Border Talks & Cher Files for Son's Conservatorship

that conservative Republicans want. Last week, Johnson led a delegation of Republican lawmakers to the southern border in Texas.

of migrants at the southern border last month. Also, a CBS News poll published Sunday found that two thirds of Americans disapprove of his approach to the US Mexico border.

the White House feels under to reach a deal. They are actually pretty much trying to circumvent a lot of the traditional groups that sort of advocate for more compassionate immigration laws and are really trying to come to a deal with the Republicans, basically meeting them ninety percent of the way to where they want to go to, which would mean dramatic reductions in the ability for people to ask for asylum through the southern border if they enter

illegally across the border. Basically under that scenario, they would be pushed back into Mexico and making people have to go in through the ports of entry instead of having to go in between the ports of entries where they

wouldn't be allowed. They would just be pushed back, and the basic leftover issue that hasn't been fully resolved is can the president actually bring in people legally using his parole power during this time period or would there be some time periods if the if the amount of crossings was too high, that then that parole period would be limited. And I think that's the final issue that they haven't come to an agreement on. But there is going to

be an agreement. That's going to upset. I think both sides of the left will be upset because this era of being able to sneak across the border and as for asylum is going to be over. That's going to be eliminated by this compromise even when it gets reached. And on the right, they will be upset that there will be some authority that the president will still be able to keep to let people in if there are

circumstances that mayrit letting people in. And so you're going to see whether you can cobble together enough of a centrist coalition to say that there's been a success on border policy.

United States with paroles. And so the sticking point is if that's gone, then for situations like Ukraine or other things, if the President limits his authority to be able to bring in people those under those paroles, then there will be no way to bring people in. But these numbers, we're talking about something like five hundred thousand people being legally allowed to enter into the United States, in addition to the three million or so border crossers that are

being apprehended on the southern border entering illegally. And so that's why the Republicans are saying they're concerned, is because they don't like those kind of numbers. And then one sort of prudential problem that happens with people who are paroled in the United States is great, you're parolled in, but then what happens in the year the parole expires, and very few people have another status they can switch to after this parole, and so that becomes another problem.

So there will be no excuse to cross the border illegally. Now, there will be some exceptions for very urgent humanitarian concerns, but that's it. Other than that, there will be no asylum process that can be accessed by people crossing the border, and that will be triggered by certain thresholds of increased immigration.

And that's going to be one aspect of it, and the second aspect of it will be even if you then get this opportunity to be questioned, it'll be at a higher level, so it will not be this credible fear process, but it will be at the higher level of the reasonable fear process, which in reality, what that means is it'll go from about an eighty percent success rate where you're allowed to stay in the country to about a forty to fifty percent success rate, whereby you'll

be allowed to stay in the country.

But that can be done, meaning if the United States government wants to pull out of certain obligations that it's made under the Refugee Convention, it can do that by passing a statue that does that. But that may be what it actually has to end up doing here in order to vacate the previous commitments that made under the Refugee.

move forward and do what Trump wanted. Whereas if he's making all of these demands for cooperation with Biden, who sort of isn't making these crazy demands back then, it sort of leads people to think, well, maybe Trump had the right approach here, which was to threaten Mexico. Now, I understand President Biden has wanted to be a good faith actor here, but if the good faith isn't rewarded, then you start to say, well, maybe there's other ways we need to deal with Mexico.

Because the problem is if the Senate actually reaches a deal and passes a deal to fund the government, which includes a border deal, which is essentially free money for the Republicans, from the standpoint that it will probably do very little to make Democrats happy. And if Republicans still reject that quote unquote free money on the border because they say it's not enough, then they're going to look bad.

And that will put Speaker Johnson in a terrible position where either he will be blamed for shutting down the government or he'll lose his speakership for putting it up for what's called the vote on suspension, where Democrats would do most of the heavy lifting along with let's say fifty to sixty Republicans in order to pass the budget. But then that would lead the majority of his conference to be very upseted in and vote him out of the.

from one state to the other. There's interstate commerce issues also, and so from that standpoint, it makes it very difficult for the State of New York to make a claim like this, most likely that will be viewed as unconstitutional. They didn't even make the claim in federal court. They made the claim in the New York state court system, and I think the reason they did that is because they know that it's very little likelihood of success in this litigation. But they're just trying to make a point,

especially since they're suing these bus companies. The bus companies probably don't want to spend a lot of money defending a lawsuit that they can at least try to get the bus companies to stop doing this and that will at least solve some of the problems. Whereas if they assume the state of Texas, that would have been a whole other thing, where Texas would have had just as many resources as New York to litigate this, and probably New York would have realized this was not a high

likelihood of success. The issue is here, this may not be designed so much for success, but rather to put the bus companies usually don't have a lot of capital to a decision of whether they want to spend thousands and thousands of dollars litigating a lawsuit or would they rather just settle out by not bringing people into New York. And I think that was the calculation here.

