Gold Card Visas & Can AOC Be Prosecuted?

years to do that. Or you can invest in what's called a regional center, which is a previously approved project. These projects get permission from the Immigration Service to actually market themselves as pre approved projects, and there are things that have been used in the past, like Hudson Yards in the West End of New York or the Comcast

Center in Philadelphia. And what happens is if you invest right now used to be five hundred thousand, now it's eight hundred thousand dollars in those projects, then you get a share of the project and a share of the job creation of that which is the ten jobs again that are needed to create it, and you can obtain a green card. And so what President Trump is talking about is, although unclear, either some sort of enhancement or improvement or change to the program.

to replace it with a new program. And the new program will be rather than having this job creating investment which doesn't actually accrue to the federal budget, I want the money to accrue to the federal budget. So I want you just to pay need five million dollars and you don't get that money back. It's not an investment, and we use it to pay down some sort of

the federal deficit. So that's one option, and it's not clear if that would just be a legislative replacement, and obviously if that's attempted, that's going to be something with quite a lot of political pushback because there's a lot of people who have a lot of money in these projects now. So that's one option. The second option may be that he will decide to use the parole authority to say I have the ability to parole anyone I want.

I'm going to parole people into the country who do these five million dollar investments and then allow them to get access to the EB five program. For instance, the Obama administration did this and the Biden administration did this for something that was called an International Entrepreneur parole. So they can create a new parole program that allows people

to come in and who do whatever they want. So in the Bison and in the Obama administration, it was start a new company with a certain amount of venture capital investment. Those people could come in on a parole. And so President Trump can say, if you would do this five million dollar investment, I'm going to bring you

in on a parole. And what he can also do conceivably is say, anybody who comes in with this parole meets the requirements of the existing ED five statutes such that they can then adjust their status to lawful permanent residence. Now that will be subject to a law suit, the huge one.

The annual cap at the moment is ten thousand green cards per year, and that cap is actually met and is oversubscribed because what happens is it's only one investment that's needed, so it's one eight hundred thousand dollars investment that's needed, and then you can bring your spouse and your children, and each person counts toward the ten thousand cap,

so they fill the cap quite quickly. But at five million, I actually don't think that this number is realistic from the standpoint of how many people you would get to invest. I think it would end up being a very small number. And then here's the second thing, and this is sort of a tough conversation to have on immigration, but I think a truthful one, unfortunately, is when the President says, well, companies can use this money as an award to give

people green cards to are employees. That's unfortunately not the history of the use of immigration employment visas it We're being honest. Typically, the companies want the visas in order to be able to control the employee and not allow them to have free agency. Which is what happens when

they get a green card. So the idea that a company will pay five million dollars to allow employees to have free agency that they can lead whenever they want and work for a different company or start their own competitor company, it's not going to be realistic with what we've seen in the immigration laws. Typically, a lot of companies, even to this day, they say, oh, we need more

H to one V visas. They don't say we need more green cards, because green cards means that that helps the worker and the worker gets to go wherever they want. And what the companies want, to believe it or not, are the visas that actually tether them to the companies. And so if we're being realistic about it, I do not see this five million dollar program ending up being a high demand program.

let you do it now. That ban won't work for people who are already here, but the ban would work for people waiting for abroad. I mean, there will be litigation over that.

to increase that any further. If you are a wealthy person from abroad, you already have many options to live in the United States. You can do the EB five visa. You can do it's called an E too investment visa, which is where you come and you start a company and you invest in the United States and a company. Now that's not a green card, but it allows you

to live here in the United States. You can actually transfer yourself from a company you have abroad to a new company you're going to start here in America, or a company that's already here. There actually are a lot of options already, and so from that standpoint, any person with money who wants to live in the United States can do that already, and so I don't think this

fills a market need from that standpoint. But more importantly to your question, I don't think it adds a single person who's buying a house who wasn't already buying a house in the United States.

are being placed into removal proceedings. Now. In terms of actual removals outside the United States, that's going to be difficult because the only people they can remove right now are people either with final orders of removal who already had these final orders pending, or people who are such criminals that you can get them into court quickly, and there isn't a way for them to actually be eligible to be saved so that you can remove them very quickly.

So what we've seen is a significant number of sort of media related viewings of people being picked up and moved abroad. But those numbers are not at the moment appreciably bigger than anything that was in for sure the

Obama administration, but even sometimes during the Bide administration. Is it a higher focus, yes, higher intensity yes, And will it eventually yield more numbers, yes, But the problem is really to yield more numbers, you're going to have to take people through the immigration court system unless some of these other changes we're talking about are allowed to happen.

