# Trump's Second Attempts at Birthright Citizenship and Firing Fed's Lisa Cook

An episode of [Bloomberg Law](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/277975394), 10 Aug 2026, 35 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/7c892d84-801f-4c0b-b0e9-ae2b0012ff5f/e713072a-9fb2-425c-a40d-b4a20175605b/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=91224201-26a6-429d-ac3c-ae2b0012ff6d

Constitutional law expert Harold Krent, a professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, discusses President Trump threatening to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook again. Immigration law expert Leon Fresco, a partner at Holland & Knight, discusses Trump signing new orders on birthright citizenship. June Grasso hosts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Is another legal fight over the fed's independence ahead, as
[0:12] Speaker 2: President Trump is threatening to fire FED Governor Lisa Cook
[0:17] Speaker 2: a second time. The Supreme Court, in a five to
[0:20] Speaker 2: four decision in June, allowed Cook to remain in her
[0:24] Speaker 2: job while she fought Trump's bid to ouster over mortgage
[0:28] Speaker 2: fraud accusations, faulting the President for not giving her notice
[0:32] Speaker 2: and a chance to be heard before trying to remove her. Now,
[0:35] Speaker 2: the Trump administration has sent Cook a letter saying Trump
[0:39] Speaker 2: is considering removing her and giving her until August twenty
[0:44] Speaker 2: sixth to respond to the same allegations of mortgage fraud.
[0:48] Speaker 2: Joining me is constitutional law expert Harold Krent, a professor
[0:51] Speaker 2: at the Chicago Kent College of Law. In its decision,
[0:55] Speaker 2: the Supreme Court didn't specifically say what notice and comment
[1:00] Speaker 2: to Cook was required. The Trump administration is giving her
[1:04] Speaker 2: three weeks to respond. Do you think that meets the
[1:07] Speaker 2: procedural protections the Court envisioned?
[1:11] Speaker 3: So?
[1:11] Speaker 4: A cornerstone of due process under the Supreme Courts rulings
[1:14] Speaker 4: for the past generation have been you have noticed an
[1:17] Speaker 4: opportunity to be heard? The notice has to be apprise
[1:20] Speaker 4: you of what the charges are against you. The opportunity
[1:23] Speaker 4: to be heard can be very flexible, can be informal,
[1:27] Speaker 4: and so I think in this respect, President Trump is
[1:30] Speaker 4: following the marching orders from the court and giving an
[1:34] Speaker 4: informal opportunity for Lisa Cook to respond to the charges
[1:38] Speaker 4: fact she cooked up the books with respect to the mortgage.
[1:41] Speaker 4: The real question, though, is what's going to happen afterward,
[1:45] Speaker 4: because she is going to respond, and then he is
[1:48] Speaker 4: extremely likely to ignore the responses and say that he
[1:54] Speaker 4: has cause for her dismissal and then dismiss her. Obviously,
[1:58] Speaker 4: the cople got a court, and the court has to
[2:01] Speaker 4: make a decision as to whether to reinstate her pending
[2:05] Speaker 4: a more complete trial on the merits. What does cause mean?
[2:10] Speaker 4: Does cause equal the fact that this was a mortgage fraud?
[2:15] Speaker 4: Or was it not a mortgage fraud? Sort of two
[2:17] Speaker 4: issues there. You know, whether it cause can relate to
[2:21] Speaker 4: something that's not related to conduct an office, and obviously
[2:25] Speaker 4: the mortgage fraud was way before she became a reserve officer.
[2:31] Speaker 4: And the other issue is, you know, was it fraud
[2:35] Speaker 4: at all? And so I think that the real issue
[2:37] Speaker 4: here is not this notice and opportunity to be heard.
[2:41] Speaker 4: It's what's going to happen after Trump removes her. She's
[2:45] Speaker 4: going to run to court, and the court's going to
[2:46] Speaker 4: have to make a balance about likelihood of success on
[2:50] Speaker 4: the merits, the awkwardness of trying to force a president
[2:54] Speaker 4: to deal with an officer whom the president has tried
[2:57] Speaker 4: to remove. And it's going to be a very close case.
[3:02] Speaker 2: So Cook can only be dismissed for cause. But in
[3:07] Speaker 2: his opinion, the Chief Justice didn't make clear what four
[3:11] Speaker 2: cause actually is, but he said he thought the administration's
[3:15] Speaker 2: definition was too lenient and the defense's definition was too stringent.
[3:22] Speaker 4: I mean, first of all, there's factual disagreement as to
[3:25] Speaker 4: whether what she did on her mortgage application constitutes fraud
[3:29] Speaker 4: or nothing at all. Right, So that's one issue here.
[3:33] Speaker 4: And then the question is, as you suggest, is how
[3:37] Speaker 4: big of an error brought here to somebody being appointed
[3:41] Speaker 4: equals cause? I mean, in my mind, I am somewhat
[3:45] Speaker 4: apathetic to President Trump's position in the score. If someone
[3:49] Speaker 4: committed a murder and then it becomes uncovered before they're
[3:52] Speaker 4: in office, that might be reason to remove them. Or
[3:55] Speaker 4: if somebody even commits some kind of serious financial fraud
[3:59] Speaker 4: and is appointed to the FED. If that financial fought
[4:02] Speaker 4: is uncovered later, that might be caused to remove somebody,
[4:05] Speaker 4: because nobody's going to have faith in their sort of
[4:08] Speaker 4: unbiased performance of the job. Here, it's more minor. It's
[4:12] Speaker 4: well before she is appointed to the office, and so
[4:15] Speaker 4: the courts now have this unturned waters of deciding whether
[4:19] Speaker 4: that kind of allegation would be sufficient to equal cause
[4:24] Speaker 4: for removal. And there's not a really good signpost in
[4:27] Speaker 4: the Chief Justice's opinion. But again there's also a factial
[4:31] Speaker 4: dispute is what she did fraud or not. There's a
[4:35] Speaker 4: lot of allegations out there, doesn't mean that she did
[4:37] Speaker 4: anything wrong whatsoever.
