out as well.
But academics once again, involved with and reliant upon the federal judiciary to protect it.
to ensure that the concepts of diversity and education at its core are supported across our nation.
Harvard continuing the battle there against our president.
We've got more academic news.
What is that as well?
This comes from our Secretary of State.
We know, of course, that visas are the ways in which the president attempting now to stop students from coming to Harvard from a foreign land.
Visas also, of course, well-known to the Secretary of State.
They come out through the processes, the applications made by students and others, through what?
Through the Department of State.
And we know well that the Secretary of State, his name is Marco Rubio.
He's got many other assignments these days as the president continues to add to his mandates for action inside the government, but just this past week.
The Secretary of State again in the area of academics and specifically focusing on Chinese students here in this nation.
Secretary of State Rubio announcing on Wednesday that the Trump administration through the Department of State would work according to him to aggressively revoke, those are his words, aggressively revoke visas of Chinese students in particular.
including, including, and here are the categories, those with ties to the Chinese Communist Party or who are studying in what he described as critical fields, critical fields.
He added that the State Department was revising criteria to, again, according to Secretary Rubio, to enhance scrutiny to all future applicants coming from China, including Hong Kong.
And again, does this kind of thing send ripples of anxiety across campuses,
Two certainly Chinese students, but others as well.
Absolutely.
It should send ripples throughout the nation as well.
China, of course, is the country of origin for the second largest group of international students in the United States of America.
not just at Harvard, but throughout the country.
The brief statement that accompanies Secretary Rubio's announcement here says that the visa crackdown here is not real specific when it comes to what those critical studies, those critical fields of study might be.
That's undefined.
But the phrase, the phrase probably likely refers to research in the physical sciences.
That's what the speculation is about.
That is, of course, a mechanism often invoked.
You don't define specifically what you're talking about.
But if you're going to try to limit the presence of students here based upon an indefinite
A definition of critical studies got a lot of breath to do it.
In recent years, American officials plainly expressing in this connection awful lot of concerns about the Chinese government recruiting U.S.
trained scientists, though there is no evidence whatsoever that those scientists are working for China.
in any significant amounts.
Again, the notion somehow this is undermining our national security, simply not supported.
When we come back, we'll tell you more about the impact on about 275,000 Chinese students in America based upon what our government, what the secretary has done as Amica Solar Review continues.
My name is Jim Santel.
This is Amicus, a law review on the broadcast stations of civic media, talking now about academics, the interface between academics and the rule of law.
And indeed, we've got that in a couple of ways.
We've got a judge in Boston blocking the administration from preventing Harvard from educating, from welcoming.
to its campus, international students, that for the moment in any event, stopped by virtue of that judicial action, that injunction by the judge.
We've got Marco Rubio, our Secretary of State, saying, even at the same time, he's going to aggressively revoke the visas of Chinese students, identifying specifically those who have ties to the Chinese Communist Party and those who are studying critical fields, not defining what critical fields are.
It's a very broad piece of language.
Is it not?
The suggestion is that these would be students studying, doing some research in the physical sciences.
And when it comes to representations about connections to the Communist Party, equally unclear, the lack of detail in what the secretary has said will no doubt fuel, again, the same kinds of worries among the 275,000, 275,000 Chinese students in
campuses on universities throughout the country, in addition, causing concern among their professors, right, and administrators who depend on their research skills, their financial support.
American universities and research laboratories have benefited, undeniably, from many decades of drawing from some of the most talented international students, including from China and other countries.
They are relied upon, again, they pay their full tuition for a substantial part of the annual revenue of these universities.
Here's Michael Roth, who's the president of Wesleyan University.
He says, I think it is terribly misguided.
counterproductive and another way in which we are shooting ourselves in the foot.
He's talking again about the academic impact of what the president has done.
It's unclear how quickly the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security will move on these cancellations of visas affecting the students or whether China will now take some retaliatory actions on the relatively few number of American students in that country and move to expel some of that.
These are the consequences that may be out there.
We know that that is happening.
We know, again, that this is a part of the administration's overall attempt
to identify people they do not like to have in our nation now focusing upon Chinese students.
about whom there's no indication that they're compromising our national security, if anything, adding to the research, adding to the academic vitality of our universities and colleges.
