This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
The acting head of ICE, Todd Lyons, defended his agency's training standards and denounced threats against officers at a hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee today, let me.
Send a message to anyone who thinks they can intimidate us, you will fail well.
The shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretty have drawn by partisan scrutiny and calls for transparency. The hearing largely played out along partisan lines. There were some heated moments, like this when New York Democrat Dan Goldman asked Lyons about US citizens being asked for proof of citizenship?
Do you know what other regimes in the twentieth century century required similar proof of citizenship?
Yes, sir? What so those various nefarious regimes that did that?
Is Nazi one?
Yes?
But I is the Soviet Union life I'm asking the questions. Is the Soviet Union one?
Yes, sir? But I told you.
A topic that was not addressed at the hearings is one that affects every non citizen detained by ICE, the Trump Administration's mandatory detention policy. It's a reversal of every other administration's policy for the last thirty years. The Trump administration is detaining all non citizens without hearings indefinitely, even if they've lived in this country for decades and have
no criminal records. And in a huge win for the administration, the ultra conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just greenlit that mandatory detention policy. My guest is Leon Fresco, a partner at hollanden Knight and the former head of the Office of Immigration Litigation in the Obama administration. Lee and I want to start with what's been happening in the
lower federal courts the Trump administration. The immigration courts have largely stopped conducting bond hearings, even though three federal judges explicitly declare that non citizen detainees have a right to argue for their release, so the right to a bond hearing. But there was contrary guidance by the head immigration judge who said the immigration judges weren't bound by the federal judges orders.
What happens is that there is Supreme Court precedent from a couple of years ago during the Biden administration that clarify that the only court in America that can issue injunctive relief of immigration, deportation or detention statue is the Supreme Court. And so what that has meant is that the lower courts, when they're trying to issue relief in certain cases, the only thing they can issue is what's
called declaratory judgment relief. They can say, we declare that the immigration authorities are acting in an unlawful manner, and based on that declaration, we are ordering that there be a release of a particular person who we are claiming is wrongfully detained. And usually that's done in a habeas corpus matter, which is what happened is someone says, my
body is wrongfully detained by the federal government, please release me. Now, what has been happening is, and we'll talk more about this when we get to the Fifth Circuit case, is that ISA has taken the position that nobody can be released from detention if they snuck across the border or the United States. It doesn't matter if it was thirty years ago, twenty years ago, or anything. If we catch you, that means you're in detention until your deportation case is over.
And so from that perspective, people have been filing habeas corpus petitions trying to say that that's an improper decision and let me unt. And what has happened is that when they win, they get declaratory relief, they don't get injunctive relief. And so now the immigration courts under the Department of Justice, so Pambombi, being the Attorney General and then bringing those orders down to her designees in the Department of Justice and the Immigration courts, has said a
declaratory judgment is not an injunction. It doesn't force us to do anything. It just declares that we've acted illegally, which is you know, quite a stretch. You know, usually people defer to these declarations, but here the Department of Justice is saying, we are not going to defer to these declarations that we're acting illegally. We will wait till
the Supreme Court enjoins us to do anything. And so now they're ignoring the court orders, which is setting up these CROs where the district court judges are going to decide whether to have to hold the Justice Department officials and the ICE officials in contempt. And if they do, what does that mean and would people get ordered to be thrown in jail if they would, who would enforce
these orders? We use these words, but these words are the definition of a constitutional crisis, which is when you have a court ordering something, and you even have a content proceeding and the administration will ignore that. Then that's when you have a constitutional crisis, because then no longer does the administration say that it will submit itself to the rule of the courts in terms of their decisions. And that's when you have potentially problematic situations.
But if the Supreme Court ruled that, then is the Department of Justice in the right here?
Well, the Supreme Court has it ruled about these bond issues. But if they've ruled that, which they have, that they are the only ones who can issue an injunction, then the injunction would be for policy wide challenges. For instance, you challenge a certain memo or you challenge a certain program that got put into place in the immigration world. But in these habeas cases, it's a little bit more complicated because the whole point of a habeas case is
you're not getting an injunction. In a habeas you're getting an order. You're getting a rid of habeas corpus, which is done in a declaratory nature, and so to say we're not subject to habeas petitions anymore. We don't have to respect those decisions unless somebody gets all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court says release them on a habeas that's unprecedented territory.