Here we have the same concept. We have one lawsuit which is the cities and private entities and others who are challenging the Texas law. And we also have again the same thing where the United States government in its

own lawsuit challenges the Texas laws. And the theories in both cases are the same, which is that these efforts to inform the immigration law, even if they could be considered in harmony with the immigration code should still be viewed as preempted, because when states start to speak with different minds as to how the immigration law is to be enforced, then the federal government ceases to be able to do many important things in a unanimous way, meaning

they don't the way they would deal with foreign nationals, the way they would deal with foreign governments, the way they would deal with various transportation issues. All of that becomes limited, and so all of that, hence should be preempted from being able to be taken into the hands of the states as opposed to having the federal government run a uniform immigration system. And so that's the theory

of this. Lasses there's also theory that it violates both the interstate and the foreign commerce clauses, and those matter as well. From the standpoint again, like we've talked about the relationships you have with regard to other countries, and you're shutting down certain things with regard to immigration, do you unwittingly shut down legal areas of commerce as well?

And from that standpoint, at least viz Are the President said in Arizona versus the United States, it's going to be very likely that there will be an injunction somewhere along the line, whether it's by the District Court or the Fifth Circus. But the question is does the Supreme Court end up overturning the Arizona law. And we have

three justices. We have Justice Cony Barrt, we have Justice Cavanaugh, we have Justice Corsage that have never said anything about the Arizona case, and so will be interesting to see if those three will join Justice Alito and Justice Thomas who ruled in favor of Arizona during the time of the Arizona litigation, in order to create a five four majority for overturning the Arizona case and actually allowing Texas to enforce this law.

And so really it will just become maybe whether the Fifth Circuit wants to have some language in there that is dicta saying, although we're bound by Arizona, we think this is a wrong opinion, and we hope that the Supreme Court takes it up and reverses it. I could see that easily happening, but we'll have to see how disciplined and how faithful the Fifth Circuit wants to be to the language of the Arizona Supreme Court decisions.

saying is that's not how it works. There's a supremacy clause issue here, and the federal government gets to absolutely, under federal statute be able to decide what are the barriers that are actually placed between the United States and any foreignancy or anything on any border, and that that is the full authority of the Department of Homeland Security to do that. And so thus the State of Texas should be enjoined from doing this under the all ritzacs.

And the point is they're saying that under the statutes eight USC. Thirteen fifty seven that they have the ability to access this land within twenty five miles of the border and be able to do anything they want to do within that land to protect the border. And if they feel in their judgment that this razor wire is harming their ability to do that, then they're permitted under the supremacy claus to cut down that wire. And so that's the question at the end of the day, is

who's right. The State of Texas has the ability to sue the government for taking down its property under the Federal Court Plains Act. Or does the United States or the Supremacy Clause have the ability to say, no, you can't put up this razor wire fence.

him unable to manage his money. The forty seven year old Almon receives money from a trust left by his late father, musician Greg Alman, but an LA judge refused to immediately put Almond into the conservatorship that sha is seeking, and he is opposing. The court will take up the issue again at another hearing on January twenty ninth. Joining me is Chris Melcher, a partner at Wallser Melcher and Yoda. So is Shaer asking for a conservatorship over his finances or over his person.

So Share is under the belief that if Elijah Blue had access to all of his money and apparently there was going to be some other big distributions I think coming up, that he would waste all the money on drugs or you know, be taken advantage of, and that this was such a severe problem that he has that it could kill him. That that it's not just that his money would be gone, but that he would take

so many drugs that he would die from. It is the you know, the peril or risk that Share was alleging to grant her financial control over his.

about drug or alcohol view substance abuse problems. It's talking about the inability of an adult to resist fraud or undo influence, such that we need to take away that adults ability to manage their own financial affairs and place

them into the hands of another. So again that she's a little bit off base in terms of the you know, the box that she needs to fit into for conservatorship over the estate, because the California Probate Code doesn't say that someone who might waste their money on drugs or alcohol needs to have the right to manage that money

taken away that that's not the test. So here she's would need to establish that this substance abuse problem that he has rises to such an extreme level that if he had management over his bank account, for example, that someone would somehow convince him to give them all of that money. You know, that basically be fraud him or pressure him to spend money on things that a normal you know, adult would not do, you know, taking advantage of some position or trust and confidence, these type of things.

And she just has not been able to develop that evidence because you know, I don't think she has this day to day relatelationship with him to know even who these folks are other than the wife that at the time was filing for divorce that she alleged that certainly would not be an appropriate person to manage his affairs because they were going through a divorce at that time. Sharedas doesn't have access to the information to know, like, who are these people who are going to take advantage

of him? Have people in the past taken advantage of him? Why can't Elijah Blue resist efforts to defraud or exert undue influence over him compared to any other adult? And I would just note that there are plenty of high functioning, sophisticated adults who are defrauded. What happens in fraud cases is that there's con men or confidence men that are experts at obtaining trust and confidence in others for purposes of defrauding them. And it's humiliating and horrible. But you know,

look at the Mateoff's you know scam. I mean, there was very sophisticated investors who were defrauded, I made off who don't need to be under a conservatorship. So this level of inability to resist fraud and undue influence has to be so severe that there are no less restrictive means available other than removing Elijah Blue's ability to manage his own finances and place them and share his hands.