Nonetheless, Marco Rubio telling us an aggressive movement now to revoke those visas of Chinese students, arguably implicating the positions of about 275,000 students in this country, here to learn, here to help, here to research.
on the global, global stage.
That's academics.
That's academics.
Let's turn to another international aspect and that is the president's tariffs.
You only need to open up morning and evening newspapers, turn on the...
the your your feeds for for news on a daily basis and you will find changes in in positions of this administration about tariffs on and off over the period of the past several months well an appeals court on thursday temporarily supported
agreed to support the president's attempts to preserve these sweeping tariffs on China and other U.S.
trading partners, but it comes after an awful lot of whipsawing among the federal courts just this past week.
The movement by the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, they're located in Washington, D.C., they've got a specific jurisdictional responsibility there, is
Again, coming out of the U.S.
Court of Appeals there, it puts a pause, it puts a pause on previous decisions by federal courts to stop, to stop the president from engaging in tariff actions, preserving many of President Trump's tariffs, again, on trading partners of the United States, including China.
The move in particular, again, by the appeals court, the Federal Circuit Appeals Court pauses, stops an earlier decision.
There's a lot going on here.
An earlier decision by a separate court, a separate court that would have forced the White House to wind down
duties deemed to be illegal, a part of the president's overall tariff plan.
Now, what is all that about?
Well, even before the appeals court for the federal circuit basically said, Mr. President, you can go ahead with all of these tariffs, at least for now, at least for now, before that happened.
A group called the United States Court of International Trade.
They're also in Washington, D.C.
They take care of plainly trade disputes, trade concepts.
They're a federal court.
Same kinds of things apply to them with respect to appointments and their jurisdiction identified by the Congress.
On Wednesday, that court, the Court of International Trade, Delta Blow,
to the strategy of this president over the past several months of imposing these various tariffs on Chinese goods and Mexican goods and Canadian and all other countries, steel and aluminum announced just in the past several hours or so.
The bipartisan panel of judges, it's a panel there in the international trade court,
One of whom had been appointed by Donald Trump found that the law, as passed by the Congress, did not in fact grant the president what they described as unbounded authority to impose tariffs on nearly every country.
And that's exactly, of course, what the president has done.
As a result, the president's tariffs on those countries were declared illegal.
And the court, that is the International Trade Court, ordered a halt to their collection
of those tariffs within the next 10 days.
That happened on Wednesday, on Thursday, again, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
These are the folks to whom one appealed.
appeals a decision of the International Trade Court.
You're unhappy with the trade court.
You go up to the federal circuit because, again, of the specialized jurisdiction of these courts, the Court of Appeals for the federal circuit says no, the trade court's decision has to be stopped.
And so we'll let the president go ahead with that at least for now.
It means, once again, at least for now.
Donald Trump can maintain many of the terraces imposed on China and Canada
Mexico and preserve the threat of these reciprocal rates, which he has also talked a lot about when he announced on most nations, then suspended those in early April and in recent weeks.
But it's not the final word on all this in this legal saga.
Again, going back and forth between these courts, one court saying no, one court saying yes, expected once again to land at the United States Supreme Court.
Along the way, the Justice Department had said that the lower court is
International Trade Court was in fact wrong and it invalidated the claims of the president who can do this.
They said that the court was with the decision was rife with legal error.
The government warned that it would hamstring Donald Trump's efforts to eliminate our exploding trade deficit and reorient the global economy on an equal footing.
That's what they argued to the federal circuit and they were successful in doing that.
appeals court again intervening, did not rule.
Once again, did not rule significantly directly on the government's request or the merits of it, but still temporarily, once again for now, said that the administration can in fact go ahead and do all of these things and can proceed with the levies.
It is used as political leverage in the dozens of these trade negotiations.
The president continues to engage with all of these different countries down the road.
Just before another case was entered, a federal judge in another matter was ruling in favor of an educational toy company in Illinois, whose lawyers had told the court that it was harmed by the Trump actions when it came to these tariffs, that sort of thing.
A district court judge there, this is yet another case.
His name is Rudolph Contreras.
He was presiding over the case.
He concluded that the economic powers law is not providing a basis for these tariffs.
although he stayed the start of his preliminary injunction as to them, again involving this educational toy company in Illinois for the next 14 days.
the Trump administration appealed that as well.