Both the Fifth and the Seventh Circuit had arguments on the same day. The Fifth Circuit made its decision within days of the arguments. I mean, how big a victory is that Fifth Circuit decision for the administration.
The reason it's a big victory is because most of the detention facilities in the United States are in the Fifth Circuit Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. It's a big part of the detention infrastructure of the United States is actually
in those locations. And so what the Fifth Circuit held is that if a person crossed the border illegally and entered the United States illegally, if and when the United States government finally apprehends them, whether it's two days later, ten days later, one year later, twenty years later, forty years later, none of that matters. What matters is that
they were apprehended when they had crossed the border. Illegally, and so under the version of the statute that the Trump administration and the Fifth Circuit feel is the correct interpretation of the statute, they say that no matter when you're apprehended, if you've crossed illegally, what your intent is. Your intent is you're trying still every day of your life, to be admitted into the United States legally, that this
is your goal. Because the statue uses these words seeking admission, and what it says is if you're seeking admission into the United States, then if you get apprehended, you will be detained indefinitely without bond until we decide whether you win or lose your deportation case. And so that's the definition.
Previously for the last thirty years, all the administrations prior to this said that at a certain point after you cross the border, you're no longer seeking admission, you're just here in the country, and that seeking admission is only for people apprehended at or near the border right when they're trying to cross. It's not for people who've been here an extended period of time. Those people are entitled
to bond. And so this is a new interpretation that's different than what has occurred in the last thirty years. And so what the Fifth Circuit has said is absolutely if someone is in detention in the Fifth Circuit and they cross the border illegally, it does not matter how long they've been in the country. They can be detained during the entire removal hearing without bond until they can finally be deported.
And if the Seventh Circuit comes out with a contrary decision, it won't make that much difference because not that many people are held in detention in the territory of the Seventh Circuit.
Correct. What's very interesting about this is usually the government is motivated to go to the Supreme Court whenever it's got bad law. But it would be very interesting if what will have to happen is that the Fifth Circuit petitioners that the foreign nationals will have to go to the Supreme Court and that the Supreme Court takes the case, because usually the Supreme Court only takes these cases for the most part, because the Department of Justice is asking
them to take the case. Almost always, when the Department of Justice wants the Supreme Court to take a case, they take it. But the Department of Justice may say, you know what, if we lose in the Seventh Circuit or the Ninth Circuit, No big deal. We'll just put the visa overstate people in detention in those facilities and they can get a bond and it's not a big
deal and whatever. But for the people we want to keep in detention as the border crossers, we will put them in detention in the Fifth Circuit, and that way they won't be able to have a habeas petition. And if the Supreme Court never takes this case, then that
can't be fixed. And so from their perspective, there's a possibility they may not ask perserciary review in the Supreme Court, and that the only way it would get there would be if the foreign nationals involved actually try to appeal a fitth Circuit decision to the Supreme Court.
When immigrants are released as their case is being processed, do they have better odds of fighting their removal from the country.
Yeah, here's what happens. There's two sort of big dramatic complications when immigration detension is involved. One to the extent that you have family and friends and everybody else, you're separated from them, and you're separated from your source of income, which makes it harder for you to even hire a lawyer in the first place, so you may not have
a lawyer because you can't afford a lawyer. But second, and even more importantly than that, so you don't have your family, you don't have any money, you can't hire a lawyer. That's bad enough theoretically, but then it gets even worse, which is, even if you have a lawyer, the lawyer now has to communicate with you, basically through ICE whatever ICE decides to allow you to be able
to communicate with your lawyer. So you know, most of these detention facilities are in the middle of nowhere, they're not near any lawyers, and so very few lawyers are driving out or flying hours and hours. Usually what you're having to do is set up conferences visa the you're passing documents to the client through ICE. ICE is getting
this and they're getting the documents back. So any sort of attorney client privilege is not that it's not respected, it just doesn't exist because you're passing documents through ICE. So the only way to have attorney client privilege would be for lawyers to drive many, many hours or fly
and drive to these remote facilities. So all of that makes it very very hard if you're trying to prepare, let's say, an asylum application, which requires if you were if you were doing a gold standard asylum case, you'd be with your client maybe eight to sixteen hours getting their whole story, documenting it, saying where can I get this proof from? Where can I get this document from? Trying to really set forward a case, and you just don't have the ability to do any of that if
your client is a detention. So it basically is like saying, fine, we're gonna let you play basketball, but you can't use your left arm or your right leg. Good luck to youse, see if you can win this match against Shaquille O'Neal or something like that. That's basically what happens if you're an immigration detention.