[4:39] Speaker 2: The Justice Department was cent a referral for prosecution by
[4:42] Speaker 2: Bill Poulty, who is then what the FAHFA director, and
[4:47] Speaker 2: they opened a criminal investigation into whether she committed mortgage fraud,
[4:51] Speaker 2: but they've never charged her with anything. Now, maybe Todd
[4:54] Speaker 2: Blanche now as ag will please the President and charger,
[4:59] Speaker 2: but where does it fit in that they haven't charged her.
[5:03] Speaker 4: I don't think that's directly relevant here, because I think
[5:05] Speaker 4: what the President would say is, we don't have to
[5:07] Speaker 4: have a criminal investigation in order to equal cause. We
[5:10] Speaker 4: just have to be able to be convinced that misconduct
[5:13] Speaker 4: occurred which would impair her ability to effectively discharge the
[5:17] Speaker 4: responsibilities of the office. You can decouple a criminal investigation
[5:21] Speaker 4: or criminal charges with misconduct sufficient misconduct to constitute cause
[5:27] Speaker 4: for so I think that the president is clear on
[5:29] Speaker 4: that score. But again, there's a whole big factual dispute
[5:33] Speaker 4: that courts would have to resolve whether what she did
[5:37] Speaker 4: does constitute fraud, and second, whether the fraud is significant
[5:41] Speaker 4: enough to constitute cause for her removal some five to
[5:45] Speaker 4: ten years later from the office.
[5:48] Speaker 1: Would she be entitled to a jury trial then on
[5:51] Speaker 1: that We've.
[5:51] Speaker 4: Never seen this happen before, so we don't know if
[5:54] Speaker 4: there would be a jury trial. I don't think there
[5:57] Speaker 4: would be a jury trial, but there would have to
[5:59] Speaker 4: be a hearing and the court would have to get
[6:02] Speaker 4: evidence and then make a decision again what factually happened,
[6:07] Speaker 4: and whether that whatever happened factually, whether that constitutes cause
[6:11] Speaker 4: for removal, and what the court has never held, whether
[6:14] Speaker 4: you can have someone remain in office while these charges
[6:20] Speaker 4: are being injudicated now her term, These are Cook's term
[6:22] Speaker 4: goes I think twenty and thirty eight, so she could
[6:25] Speaker 4: be reinstated even if there is a six month delay
[6:31] Speaker 4: in a hearing. But on the other hand, will a
[6:35] Speaker 4: court order that she remain in the office pending this hearing,
[6:40] Speaker 4: whether the last six months, nine months, or is more expedited,
[6:44] Speaker 4: So again uncharted waters. And it's sort of amazing that
[6:48] Speaker 4: the president just kept his vendetta going because this is
[6:52] Speaker 4: just going to be more anguish, more headlines, and it
[6:56] Speaker 4: really doesn't put the president in a very powerful life
[7:00] Speaker 4: what he wants to even escort.
[7:02] Speaker 2: Well, she raised the allegation that this is a vindictive prosecution.
[7:08] Speaker 2: They went after her, but also they tried to go
[7:11] Speaker 2: after Jerome Powell. Janeine Piro, the US attorney, has said
[7:15] Speaker 2: that's not dead, even though you know a judge wouldn't
[7:17] Speaker 2: even give her a subpoena for what she wanted from Powell.
[7:21] Speaker 4: Of her argument will be this is pretext, just as
[7:25] Speaker 4: it was with Jerome Powell, and that will be factored in.
[7:29] Speaker 4: But again, the first big legal question is will a
[7:32] Speaker 4: court order that she remain in office pending this hearing?
[7:38] Speaker 4: And that's something that's not a simple question because it
[7:42] Speaker 4: is really sort of undermining the president's authority to govern
[7:46] Speaker 4: by forcing somebody to remain in office that the president
[7:50] Speaker 4: doesn't want in the office. So that's going to be
[7:53] Speaker 4: part of the calculus that the court is going to
[7:56] Speaker 4: have to grapple with in deciding whether or not she
[8:00] Speaker 4: can stay in office before hearing all of these charges,
[8:05] Speaker 4: including the vindictive prosecution charges, She's going to have a
[8:08] Speaker 4: very good argument given what Polti has done in other contexts.
[8:12] Speaker 2: I mean, is the President supposed to be working with
[8:14] Speaker 2: the FED Board? Isn't the FED Board supposed to be independent?
[8:17] Speaker 2: Is that the whole idea?
[8:18] Speaker 4: What the FED Chair, as we know, does regulate banks too,
[8:22] Speaker 4: and the President has the ability to call officers who
[8:27] Speaker 4: are protected from that real removal and job on them
[8:30] Speaker 4: and talk about regulation strategy, and so this would be
[8:34] Speaker 4: appropriate for the President to do so for part of it.