Why do I raise that particular case?
Because it indicates once again, the disparate rulings coming out of our district courts, our various courts having to do with international trade, the federal circuit, up and down, back and forth, whipsawing in recent days, the decisions about whether or not the president has the authority under the law.
to do what he's doing, whether it's only the Congress can do it, whether he's got to do it in a different way, make different findings, all of those kinds of things before these courts were coming to different conclusions as they decide the specific cases in front of them.
Judge Contreras obviously finding
at least for now, that the law does not provide the president with the authority to do all this.
You've got the International Trade Court agreeing with him, but the federal circuits saying, well, no, we're going to permit that to go ahead while still the underlying litigation precedes a pace.
It is a lot.
It is a lot to take in and it's a lot to understand, but it's important to know once again that something as much as the tariffs, this huge issue going on right now, it's virtually every single day, those two are wrapped up in judicial decision making, arguments by lawyers in favor and in support, and also on the other side in opposition to what the president is doing, and courts and judges, federal courts and judges across the country saying variously yes,
and saying variously no, it is a lot.
We have got a caller, Dale from Wausau.
Appreciate your being a part of our discussion this morning.
Thank you for joining Amicus, a law review.
Good morning, Jim.
Dale.
Good to
Yes.
In regards to U.S.
courts, lately I think the worst thing is to require entities to post the bond in their court filings.
and the court to be able to hold the federal government in contempt of court.
Without that bond, the administration can do whatever they want.
It doesn't matter if it's unconstitutional or unlawful because the administration can't be held accountable.
And I think this is even more important than the administration's push to suspend habeas corpus.
i.e.
due process.
Your thoughts,
Dale, I can't thank you enough for the comment, the call, encouraging all of our listeners to do just that.
We also have Gene from Eau Claire, likewise, talking about these kinds of issues on our chat line.
Appreciate that, Gene.
Dale, especially appreciate your question, your comment, your note, because believe it or not, Dale, we did not confer on the syllabus here, but that's the next issue on our agenda right now.
Let's talk about what you've
just identified for all of our listeners.
And Dale, you know, well, it comes from this thing called the big beautiful bill, right?
That's made its way from the House of Representatives, passed after a little bit of trouble there coming out of committee, now sitting in the United States Senate for its action and lots and lots of things to talk about.
There are a huge 1000 page bill.
We wonder allowed whether members of Congress on either branch in either branch of government have truly read all of this.
We know there's
at least one congressman who's already disavowed.
The very aspect of this bill, Dale, that you've identified, said, yeah, I voted for it, but now I understand what it says, and I went to vote it for it, had I understood that it was there.
That's the problem with something, as the president has called this big, big, beautiful bill.
It may not be beautiful.
That is an assessment that, again, legislators make.
Big absolutely and it is the concern when you stuff into legislation like this so many aspects that even the people voting on it that making it the law of our nation Do not have the capacity to I digest it It was moved through the house at breakneck speed by our speaker and now it's in the Senate and as Dale has accurately said one of the many many hundreds of provisions changing all sorts of things Having to do of course with with Medicaid and our tax base and many many other issues is a
The rule of law issue, it is right there.
And basically, as Dale just got exactly right, it has to do with the capacity of federal judges to enter the very injunctive orders that we've been talking about on this weekend broadcast and in the past.
When we come back, we'll talk about what that bill says, the injunction function attempted to be restricted by our legislature, by our president, when Amicus Alaraview continues.
This is Amica Salar Review.
My name is Jim Santel.
We value tremendously the calls, the comments coming in from our listeners here at Radio Park and the broadcast stations of Civic Media, including that from Dale recently who called in to comment about what's going on right now in the Congress with respect to injunctions.
We also have wonderful comments from
from Gene again from Eau Claire saying some very nice things about our program and also wondering if all of this injunctive activity all of this activity inside our federal courts is bankrupting is bankrupting our courts as a result the answer Gene is not yet and not it's probably sort of unlikely to be bankrupted but does it impose a burden upon courts absolutely every time there's a lawsuit filed that means that the courts need to address it and it arguably means that some things which have more merit than do the president
serial executive orders, the courts finding them routinely unconstitutional, illegal, unsupported by legislation.
