When Donald J. Trump began his campaign for president, he said that people coming into the United States from Mexico were quote bringing drugs, They're bringing crime, their rapists, and some I assume are good people unquote. He also said that as president, he would build a wall along the border with Mexico and that he would get Mexico to
pay for it. He first called for a bandoned immigration by Muslims, then called for a suspension of immigration from countries that sponsored terrorism and extreme vetting of immigrants to the United States. Throughout the race, undocumented immigration remained a central theme of his candidacy, and he discussed it during the third presidential debate. One of my first acts will be to get all of the drug lords, all of the bad ones. We have some bad, bad people in
this country that have to go out. We're gonna get them out. We're going to secure the border, and once the border is secured, at a later date will make a determination as to the rest. But we have some bad ombres here and we're gonna get him out. Today we're going to be discussing what policies President elect Trump is likely to pursue on immigration issues. After January twenty when he is sworn in. Our guests are Harland York, an immigration law expert who is the founding partner of
Herland York and Associates. And Stephen Lylegomsky, Professor emeritus at Washington University Law School, who was senior counsel to the Secretary of Homeland Security. Welcome to both of you, Stephen, Why don't we start out by talking about what we can expect President elect Trump to do immediately upon taking office about immigration. Well, thank you for having me on.
One of the first things that I would predict he's going to do, because he pled to do this during the campaign, as one of the logistically easiest things to do is issue a memo or have the Homeland Security Secretary issue a memo formerly resending the dock of program the docer programs to one in which people who were brought here as young children, had who have lived here several years and who passed various back ground screening checks and so on, would be very low priorities for removal
and would be permitted to work during the time that the low priorities are still in effect. So he could just issue a memo revoking data. One tricky issue if he does that is what happens to the people who currently hold it. It's one thing to say we won't issue any further grants of dacca. But if he seeks to withdraw the work permise of the people who already have it, uh, there's a very complicated procedure for doing so.
The regulations say you have to send an individual notice to each of what would be more than seven hundred thousand people. You have to give them reasons, you have to give them fifteen days in which to respond. And even if you do all that and formally revoke it, collecting these pieces of paper that provide optimization to work as another matter, and that would be very, very difficult.
My guests would be he's going to do this, but allow those who currently have data to continue to enjoy it for until they expire on their own, which would be at most two years from now. Carlan, you have have an immigration law prid this in New Jersey. UM, I'm interested to know both whether you agree with what Stephen just said about his expect expectation and also what just what you've heard from your clients and perspective clients over the last few days. I understand you've you've heard
from a lot of them. Sure, thanks very much for having me. Yeah, I think it's reasonable to conclude that what Stephen just said is foreseeable. I think we all knew as immigration advocates in the United States that the DACA program could see an end. However, when the DACA program started in I cautioned everyone who we personally represented in that process. In my firm, which as you say, works out of New Jersey but handles cases all over the US, we let our DACA recipients know that this
was not a permanent program. And there are many many programs historically like the DACA program, that do have an end date insight, sometimes it's not firm. These programs do come and go under all presidencies. And regarding your other question, is far as what we've actually hurt from our clients. Yeah, there has obviously been a bit of heightened anxiety for a portion of immigrants in the United States, and we're certainly hearing that. However, I have been reminding everyone of
the following. Twenty years ago, when I was a young immigration lawyer starting out, Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform an Immigrant Responsibility Act on September thirty and all of that periods veteran immigration attorneys who I spoke with as a relatively new lawyer, we're telling me it was the end of the world. All immigration law was being eviscerated. Courts were being stripped at their discretionary powers to hear cases.
The aggravated felony definitions were widely expanded to three and ten year bars were placed into the law, and so on and so forth. And we've been suffering with the effects of all of those rules that became law in April of for the better part of two decades. And we've been fighting as an organization in the American Immigration Layers Association, thousands of us have been dealing with that reality.
And one final thought is that when George Bush left office, the pending number of cases nationally in the deportation context and the immigration courts was that about a hundred and eighty six thousand. Under Barack Obama, it's tripled to right now five one plus thousands. So well, it's not just it's not just the you know what, we're what the country is going to do about people who are here
undocumented that President electrump has been talking about. He's also sketched out a number of things about how he's going to stop illegal undocumented immigrants from coming into the country, Steve. The most prominent of these, of course, is the wall. How likely is it he's actually going to be able to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it? Well, I think both are extremely unlikely, and by the way, I agree with everything that hardam I just said extremely well. Um.
Two reasons for that. One is that it would be prohibitively expensive. Despite Mr Tom's claims, all the empirical estimates put the number somewhere between fifteen and forty two billion dollars just to construct the wall initially, and that doesn't take account of us as sums of money that would be be required for annual upkeep. Trump has said he wants the wall to be a thousand miles long and
high and made a solid concrete, which is unrealistic. Congress will never fund uh that kind of wall, and Mexico certainly won't pay for it. If I had to make a guess, it would be that President Trump, in order to say face, might be able to strike some type of deal. Is Congressional Republican leaders whereby they agree to some modest extension of the existing border fence. Um, but it's hard for me to imagine anything more drastic than that, Harlan.