[8:38] Speaker 4: And you know, the question would be again whether the
[8:42] Speaker 4: courts would say, because of this independence that the Supreme
[8:46] Speaker 4: Court found with respect to the FED, it's sort of
[8:49] Speaker 4: one off that whether it's too much of an intrusion
[8:52] Speaker 4: into the president's power to order reinstatement. Pending the hearing,
[8:57] Speaker 4: So we're going to see the reinstatement question, and then
[8:59] Speaker 4: we're going to presumably have a hearing after the fact
[9:03] Speaker 4: to determine when not whether again is a vindictive prosecution.
[9:06] Speaker 4: Did she commit fraud? Does the fraud constitute cause free move?
[9:10] Speaker 2: What do you think about the timing on this? It
[9:12] Speaker 2: might go back up to the Supreme Court.
[9:15] Speaker 4: It won't go directly pre course, there's going to be
[9:16] Speaker 4: a hearing somewhere first. It could be expedited. It probably
[9:20] Speaker 4: will be, but again is part of this. The courts
[9:24] Speaker 4: are decide reinstatement or not, no matter whether it's an
[9:27] Speaker 4: expired hearing of three weeks, three months, or two years.
[9:32] Speaker 4: And again, her term doesn't end, so at a minimum,
[9:35] Speaker 4: the president won't be able to appoint a successor while
[9:39] Speaker 4: this is pending. But the questions whether she can serve
[9:43] Speaker 4: until this is resolved. So the president is forcing once
[9:47] Speaker 4: again new legal issues and very complicated in a short
[9:51] Speaker 4: period of time, and it may well end up being
[9:54] Speaker 4: resolved by the Supreme Court, which usually takes time.
[9:58] Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining me. How that's Professor Harold
[10:01] Speaker 2: Krant of the Chicago Kent College of Law. Coming up
[10:04] Speaker 2: next on the Bloomberg Laws Show will turn to immigration issues.
[10:08] Speaker 2: The President is trying a new tact on birthright citizenship
[10:13] Speaker 2: after the Supreme Court found his first executive order restricting
[10:17] Speaker 2: birthright citizenship to be unconstitutional, and the Department of Homeland
[10:23] Speaker 2: Security is hiring we are basically bounty hunters to track
[10:28] Speaker 2: down immigrants who left the US. We'll tell you why.
[10:32] Speaker 2: I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg.
[10:36] Speaker 5: But they've taken birthright citizenship and they've made a joke
[10:39] Speaker 5: out of it, and we're actually the only country of size,
[10:44] Speaker 5: I think, just about the only country period that does
[10:47] Speaker 5: birthright citizenship. I thought we were to win it at
[10:49] Speaker 5: the Supreme Court. Unfortunately we had a bad decision, very
[10:53] Speaker 5: unfair decision. Our country suffers because of it, and we're
[10:57] Speaker 5: ending in a different way.
[10:59] Speaker 2: Actually, about three thirty five countries, including Canada, Mexico, and Argentina,
[11:04] Speaker 2: do offer unconditional birthright citizenship. But birthright citizenship has become
[11:11] Speaker 2: a key rallying point in President Trump's second term anti
[11:15] Speaker 2: immigration agenda. The Supreme Court, in a six to three decision,
[11:19] Speaker 2: found Trump's first executive order restricting birthright citizenship to be unconstitutional,
[11:26] Speaker 2: but Trump is trying again, signing a pair of executive
[11:31] Speaker 2: orders aimed at denying birthright citizenship to certain people born
[11:36] Speaker 2: in the US. Joining me is Leon Fresco, a partner
[11:39] Speaker 2: at Honda Knight. He was the head of the Office
[11:42] Speaker 2: of Immigration Litigation during the Obama administration. Leon, let's start
[11:47] Speaker 2: with a little review of what the Supreme Court decided
[11:51] Speaker 2: about birthright citizenship in June.
[11:53] Speaker 6: So the first executive order was in January twenty twenty five,
[11:57] Speaker 6: which strike the bar citizenship for or the children of
[12:01] Speaker 6: undocumented immigrants or those here temporarily. So it said, basically,
[12:06] Speaker 6: one parent needed to have a Green card or a
[12:10] Speaker 6: US citizenship, a passport, birth certificate, whatever to confer citizenship
[12:14] Speaker 6: on a child born in the United States.
[12:17] Speaker 3: And so the.
[12:18] Speaker 6: Supreme Court took up this issue, and whether you want
[12:23] Speaker 6: to say it was five four sixty three, however you
[12:25] Speaker 6: want to say it, depending on how you calculated the
[12:28] Speaker 6: votes and concurrences and everything else. Basically said this issue
[12:33] Speaker 6: of birthright citizenship, and the executive order didn't just conflict
[12:37] Speaker 6: with a nineteen fifty two statute, but actually conflicted with
[12:42] Speaker 6: the US Constitution. That the Constitution says what it says,
[12:46] Speaker 6: and no matter what intervening facts, you have. That meant
[12:51] Speaker 6: that you couldn't take away birthright citizenship visa VI an
[12:55] Speaker 6: executive order. You'd have to amend the Constitution to get
[12:59] Speaker 6: rid of rights citizenship. And so they didn't accept the
[13:03] Speaker 6: argument that people who were here illegally were not subject
[13:08] Speaker 6: to the jurisdiction of the United States. That was the
[13:10] Speaker 6: government's argument that you had to have some residency here
[13:14] Speaker 6: in order to be subject to the jurisdiction of the
[13:16] Speaker 6: United States.