Coming up next, I'll continue this conversation with Leon Fresco. Lawyers are struggling to find their detained clients in a game of whackam o by ice. This is Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosseo from Bloomberg Radio.
The federal courts have been flooded with habeas petitions from immigrants claiming their detention is illegal. According to pro Publica. The Trump administration's push for mass deportations has resulted in more than eighteen thousand habeas potis filed in federal court in the first thirteen months of Trump's second term. That's more than we're filed under the last three administrations combined.
I've been talking to Immigration attorney Leon Fresco of Honda Night So, Leon, with this Fifth Circuit decision, will that flood subside tug?
You're in the Fifth Circuit absolutely, because that becomes binding President, So none of those habeas petitions will work in the district courts in Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. If you are in other district courts around the country, the problem you have is that that Fifth Circuit decision could be cited as persuasive, and maybe the particular district judge who's listening to the case will find it persuasive, and then you'll need to go to the Circuit court and we'll have
to see what happens. But the other problem that could happen is the government can try to move you and get your habeas dismissed, and then the court would have to decide whether it wants to keep the habeasts or not.
So there's just too much uncertainty and procedural machinations that can occur in all of these cases, where at the end of the day, many many of these foreign nationals involved, unless they get some very committed pro bono project, are not going to have the resources to make all of these challenges.
It almost sounds like game over.
I mean, the only way that this detention issue will change is if the Supreme Court gets involved and says that the Fifth Circuit got it wrong. But if the Fifth Circuit decision stands, then what you will see as the entire detention infrastructure of America moved to the Fifth Circuit, and then that will be how it operates.
So then is it as important that the Justice Department is overhauling the Board of Immigration Appeals and cutting off an avenue for challenging immigration court orders.
Well, that absolutely is critical for all of these cases, because a removal in the United States cannot occur currently unless there's two levels of review, one before one immigration judge and two before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Then there's theoretically a third one where you can go to the Federal Court of Appeals and they can decide whether they want to review your case and issue US stay.
But if they don't issue US stay while the case is under review, you can actually be deported while the case is under review, and you'd have to win and hope that you can get re reparolled back into the United States if you win your case, but in the meantime you've been deported. So it's not so easy there. The only guarantee of non non deportation is to be either before the immigration judge or before the Board of Immigration Appeals. Now here's what the Trump administration is saying,
and to this extent they're mostly correct. Is they've said, if you really look at what the Board of Immigration Appeals does, in ninety percent of cases, they just issue a rubber stamp decision that says, you know, what, the immigration judge was correct, So we don't really have anything more substantive to add to this. And then people either get deported or they review it to the federal Court
of Appeals that applies to them. And so what they're saying is if this process takes one year or two years or three years, as it does for many cases, in order to ultimately get a decision, that's not very substantively helpful. Why not just get rid of this altogether, and just if you lose in front of the Immigration court, go directly to the Federal Court of Appeals and not even have this if it's not adding anything to it. Now, on the other side, the advocates would say, yeah, well
that's that's because you're not taking this process seriously. This is not meaningful appellate review. That doesn't mean get rid of it, that means make it meaningful appellet review. And so you really have two completely different view points here. But it has not been to be fair meaningful appellate review under either the Trump administration or the Biden administration or the other Trump administration, or the Obama administration or
the Bush administration. It was never meaningful appellate review. And so you start really grappling with this issue of if you don't really have it, and all it's doing is delaying people's deportation by a year or two, then what is really going on here? And so that's going to be a debate because so now what's interesting is that the federal statutes never say that there needs to be something called the Board of Immigration Appeals. They don't say
anything like that. They just say the Attorney General has to establish something, and whatever that is, that's the system. So the system that the Attorney General established had an immigration court and a Board of Immigration Appeals. So now by regulation they're trying to say, you don't need this Board of Immigration Appeals anymore unless the entire board decides on bank. We're going to listen to a case only
then in those situations. So they're saying, in that situation, we'll have that, but otherwise we won't have it, and so they'll be a lawsuit. But I don't know how likely it is to be successful. Now they may not have followed the correct formalities because they're not doing notice and comment, and I don't know why. If you're doing it, I think if you're doing something this substantive, I think you'd want to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, even if it takes six months longer, because
it's a very large substantive change here. But nevertheless, it might get dinged for the lack of formalities. But if it doesn't get dinged on the lack of formalities, I'm not so optimistic for the challengers that they would actually win here because there's nothing in the statute that actually requires this Board of Immigration Appeals to exist.