his response was. He also said that while he he has had severe problems with drug and alcohol abuse in the past, that he's been sober, he's going to AA and then he volunteered to you know, submit to some testing. Now, the way that I read that response is not to submit to court orders or you know, compliance, but it was just a showing that he recognizes that he has a problem and that he is managing at as best as he can, and he doesn't need to have his

rights taken away from him. You know, there there are other devices, you know, legally available to someone who is unable to care for themselves as a result of some severe drug and alcohol problems, and that would hopefully start with somebody voluntarily checking themselves into a rehab program, which

he has done previously. And the benefit of that is is that if he's doing so voluntarily, there's probably a better chance of him succeeding because this is his own desire to get help, rather than being forced upon him, or that he's going through the motions of a rehab because of some court case that he wants to get out of, and that's not as probably effective if someone is unable to do that and has such a serious problem that they're unable to care for themselves or that

they're a danger to others, then the state of California has the authority to protect him from himself or others by imposing a you know, fifty one to fifty psychiatric hold on him. And again that that's a very severe situation, not not just for drug abuse. It would have to be to the level where he's unable to care for himself or that he's you know, such that he's a danger to himself for others. So that is a state imposed mechanism that takes away temporarily his rights for his

own protection. That is not a mother would do for a son. So again, that protection already exists, you know, for a limited period that the state could do. The state hasn't done that, and so that would indicate that his problems may not be as severe as Share claims, because why hasn't the state, you know, put a fifty one to fifty hold on him. So I think when Elijah Blue came to court in person, he showed up from the photographs of him walking out, he looked healthy.

He was certainly not missing as Schaer had insinuated that he had gone missing. He was there in person. I note that Share did not show up in person. So I think the chances of Share getting this conservatorship are very low, especially the way that she handled some of the things procedurally. It was not a good look for her in court.

It has to be I think it's fifteen days of notice to the proposed conservative Elijah Blue that he has to be brought to court in person, you know, unless he's truly missing, he has to be brought to court in person so that the court can make its own assessment. The court will also have a social worker do an assessment. And then he has a right to counsel and so

the court will appoint that council for him. He also has a right to hire his own own attorney, and so when the court made its initial orders, it appointed council for him. And again this is really without any opportunity for him to, you know, say anything. And then once he found out about it, he hired his own attorney and that attorney contacted Shares attorney and said, look, we need all the court papers that you filed, and they said no, you know.

won't recognize you. So here, you know, this had the kind of similar bad vibes about it, where Elijah Blue, who obviously has sufficient capacity to hire a lawyer, hires a lawyer and Shares attorneys won't give him the information that he needs to respond to a request to take away his rights citing his own his own privacy. I mean, how could Elijah blues privacy rights being violated by providing

information to Elijah Blue. It's absolutely ludicrous. And so this is an overreaching by Sharer's attorney, and the court was very critical of Share for doing that because you know, again, the whole concept here is that we have one adult who is in such despair that they are unable to properly you know, care for themselves and can't resist fraud or undo influence such that mom needs to come in

there and take care of him. But then Mom isn't respecting his rights, isn't respecting the right that Elijah Blue has to at least see the court papers. You know, he saw some of them but not all of them at least see all of the court papers that she had filed. That again calls in to question her motivations.

Why is she doing this? Why is she acting so quickly to take away his financial rights when I think there is maybe some distributions coming in there so she could get control over them without giving him a fair chance to even see all the court papers that she's filing against them, or communicate with his own chosen attorney. And then I would also note that if his problems are so severe, why didn't she check the box for

conservatorship over the person? Because if he's such a danger that he's going to go and take drugs and kill himself, well, then why wouldn't she force him in the rehab because that would be the only true way of protecting him. I mean, he doesn't need a lot of money to get access to dangerous drugs and kill himself. But she's only sought the control over his finances, but she did not seek the ability to force him into a rehab, which is the help that he would truly need if

she were correct. So this is again a complete misfire by her, and I don't know what her true motivations are, but it raises the hypothesis or theory that she is more interested in obtaining control over his finances than truly protecting him.

who is really watching those cases. It's really up to the court, the court appointed attorney and the social workers who are doing the investigations that are expected to protect these folks who allegedly need protection so that they're not taking advantage of by the conservators who are placed in

control of their lives. So certainly, after Brittany, and I think we are seeing a Brittany effect here in the sharecase that the judges is acting appropriately and stepping up quickly and criticizing Share for not having, you know, observed the rights of her son to have counsel of his own choosing, and for that council to at least see all the court papers that were filed, and they're taking a much more appropriate look at it, because, again, as

we've been discussing here, there are some logical problems with what Share is asking for it. I can't imagine what it must be like for a parent to have a child who has long term substance abuse problems, and I'm sure that's very scary for her, and she feels helpless and she wants to act and do all this, and it's I'm sure horrible what she's going through and trying to protect her son. But the way she's going about it is not legally correct and is probably not likely

to succeed. And fortunately we have a judge here on the case that is protecting his rights.