[13:17] Speaker 2: So what do these two orders do to get around
[13:21] Speaker 2: the Supreme Court's decision.
[13:23] Speaker 6: The Trump administration has been very upset about this. They're
[13:27] Speaker 6: trying to figure out ways to continue on this issue
[13:30] Speaker 6: of birthright citizenship. And so now they've tried to see, okay,
[13:33] Speaker 6: can we issue an executive order that tries to fall
[13:38] Speaker 6: within the court's recognized exceptions to birthrights citizenship. So, as
[13:43] Speaker 6: an example, the number one exception is if you are
[13:47] Speaker 6: the children of diplomats born in the United States, you
[13:51] Speaker 6: are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, because
[13:55] Speaker 6: in that situation, those children have diplomatic community and so
[13:58] Speaker 6: when they're born here, they're not citizens of the United States.
[14:01] Speaker 6: So the Trump administrator is trying to figure out what
[14:03] Speaker 6: kinds of people are analogous to children who are born
[14:08] Speaker 6: to diplomats who are here in the United States.
[14:11] Speaker 3: And so this is what they've come up with.
[14:13] Speaker 6: Their new executive order says any children of ambassadors or
[14:17] Speaker 6: any other embassy employees. But then they also have added
[14:21] Speaker 6: employees of foreign governments present in any kind of official capacity.
[14:26] Speaker 6: So sometimes you'll have like the Irish Tourism Bureau person
[14:30] Speaker 6: who's here, and the point would be if that Irish
[14:33] Speaker 6: Tourism Bureau person has a child while they're in the
[14:37] Speaker 6: United States, they would say, no, that child that does
[14:40] Speaker 6: not get birthrights citizenship. They've also added employees of international organization,
[14:46] Speaker 6: so like the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, etc.
[14:50] Speaker 6: That if any of those people have children who are
[14:53] Speaker 6: born in the United States, they would not get birthrights citizenship.
[14:57] Speaker 6: And then they've added individuals who are the children of
[15:00] Speaker 6: alien enemies under federal law, and people who've engaged in
[15:04] Speaker 6: birth tourism, and also children born in US territories or
[15:09] Speaker 6: territorial waters where citizenship is not conferred by federal statutes.
[15:14] Speaker 6: So that's what the executive order did. And so really
[15:19] Speaker 6: this is going to be a little bit tougher because
[15:21] Speaker 6: it's not so easy to find people with standing here
[15:24] Speaker 6: and plaintiffs. So someone's gonna need to actually be in
[15:28] Speaker 6: this group, and it's going to actually have to apply
[15:31] Speaker 6: for a passport and is actually going to have to
[15:34] Speaker 6: be refused a passport in order to move forward.
[15:37] Speaker 3: And file a lawsuit here. So this is not going
[15:40] Speaker 3: to be so simple.
[15:41] Speaker 6: And we'll try to see who would have said that
[15:45] Speaker 6: they would have previously gotten citizenship under pre executive order
[15:51] Speaker 6: types of interpretations of the law that now suddenly can't
[15:55] Speaker 6: get a passport. And then then only then what we
[15:58] Speaker 6: see if this news court decision actually applies to these
[16:03] Speaker 6: individuals or not.
[16:04] Speaker 1: Is this just for show?
[16:06] Speaker 2: I mean, how many people would these new categories cover
[16:10] Speaker 2: that aren't covered already.
[16:12] Speaker 6: That's really what we're gonna have to figure out is
[16:14] Speaker 6: I can't really tell how many people will fall within
[16:18] Speaker 6: the end bit of this and how exactly these cases.
[16:21] Speaker 3: Will make it to the court.
[16:22] Speaker 6: Because yes, theoretically you could have some organization try to
[16:26] Speaker 6: file the case, but if the organization can't identify specific
[16:30] Speaker 6: people who are actually affected by this, I don't think
[16:34] Speaker 6: it's going to be something that actually survives a standing claim.
[16:38] Speaker 3: So you're going to need to find one or.
[16:40] Speaker 6: Two people here who would say, look, I am now
[16:44] Speaker 6: affected by this. I wasn't affected by this before, and
[16:48] Speaker 6: I tried to apply for a passport and I didn't
[16:51] Speaker 6: get it. And only then are we going to see
[16:53] Speaker 6: the litigation. I mean, I'm sure people will try to
[16:55] Speaker 6: file it before then, but at the end of the day,
[16:58] Speaker 6: I think that this is going to be tougher here
[17:02] Speaker 6: because we're gonna have to see now.
[17:04] Speaker 3: On the birth tourism one, again, it's the same.
[17:06] Speaker 6: Concept here where if the government actually tries to say, well,
[17:11] Speaker 6: you came because of birth tourism, so we're not giving
[17:14] Speaker 6: you your passport, it's tough to say preemptively that you're
[17:17] Speaker 6: covered under this because you wouldn't want to identify yourself
[17:20] Speaker 6: as someone who was covered under this. So you're gonna
[17:23] Speaker 6: have to wait till the government actually designates you as
[17:26] Speaker 6: someone who was born under birth tourism, which is why
[17:30] Speaker 6: they think they're not going to give you a passport here.
[17:32] Speaker 6: So again hard to tell, and we're just gonna have
[17:35] Speaker 6: to wait and see for plaintiffs to actually emerge because
[17:39] Speaker 6: they're actually being denied you as passport.