But trying to take them through the immigration court system becomes very, very complicated because you have millions of cases in the backlog, you have cases being scheduled right now to twenty twenty nine, twenty thirty, and as you remove some of these legal statuses that people have, their next move is going to be to apply for asylum, which is only going to add to the number of cases in that system.

court process. We can literally send you back immediately unless you claim that you're eligible for asylum, in which case we have to determine if you have a credible fear and if you do that, and we have to put you in that asylum process. So then that clows it down. So here's the thing. That's how we've always applied it. But the statue theoretically allows it to be applied for

people who've been here less than two years. Now what gets icy is if you do it for people who snuck across the border, you start getting into this debate about how long they were here, and that becomes messy. But it isn't the case for the people that the

Biden administration paroled into the United States. So, if you may recall, the Biden administration did this think called the CCH and Z Parole, the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaragua and Venezuelan Parole, where it was letting in during the last two years of the Biden administration thirty thousand people per month from these countries under the idea that if we let people in legally, then they won't come illegally through the border,

they'll just wait and come legally. Well, we know the exact date those people entered the United States, and so.

their paroles and try to get them out. Now, what will actually happen in practice, Well, for the Cubans, it's going to be very difficult to get them out because there's this thing called the Cuban Adjustment Act, which says once they've been here for a year, they're eligible for a green card. And so if they've been here longer than a year, you're not going to be able to

solve that problem. And even if they've been here less than a year, then you're still going to have to try to figure out where you send those people to. And if nobody accepts them and Cuba doesn't accept them, and they get to stay here for a year, then once they hit that year number, they're eligible for the

green card again. So that doesn't solve that problem. For the Nicaraguans and the Venezuelans, probably a large number of them will apply for asylum and so then they will be stuck in that large millions of cases backlog that's an immigration cord. And for the Haitians, even though they may not be eligible for asylum in many cases, they still probably apply. And I don't know how many you'll

be able to get out in expedited removal. So really what ends up happening is, yes, you'll be able to get some number out who aren't sophisticated enough to then take this next step that I talked to you about. But for the people who are sophisticated enough to take the next step, what you really end up doing is you end up transferring them from a status where they were here on a parole now to a status where

they're trying to seek asylum in the immigration cord. And now they're just adding two hundreds of thousands of more cases to millions of backlog cord. And so that puts strain on any new people you're going to try to put into the removal process.

allowed to then start that one year clock. So a large number of these Cubans will have reached the one year clock at some point and that will allow them to apply for a green card. And there's nothing that Trump administration would be able to do about that because.

that's going to be a very powerful argument. I will have to see what the courts say, but I do think it's a very powerful argument to say the eighteen months has to be honored at that point and you

can't remove it. And then they make the same arguments that were made during the first Trump administration, which was, in addition, there's an equal protection violation because there was racial animates that played a role in removing the temporary protective status, and that one will have to wait and see. The Ninth Circuit agreed with that argument in the first Trump administration, so we'll have to see in the second Trump administration what the courts will say about.

everything else, meaning you unlawfully cross the border. Now the idea is you're going to have to register so that we can get some understanding of who's here legally or not. And then if you fail to register, you can actually be subject to criminal prosecution for failure to register or if you don't have your documents with you, you can be subject to criminal prosecution for failure to have your documents with you. And so the idea of behind that

is twofold number one. If you can arrest people for doing that, that certainly creates a bigger sort of deterrence factor which tells people, look, you don't want to be here if you're here unlawfully, because you're subject to arrest at any time. So that adds tension. But secondly, and more importantly, what it does is it creates a rhetoric where you know, many times people are having this debate, are you here elite? Does that mean you're a criminal

or not? Well, if you actually create this registration requirement and people failed to register, then you can rhetorically call people criminals and you're not in the wrong anymore because you're allowed to say every one of these people who didn't register is a criminal.

the United States. And the Ninth Circuit I actually declared that statute unconstitutional as vague, and the Supreme Court was actually having arguments about this, saying, what if you just ask your grandmother, Hey, grandma, please don't leave the country.

so we'll wait till that case later. So now this Tom Home and AOC situation, we're right back here again, which is what does it mean to induce someone without status to remain in the United States? And if you're doing and know your Rights presentation, knowing that the people are undocumented, are you still inducing them to stay in

the United States with your advice? And so you would say, well, I have First Amendment rights to tell people what their rights are, and there's certainly some truth to that, but this statute, if somebody actually gets prosecuted under this statute, it's going to need some scrutiny from the courts to decide what is permitted or not because the broad language of the statue, as just the sort of Mayor was saying during the oral argument, certainly allows this, which is,

you know you're a US citizen, you have to undocument the grandma, you say stay, please stay. That's enough to apparently induce someone to stay illegally knowing that they're illegal. And so if you're giving a know your Rights presentation to people who you know are undocumented, you would be doing potentially the same thing. And so that's where this

gets dangerous. I'm not saying people shouldn't do this, but the statute is so broad, both with regard to inducement and also with regard to harboring, which just says any act that you take that allows a person to be evaded from detection from the immigration authorities knowing that the

person is undocumented, is considered harboring. And so the question is what do you do with these two statutes because they're so broad that if they're not actually prosecuted for the people that this was meant to prosecute, meeting the people who do the safe houses, the traffickers, the smugglers, that kind of thing, and you start applying it to these broader contexts, that's where the courts are going to start getting involved in having to decide if this statute is unconstitutionally vague.

with a safe house or a trafficker. But in terms of the broadest language of the statute, one could say that the elements of the criminal offense of inducement are harboring, could even be violated by someone who's doing to know your Rights presentation to people that they know are undocumented and they're telling them how to toward an ICE investigation.