How about the Donald Trump's comments about banning Muslims from coming in the country. He's he's modified that, But is that something that uh uh, You know, Muslims who are either in the country or want to come in the country, or are people who come from a heavily Islamic countries should be legitimately worried about. Look, I will again go back to reality and the history of my time twenty
years in this practice. In the aftermath the nine eleven attacks, the government created, of course, the Department of Homeland Security, and one of its first measures, even before DHS had its formal let's say, initiatives placed, was the Special Registration Program, where nationals in four different enumerated groups were given notice nations.
During the presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump promised to overhaul the nation's approach to immigration and take a hard line on undocumented immigrants and also on people seeking to come
into the country. He uh promised that he would um first suspend immigration of Muslims, then spoke about suspending immigration from countries that sponsored terrorism, then said he was going to engage an extreme vetting of all immigrants where his administration would We're talking about what to expect from the president elect when he takes office with immigration lawyer Harlan
York and Professor Stephen Lagomsky of Washington University Law School. Harlan, we were talking about what realistic to expect in terms of, uh, the suspension of the possible suspension of immigration from countries that are predominantly Muslim, What do you think is going to happen? As I was starting to say, um, you know, we had a program like that already in the aftermath
of nine eleven. It was called Special Registration, and at that point in time, in September of O two, the Bush administration put in place a program that grouped I think I said twenty six before the commercial breaks, actually twenty five countries back then nationals from those countries, twenty four of which were predominantly Muslim countries. And the registration program went on for many years and mails over the
age of sixteen were required to register with immigration. I remember taking down people, taking people that is, down to the immigration buildings um to register them. And then the program essentially was suspended because the government, I guess, determined that it wasn't really effective in terms of the I guess vetting, if you will, to use the word that Mr Trump has used. So it's nothing new so far if I look back on the last fifteen or sixteen
months of his campaign. UM, I note that a journalist pointed out recently, and I think I put this on my Twitter that Mr said many things, like all political candidates have said that contradict one another. I just don't know in reality when you look at recent history and you look at what they're talking about doing. People who think about vetting, if you will, well, securing the homeland we all would agree is a very important thing. That's
why we have a Department of Homeland Security. At the same time, we've had recent historical examples of types of things like this already in place, and whether or not they're successful or not is subject to controversy on or debate. Stephen, We're going to have a Republican president and a Republican Congress. Uh. Does that improve the prospects for some sort of comprehensive legislation? Uh? And if so, what will that look like? Yeah, that's
a great question. Um, I tend to think it might improve the chance that some type of comprehensive bill um simply because so much of the opposition of the previous bill came from Republicans who are bent on forting just about anything that President Obama was supporting. They hopefully will be more supportive of a good comprehensive bill if President Trump introduces it. My guess is it would somewhat follow the lines of the bill of the Senate pass in thirteen,
which had three main pillars to it. One was massive increases in both border and interior enforcement. A second big pillar was a pass to permanent residents status an ultimately citizenship for a large chunk of the current undocumented population. And then the third main pillar was reform of the criteria for legal immigration to the US. The one thing that I can imagine having to give up if the
bills introduced this time, uh, it concerns timing. There are many Republicans who were saying we might be able to consider legalization down the past if we can first quote secure the border. That to me is very problematic because the boarder will never be one secure. He will never be able to prevent people from answering illegally or from
overstaying visas UH. And if legalization is conditioned on that happening, that it would never happen to It would be hard to define when that would take effect, but it is possible that in the new political environments some pass will be found. Can also just comment on the previous questions, I thought hardly answered it very well. A couple of
points on the Muslim ban UM. From a purely political standpoint, I think UH President of Left Trump is going to have to do something in order to avoid being accused of preaching his campaign promises. UM. I don't think he will issue an order that explicitly bans Muslims by name.
The reason I don't think that is that even though there is a provision of the statue which gives the President of the power to ban any class of aliens or class of aliens have the way it's word it, whenever he finds that their admission would be detrimental to the interests of the U S. I know that sounds a very broad grant of power, But if the president were to try to do that on the basis of religion, in particular to single out of particular religion, then a
serious constitutional question would be raised. And so rather than bar Muslims, what I could imagine him doing a saying for immigration from the following countries, and then they could be a list. We will uh, we will increase the number of security checks, although our practical matter, I don't know what he could add to the many checks we already have. Thank you to Professor Stephen Lonomsky of Washington University Law School and immigration law expert Harlan Yorke coming up.
President elect Trunk, also besides immigration, talked about prosecuting Hillary Clinton about her use of a private email server. Should President Obama pardon her to prevent prosecution. This is Bloomberg