[17:41] Speaker 1: It's already visa fraud.
[17:43] Speaker 2: Isn't it to travel under the guise of tourism while
[17:47] Speaker 2: you're actually intending to give birth, so the child automatically
[17:51] Speaker 2: obtains citizenship.
[17:52] Speaker 1: That's already visa fraud, isn't it.
[17:54] Speaker 6: Well, so this is actually a very super complicated area.
[17:58] Speaker 6: And you might say, well, why is that? And I'll
[18:00] Speaker 6: give you the reasons for that. First, if you were
[18:03] Speaker 6: to go to an embassy and say, here's a doctor's
[18:07] Speaker 6: letter from my doctor in X country that says that
[18:11] Speaker 6: I have a rare disease that can't be treated in
[18:15] Speaker 6: in my country, and so the pregnancy is going to
[18:18] Speaker 6: kill me unless I get access to this and this,
[18:20] Speaker 6: and I go to the US and you have all
[18:22] Speaker 6: of that and they predisclosed that and they let you
[18:25] Speaker 6: in the country, they give you the visa, et cetera.
[18:28] Speaker 6: Then that's birth tourism in a way. But that's allowed,
[18:31] Speaker 6: and people do that all the time. People come to
[18:33] Speaker 6: the US for high risk pregnancies who have money to
[18:36] Speaker 6: do this and they get birth here, and so that's
[18:40] Speaker 6: not considered birth tourism. So then the question is, well,
[18:42] Speaker 6: then what is considered birth tourism? And so that would
[18:45] Speaker 6: be where you've actually made a misrepresentation. So either when
[18:50] Speaker 6: you applied for a visa at the embassy, you knew
[18:53] Speaker 6: you were pregnant and you didn't disclose this you and
[18:57] Speaker 6: you were coming for the purpose.
[18:58] Speaker 3: Of having that child in the United.
[18:59] Speaker 6: States States, or you already had let's say a ten
[19:02] Speaker 6: year visa, so there was nothing to disclose to anybody
[19:06] Speaker 6: at the embassy. But the point is you said you
[19:09] Speaker 6: were visiting the US when you got here to the airport,
[19:14] Speaker 6: and then you ended up having a child here for
[19:16] Speaker 6: the purposes of giving that child US citizenship. And so
[19:21] Speaker 6: the question is that's going to be the more likely
[19:24] Speaker 6: scenario of where they're going to say that the birth
[19:27] Speaker 6: tourism took place, is that someone wasn't pregnant at the
[19:30] Speaker 6: time they got their visa, but they entered when they
[19:33] Speaker 6: were pregnant much later, and at that time gave birth
[19:38] Speaker 6: maybe one month or two month later or something like that.
[19:41] Speaker 6: But that's going to be very tricky to show there
[19:46] Speaker 6: was a misrepresentation there versus that something else happened and
[19:50] Speaker 6: that there was an emergency which required the parent not
[19:53] Speaker 6: to travel. And so all of these will actually get
[19:56] Speaker 6: caught up in what are called i would say fact
[19:59] Speaker 6: specific contextual litigation, and so.
[20:02] Speaker 3: None of this is very easy to determine.
[20:04] Speaker 6: But yes, and you can show that you actually made
[20:07] Speaker 6: a misrepresentation, that would.
[20:08] Speaker 3: Be visa fraud.
[20:09] Speaker 2: The State Department sat today in announcing all the visas
[20:12] Speaker 2: they've revoked. A US embassy in North Africa revoked over
[20:16] Speaker 2: one hundred visas for birth tourist parents who came to
[20:20] Speaker 2: the US primarily to give birth so their children would
[20:23] Speaker 2: get US citizenship.
[20:25] Speaker 6: The problem is the only way to really figure that out,
[20:29] Speaker 6: because you might start with a presumption, okay, how many
[20:31] Speaker 6: people arrived on a visitor visa, and then when they
[20:36] Speaker 6: arrived on a visitor visa gave birth less than ninety
[20:39] Speaker 6: days after they arrived on a visitor visa, and then
[20:43] Speaker 6: from that they would presume that that was a lie
[20:45] Speaker 6: and that was meant to be birth tourism. But the
[20:47] Speaker 6: question is are there any other extenuating circumstances in any
[20:51] Speaker 6: of those cases. But that's what they're currently doing, is
[20:54] Speaker 6: they're applying this presumption that anyone who gave birth less
[20:58] Speaker 6: than ninety days after they arrived in the United States
[21:01] Speaker 6: on a tourist visa was necessarily lying and coming for
[21:05] Speaker 6: birth tourism reason, and Leon, I mean.
[21:07] Speaker 1: Is this order retroactive.
[21:09] Speaker 6: So summar what's not clear is it doesn't say like
[21:12] Speaker 6: in the Birthright Citizenship original January twenty twenty five executive Order,
[21:17] Speaker 6: it said this is going to apply prospectively. This one
[21:21] Speaker 6: doesn't say it's going to apply prospectively. So the point is,
[21:25] Speaker 6: theoretically speaking, that they might when anybody comes and applies
[21:31] Speaker 6: for a passport, not give them said passport on the
[21:35] Speaker 6: grounds that they violated this executive order and then try
[21:38] Speaker 6: to force that issue into litigation.
[21:40] Speaker 2: Stay with me, Leon. Coming up next on the Bloomberg
[21:43] Speaker 2: Lawn Show, we'll talk about the Trump administration hiring bounty hunters.