It means that courts, which are in the end human beings, they're individual judges, whether you're on the federal circuit, the international trade court, the courts of appeals, district courts,
They necessarily need to attend to very heavy dockets.
And so that's the burden that's placed by all of this.
It's a great thought, a great comment, Shane.
I also appreciate hearing from Jim from Apple, who says these various rulings from the Supreme Court smell of a level of cowardice.
Jim says Donald Trump has already proven that he will just ignore our rulings, even nine to zero ones.
Appreciate the comment, Jim, as well.
And that leads back again to our discussion about what's going on with respect to compliance.
of the president and other units of government with what our judges are doing.
Dale has called to our attention this portion of the bill, this big, beautiful bill passed the House of Representatives that establishes the president's priorities in all sorts of areas, but would also create what one judge has called a trillion dollar barrier to challenging his policies in federal court.
Well, what is all this about?
Well, at stake,
at stake is whether judges can enforce their orders.
Exactly what Dale was describing before, blocking Donald Trump or not blocking him if they decide to do this, giving them the discretion to decide the merits of cases.
whether or not these judges can do what they're supposed to do, when they review them and decide that the policies, the practices are unlawful, as they've already done about 180 times by my count, about 180 times the district court judges have found the president's conduct is illegal and unconstitutional.
Again, important to note those decisions coming from judges across the political aisle.
The muscle, the strength, if you will, behind those court orders, as we've also talked about, is that judges could find the government in contempt.
If in fact, as Jim has noted accurately, if the president says no, I'm not doing that.
If an agency of the government, whether it's Kristi Noem or Marco Rubio, or any other representative of the executive branch says, I'm not doing that.
The judges, the courts are not without the capacity to respond.
They can impose what's called a contempt order, a contempt citation for disobeying their rules, their laws, the orders that they have entered.
And those could include fines upon the errant petitioners, the errant litigants, sanctions of natures, and even jail, even imprisonment.
So how does that implicate and what's the connection to this House and now Senate legislation that's pending?
There's an obscure provision in this bill.
And again,
more and more of our representatives on Capitol Hill are saying, gosh, is this a good idea?
And I didn't even know when we passed this in the House that it existed, preventing judges from enforcing their orders unless the litigants post a bond, B-O-N-D.
Now, what's a bond?
It's money.
It's basically kind of a surety.
It says a bond would have to match the amount that's at stake that's at controversy somehow in the lawsuit.
which in one case again would be trillions of dollars without the threat of contempt many legal experts are saying these days the administration would be even more
encouraged to simply violate those court orders with complete impunity.
Without this provision, again the capacity to enforce orders and the obligation now if the legislation passes to require a bond that the challenging parties in every single case post give some money
to the clerk of court, give some money to the court basically, it would basically prohibit the court's orders from being put into place.
The legislation once again
is invoking, if you will, a federal rule of civil procedure at 65C that does in fact contemplate under appropriate circumstances that the judges can require that parties who are seeking some relief preliminarily, temporary restraining orders, can in fact get a bond if they win a court order.
such as an injunction or a temporary restraining order, and that preserves their capacity to make good on the particular amount of money at issue.
Judges have discretion, and that's the point about how much to set that bond at.
The goal is to have the bond set at a level comparable to how much the defendant might lose if their case is litigated successfully, such as a lost sale or some blocked merger.
In February, for example, US District Judge Lauren Alkehan
requested, or refused rather, a request from Trump's White House to require a bond from the National Council of Nonprofits when she blocked the government from freezing all federal grants.
She noted that the government was alleged to have unlawfully withheld trillions of dollars of previously committed funds to countless recipients.
She said OMB would suffer no monetary injury from her injunction.
The concern now is if this bill passes,
in its present form, President signs it, all of those authorities by federal judges, not only to preside over these cases, but effectively to enforce their own judgments stripped away.
And that, that once again, is a denigration of the rule of law.
It's exactly the kind of thing that we've seen in front of other judges like James Bosberg,
and Paula Zinnis and yes indeed just this past week once again coming out of another federal district court judge in Maryland Stephanie Gallagher with respect to another deportee likewise threatening contempt if in fact the government does not comply that's what's in that bill that's the reason why it's so important to be attentive to what that legislation is all about and to recognize once again
The things on Capitol Hill raise important, significant issues when it comes to the rule of law, the administration of justice, and what a merit.
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