And so this is where this gets very challenging for people in the legal community, for people outside the legal community, where it's even more challenging because at least as a lawyer, you're trying to give legal advice, But what if you're just someone who works at a nonprofit that helps immigrants. And so we'll have to see if the Trump administration tries to use this statute in a broad way moving forward.

or to let you into their schools or wherever. And so if everybody's given to Know your Rights presentation that says there's an administrative warrant, don't honor it, then that does forward ninety percent of what ICE is trying to accomplish. And so this is what gets frustrating to someone in Tom Holman's position.

legal hoops before it started streaming. Pepper Down University sued to stop the show from airing over trademark infringement claims, alleging that the fictional Los Angeles Waves professional basketball team in the show uses the university's orange and blue colors as well as its school's nickname, but a judge denied the motion for a temporary restraining order, saying the university's

request fell short. Joining me is intellectual property attorney Jonathan Hyman, a partner Bob Martin's, tell us what Pepperdine was complaining about.

that's the professional team. The show is actually based loosely on one of the producers, Genie Buss's life and her experience in running to La Lakers, and Pepperdine's main complaint is that the team name is Waves and that Pepperdine's thoughts are that everyone would associate the team name Waves with Pepperdine and that anyone seeing the show would think it's about Pepperdine, and the show is an adult show and it has some content that Pepperdine didn't want to

be associated with. They kept referencing it as being a raunchy comedy that's ante ethical to its two Pepperdine Christian values, and even in oral argument in the case, Pepperdine had raised that it has an anti drug policy and anti alcohol policy and they just didn't want to be associated with that show. And those are real concerns for brands. You know, brands want to be able to control how people perceive their brand and not be associated with anything

that's on savory. But the issue is whether anyone would really associate the Waves with Peppernine. And before you could even get to that issue, the courts in these types of issues of using a trademark and expressive work will apply to Rogers tests and that's kind of where the decision and Pepperdine's arguments kind of got sidetracked.

that the mascot for Pepperdine wears. So Pepperdine has obviously a heightened sensitivity to what is being shown in the show, and it seems to be Pepperdine's argument is very nefarious and was intentionally done to trade and associate with Pepperdine.

But Netflix had testimony from its executives and Warner Brothers executives that any similarity was unintentional and that the team colors orange and blue were chosen because orange is the color of basketball and blue is the color of Waves, and the team name The Waves was associated with They wanted something to associate the fictional NBA team with Los Angeles, and they were right by the ocean and so it was natural for what Warner Brothers argued was as natural of choose the team name Waves.

in the movie itself to the plane of s brand. Here, the mark that issue was a fictional team name within the show. But Netflix and Warner Brothers argue that that's artistically relevant to the show because they were trying to make it a NBA team based in Los Angeles that had to associate with Team names are always usually associated with the locations where they're located, and so like the

Miami Heat for example. And so the argument again is that from Pepperdize perspective, is that it called to mind their teammate. But under the Rogers test, if it has artistic relevance, well then you get to the whether it's explicitly misleading. And basically what Netflix is arguing was that it's an arbitrary use of waste and I'm mixing trademark metaphors.

But it had nothing to do with Pepperdine. And even if it did have something to do with Pepperdine, if the show was about Pepperdine, well then there'd be no issue either. So the first gateway for Netflix was to put this case into Rogers And even if the court decided that Rogers didn't apply, then you would then go into the likely confusion factors, which is under the Ninth Circuit flee Craft factors, and that would even be tough for Pepperdine to show that it prevails under that construct.

it has evidence to do so. And so I think Judgment of Venezuela was tipping her hand and saying Pepperdine needs to come in with something more than what it had to TRO, some kind of evidence. But that still is also problematic for Pepperdine because the Rogers test would still apply. And so even if you get to an evidentiary standpoint where Pepperdine is coming in with maybe a survey.

It still has to show that the Rogers test doesn't apply, and then would need to show that under the LIKELHO too confusion factors that it can prevail on the trade more infringement plane, and there could be some discovery and maybe this case would change. It seems unlikely, but maybe there would be some discovery and there could be documents from Netflix that show an intention to trade on Pepperdine.

I'm saying it seems unlikely because of the testimony so far was that Waves was almost an arbitrary use and it was selected because of what the association with Los Angeles as opposed to the association with Pepperdine.

with their case. One of the issues is while Pepperdine has federal registrations and they're given a presumption that they're valid and protectable, the question is how strong is the Pepperdine wave mark and whether consumers really associate wave would just Pepperdine. There are a number of Netflix and Warner Bros.

That show, there's a number of teams in California, and there's also teams nationwide like Tulane Green Waves that use waves and any third party use or other school A team names they use waves couldn't limit the ability for Pepperdine to succeed on a likely confusion analysis.