[21:50] Speaker 2: The Department of Homeland Security is basically hiring bounty hunters
[21:55] Speaker 2: to track down immigrants who've been deported and are now
[21:59] Speaker 2: living in next Guatemala and Honduras. The program is called
[22:03] Speaker 2: the Tracing and Payment Recovery Services Program, with a cost
[22:08] Speaker 2: capped at nine million dollars over the next two years.
[22:12] Speaker 2: DHS is hiring private investigators to track down deported immigrants
[22:17] Speaker 2: who owe the government civil immigration fines, but their payment
[22:22] Speaker 2: doesn't depend on any money actually being recovered. I've been
[22:26] Speaker 2: talking to immigration law expertly on Fresco of Holland and
[22:29] Speaker 2: night Lee on. The investigators have to take photos of
[22:33] Speaker 2: homes or get other records like utility bills to document
[22:38] Speaker 2: where the deportee is living and deliver penalty notices to them,
[22:43] Speaker 2: but they don't have to recover any money. So what's
[22:46] Speaker 2: the point start by telling us about these fines.
[22:50] Speaker 6: There's a statue which says if you're here illegally, you
[22:53] Speaker 6: owe nine hundred and ninety eight dollars a day for
[22:55] Speaker 6: every day you're here illegally. And so some individuals have
[22:58] Speaker 6: been given fine of up to one point eight million dollars,
[23:02] Speaker 6: which is the most you can give because it only
[23:04] Speaker 6: has a five year statute of limitations. And so there's
[23:07] Speaker 6: been one hundred and three thousand total fines totaling approximately
[23:11] Speaker 6: eighty four billion dollars. And so now, yes, the Department
[23:15] Speaker 6: of Homeland Security is hiring these private companies to track
[23:18] Speaker 6: down immigrants in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras to pay the
[23:23] Speaker 6: fines that they didn't pay even though they left. So
[23:25] Speaker 6: originally we were being told that the fines were to
[23:27] Speaker 6: make people leave. Now when the people are leaving, they're
[23:30] Speaker 6: still saying, well, you owe the fines.
[23:32] Speaker 3: And I think the reason for this.
[23:34] Speaker 6: Is probably not meant to collect the fine so much.
[23:37] Speaker 6: There were a lot of people who if they left,
[23:40] Speaker 6: they were being told if you leave, you could come
[23:42] Speaker 6: back and reapply and come into the US. That's literally
[23:45] Speaker 6: one of the deals that you used to hear this
[23:48] Speaker 6: administration say. Well, now they're saying no, no, no, you
[23:51] Speaker 6: can't come in until you pay these fines. So the
[23:54] Speaker 6: fines are being used as a basis to not let
[23:57] Speaker 6: people in fact come back in. And so that's why
[24:01] Speaker 6: I think you're seeing an insistence that you pay these
[24:03] Speaker 6: fines before you actually will be allowed back into the
[24:08] Speaker 6: United States. That's trying to create more of a permanence
[24:11] Speaker 6: to the ban of people who voluntarily leave the United States,
[24:14] Speaker 6: which is they were being asked to leave.
[24:17] Speaker 3: You would think you would.
[24:17] Speaker 6: Want to reward them leaving, but now they're being told, no,
[24:20] Speaker 6: you actually have to leave and now pay these fines.
[24:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, and so the program is set at nine million
[24:28] Speaker 2: dollars over the next two years. They're going to pay
[24:31] Speaker 2: these private investigators or bounty hunters to find people and
[24:35] Speaker 2: serve them with notices and get no money back for
[24:38] Speaker 2: a cost of nine million dollars.
[24:40] Speaker 1: It seems it seems obscure.
[24:42] Speaker 6: It does seem like one would want to take a
[24:45] Speaker 6: bet on the underside. Is over or under nine million
[24:49] Speaker 6: going to be collected from this grouper.
[24:51] Speaker 1: I'll go for under a Yeah, if.
[24:53] Speaker 6: One was that a casino, I might advise that person
[24:56] Speaker 6: to bet under. But nevertheless, we we shall see. Anything
[25:01] Speaker 6: could happen.
[25:01] Speaker 3: Now.
[25:02] Speaker 6: There may be enough people that want and need to
[25:05] Speaker 6: come back to the US that do pay the fines.
[25:08] Speaker 6: But the question is, did you need a private company
[25:10] Speaker 6: to do that or did that already happen because they
[25:13] Speaker 6: went to an embassy and we're told you have to
[25:15] Speaker 6: pay this fine in order to get the visa. So
[25:17] Speaker 6: I don't know how many people who don't want to
[25:20] Speaker 6: come back and who are yet tracked down by the
[25:24] Speaker 6: private contractor will actually only pay their fine because they
[25:28] Speaker 6: were tracked down by the private contractor. That to me
[25:32] Speaker 6: seems very unlikely that they make back their nine million,
[25:35] Speaker 6: But we'll have to wait and see.
[25:36] Speaker 2: They're using this already inside the United States right ICE
[25:40] Speaker 2: has awarded these skip tracing contracts.
[25:44] Speaker 6: Well, yes, and inside the United States it's different because
[25:47] Speaker 6: there's people who have assets here that you can theoretically confiscate.
[25:52] Speaker 6: But once someone's left the United States, then the question
[25:55] Speaker 6: is what can be done. It's very unlikely that another
[25:58] Speaker 6: country will co operate with US ICE orders telling them
[26:03] Speaker 6: to confiscate some property in a foreign country in order
[26:05] Speaker 6: to pay.
[26:06] Speaker 3: Fines in the United States.
[26:07] Speaker 6: We will have to see if any country actually would
[26:10] Speaker 6: willingly acquiesce to such an attempt.
[26:14] Speaker 2: You mentioned eighty four billion in fines. The Legal Aid
[26:17] Speaker 2: Society is suing over that, right.
[26:20] Speaker 6: Yes, correct, there's a lawsuit over this. There's a lot
[26:22] Speaker 6: of congressional oversight about this. You have Senator Dervin and
[26:27] Speaker 6: Senator Padilla saying that this shouldn't be the case and
[26:30] Speaker 6: trying to get the administration to roll this back. So
[26:34] Speaker 6: we'll see if anything happens. I mean the fines are
[26:37] Speaker 6: congressionally imposed, meaning the Congress has authorized the fines. I've
[26:41] Speaker 6: actually in cases where some of these fines have been
[26:44] Speaker 6: brought to my attention, I've actually been very successful in
[26:47] Speaker 6: getting the fines revoked when you can explain to the administration.
[26:52] Speaker 6: So most of these fines that are not being revoked,
[26:54] Speaker 6: it's because people haven't actually tried to revote them, So
[26:58] Speaker 6: it does become tough to make an argument as to
[27:01] Speaker 6: whether these fine should be revoked. I don't see long
[27:04] Speaker 6: term the Supreme Court saying that the fine should be revoked.
[27:08] Speaker 6: But what probably will happen is that at some point
[27:11] Speaker 6: in the next five, ten, twenty years, whenever, there will
[27:14] Speaker 6: be an administration who forgives these finds. I'd imagine, but
[27:17] Speaker 6: we'll have to wait and see.
[27:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, Because what Durbin and Padilla said when they complained
[27:24] Speaker 2: about this to Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen and
[27:28] Speaker 2: Todd Blanche in a letter, it said that the Trump
[27:31] Speaker 2: administration has carried out a vindictive mass deportation campaign, which
[27:36] Speaker 2: has included slapping arbitrary and potentially unlawful finds on dreamers,
[27:42] Speaker 2: survivors of domestic violence, and Green card applicants.
[27:46] Speaker 1: So they're saying that those are people who are here legally.
[27:50] Speaker 3: Yes, I mean, I've seen that happen.
[27:52] Speaker 6: I've seen people in those situations get fines, but when
[27:56] Speaker 6: they've been my clients, I've gotten those fines reversed.
[28:00] Speaker 3: So the question is, you know.
[28:01] Speaker 6: Are people actually providing this information to Ice to reverse
[28:05] Speaker 6: the fines. So it is unfair to say that you
[28:08] Speaker 6: can't get them reversed. But it's also unfair for people
[28:11] Speaker 6: who don't have the means to hire a lawyer and
[28:13] Speaker 6: don't speak English, et cetera. They're getting up potentially an
[28:17] Speaker 6: illegal find imposed that if they had been able to
[28:20] Speaker 6: speak English and respond to the government, they would have
[28:22] Speaker 6: been able to explain, ay, I shouldn't be fined I
[28:25] Speaker 6: have one of these three situations that was discussed in
[28:28] Speaker 6: the Padia Urban Letter. And so that's the problem here.
[28:32] Speaker 2: Let's turn out to the Department of Homelands Securities proposal
[28:36] Speaker 2: to get rid of the sixty day period, the sixty
[28:40] Speaker 2: day window that H one B workers have to find
[28:43] Speaker 2: new employment after they lose a job.
[28:46] Speaker 6: This is a potential, very huge story that very few
[28:50] Speaker 6: people who are not technocrats are talking about. But if
[28:53] Speaker 6: this actually gets implemented, it is a dramatically important story.
[28:57] Speaker 6: And why is that There's about a million people here
[29:00] Speaker 6: in the United States who have what's called H one
[29:03] Speaker 6: B status, meaning they're here on a visa where they
[29:07] Speaker 6: have a degree from a university and they're in a
[29:10] Speaker 6: specialty occupation that requires that specific degree, So doctors, lawyers, engineers,
[29:15] Speaker 6: et cetera. And the problem is they're waiting in a
[29:17] Speaker 6: green card line that is potentially you know, ten to
[29:22] Speaker 6: one hundred years long, depending on what country you're from.
[29:25] Speaker 6: And so for the people who are in this hundred
[29:28] Speaker 6: year line because they're from India, because what happens is
[29:31] Speaker 6: you're only allowed to give a seven percent of any
[29:34] Speaker 6: year's green card allocation to one country, So Indians have
[29:38] Speaker 6: a much longer line than people from other countries. So
[29:41] Speaker 6: what happens is with people who are from India or
[29:45] Speaker 6: from China or from some other places, if they get
[29:49] Speaker 6: terminated or you know, they get sick, they get a
[29:51] Speaker 6: kidney disease, they get something where they have to leave work,
[29:55] Speaker 6: they're allowed currently to have a sixty day grace period
[29:58] Speaker 6: where they can figure out, okay, let me find another
[30:00] Speaker 6: their employer, let me do something, and they can stay.
[30:03] Speaker 6: What this proposal would do, if it's finalized, is it
[30:06] Speaker 6: would say, on day one of your unemployment, you're here illegally,
[30:11] Speaker 6: meaning what you would have to do is leave the
[30:14] Speaker 6: country and then apply for a new H one B
[30:18] Speaker 6: and then come back. And you might say, well, why
[30:20] Speaker 6: does that matter. That doesn't sound like a big deal. Well,
[30:23] Speaker 6: first of all, the administration is currently trying to say
[30:26] Speaker 6: that if you do that, the employer is going to
[30:28] Speaker 6: have to pay one hundred thousand dollars for you, which
[30:31] Speaker 6: they won't do.
[30:32] Speaker 3: Now that's under litigation, and we're.
[30:33] Speaker 6: Gonna have to see if that one hundred thousand dollars
[30:35] Speaker 6: fee is legal or not. But if that one hundred
[30:38] Speaker 6: thousand dollars fee is ends up being held as legal,
[30:42] Speaker 6: then it's basically a death sentence for anyone who loses
[30:46] Speaker 6: their job for even one day or get sick or whatever.
[30:50] Speaker 6: So all of those million people could very slowly by attrition,
[30:54] Speaker 6: end up most of them, half of them, some very large,
[30:57] Speaker 6: some of them getting the poor instead of being able
[31:01] Speaker 6: to stay in the United States. It would be one
[31:04] Speaker 6: of the largest mass deportation changes that's ever been done.
[31:08] Speaker 6: And you might say, well, why wouldn't those people just stay.
[31:11] Speaker 6: This population does not stay. This population is actually very
[31:14] Speaker 6: compliant with the law because these are people with degrees
[31:17] Speaker 6: who don't want to be in a legal status for
[31:20] Speaker 6: even one day. So if you tell them that they're
[31:23] Speaker 6: going to be an illegal status for even one day,
[31:26] Speaker 6: they will leave. And there's been people who've been saying
[31:30] Speaker 6: deport all these h to one b people well, that
[31:32] Speaker 6: could happen, but that will end up including a lot
[31:35] Speaker 6: of rural doctors, a lot of researchers, and a lot
[31:39] Speaker 6: of other people that the United States didn't want to deport,
[31:42] Speaker 6: but maybe they got sick, maybe something happened, and now
[31:46] Speaker 6: they end up getting deported.
[31:48] Speaker 2: And that's just a proposed order. It has to go
[31:50] Speaker 2: through comment and right.
[31:52] Speaker 6: It would have to go through notice and comment, and
[31:54] Speaker 6: maybe some people would sue, but honestly, there's probably not
[31:58] Speaker 6: a lawsuit you could file. Blessed the court wanted to
[32:01] Speaker 6: just feel bad and say it was arbitrary and capricious.
[32:05] Speaker 6: They're allowed to change the grace period. The great period
[32:07] Speaker 6: was added by regulation. It could certainly be removed by regulation,
[32:12] Speaker 6: but it would just be an incredibly harsh thing. And
[32:15] Speaker 6: what would probably end up happening is that employers would
[32:18] Speaker 6: end up trying to figure out ways not to terminate
[32:22] Speaker 6: people because the employers don't want to end up becoming ice.
[32:25] Speaker 6: But that's what's going to end up happening. So the
[32:27] Speaker 6: employers will end up not terminating people that they would
[32:31] Speaker 6: have otherwise wanted to terminate because they realized that that
[32:35] Speaker 6: termination is basically the end that it's not just a termination,
[32:38] Speaker 6: it's an immediate deportation order, and so that creates a
[32:42] Speaker 6: huge problem for employers.
[32:44] Speaker 2: Finally, leon temporary protected status. Since the Supreme Court said
[32:49] Speaker 2: that the administration has the right to end temporary protected status,
[32:55] Speaker 2: there have been some novel arguments made in federal courts
[32:59] Speaker 2: to try to preserve GPS, but they all seem to
[33:03] Speaker 2: have failed.
[33:04] Speaker 6: People are really grasping at this point at any straw
[33:07] Speaker 6: they can to try to get TPS to remain for
[33:10] Speaker 6: different countries. But at this point all of these claims
[33:13] Speaker 6: are now losing. So it's not really productive to start
[33:18] Speaker 6: analyzing these claims because the Supreme Court has already said, Look,
[33:21] Speaker 6: if a president can invoke TPS, a president can revoke TPS,
[33:26] Speaker 6: and it's not reviewable, and so long term, maybe people
[33:30] Speaker 6: will live to fight a day or two here or there,
[33:33] Speaker 6: but the tps are going to be all revoked, probably
[33:38] Speaker 6: in the next thirty days, if not already. Some many
[33:40] Speaker 6: of them have already been revoked, and the question is
[33:43] Speaker 6: going to be now one and for that large group
[33:47] Speaker 6: of people who had TPS, what you're going to start
[33:49] Speaker 6: seeing is some of the scenes you're starting to see
[33:52] Speaker 6: now where Haitians are going into ice check ins and
[33:55] Speaker 6: they're being given ankle bracelets, or they're being detained and
[34:00] Speaker 6: the beginning of removal proceedings are happening for these individuals.
[34:04] Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Leon, always a lot of immigration issues
[34:07] Speaker 2: in the courts. That's Leon Fresco of Honda Knight. And
[34:11] Speaker 2: that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
[34:14] Speaker 2: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
[34:16] Speaker 2: our Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
[34:21] Speaker 2: and at www dot bloomberg dot com slash podcast slash Law,
[34:26] Speaker 2: And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every
[34:29] Speaker 2: weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso
[34:33] Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg

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