So the chief judge of the Minnesota Courts US District, Judge Patrick Schiltz, found that ICE had violated court orders almost one hundred times in seventy four cases brought by immigrants so far this year, and many other federal judges have found that ICE is not complying with their orders, or they're being threatened by judges with contempt, and so then they comply with court orders, but they're slow walking.
I mean, many federal judges are finding that ICE is not complying with court orders, or they're being threatened by judges with contempt, and so then they comply with court orders, but they're slow walking. I mean, what's going on in the courts?
I think there are many different issues, and so it's not one clear issue. It's many different issues. Number One, there is the issue of the amount of litigation that's happening now because of this new policy that says that if you've crossed the border illegally, there is no bond hearing for you. So that's a change from the past. The system didn't align itself, So it's this expression of
building the airplane while you're trying to fly it. There was a system in place where when you got detained by ICE, you filed for a bond hearing, and that bond hearing was done in an immigration court by an immigration judge, and the government was represented by an ICE attorney, and the foreign national either represented themselves or had an attorney. Now, if your client is detained and they're not allowed to have bond because of this new policy, then what people
are doing is they're filing habeas petitions. And the habeas petition doesn't have ICE as the attorney, it has a USDJ attorney, and those attorneys are understaffed, and in fact, the USDOJ attorneys many of them are resigning, and so all of these offices are understaffed, and now they're having
this surge of cases. So they have this surge of cases and they're having to deal with not the immigration courts, but the federal courts, and ICE is having to respond to all of these various court orders at the same time, it's trying to have a record number of people in detention. There's currently something like seventy three thousand foreign nationals in detention.
That number normally is something like forty thousand, thirty five thousand, but now we're up to about seventy three thousand per day.
And so you have the government lawyers, we have something like eighty or ninety of these cases that they're trying to handle, all at the exact same time, and the ICE agents who are dealing with the fact that these foreign nationals may have been in that location when the habeas was filed, but they might have gotten moved because they needed to move the person to a different facility,
either because of real reasons or procedural imaginations. I mean, there could have been beaesels on a facility and they needed to move them, or there could have been a glut of people that were in one facility, an overpopulation, so you need it to move. And so the point is a lot of things conspire together when you don't build out this infrastructure proportionally, all at the same time, such that there's a lot of ignoring of these orders
by necessity and also by choice. I'm not going to discount that there's by choice as well, but it's not all by choice. Some of it is by necessity in terms of the way they're doing it, and so it's tough, and it's tough for the courts to unwind all of that, and the judges are getting frustrated, and especially if they feel like their orders are being completely ignored. Unless the Supreme Court steps in very quickly and does something, it's
going to end one of three ways. Either it will end with all of this being enjoined and restoring back to the original system where the bond situation exists again, and it goes back to the immigration court and everybody remembers the old system. That's one way. It could end with nobody getting bond of any kind if they've crossed illegally,
and then that's just the law of the land. And then the problem subsides because there won't be content of court because the federal Court won't be involved in this anymore. That's the second solution, or the third solution will be the Supreme Court doesn't do anything, and we just end up with a constitutional crisis, and that would be the
worst of all worlds. And so hopefully the Supreme Court will step in and bring some order into this process as soon as possible so that we don't end up with this constitutional crisis.
And attorneys across the country are struggling to find their detained clients, who are often being moved to out of state facilities and bounced around by ice. An ACLU lawyer called it a game of whack a mole from the beginning. You can't find your clients. If you find them, you can't access them because there are no phones or visitation rooms. And if you do find them, it takes weeks to contact them, and sometimes they're just moved and deported.
Absolutely, if you are a representative of a person, a foreign national who's in immigration detention, it's the most challenging time it's ever been to do that. And as I said, it's really for the foreign national to say that they have a process that is meaningful in the sense that
when you're a criminal. Let's say, when you're a criminal and you're in detention, you're usually in detention within some reasonable space from your attorney, and a criminal defense can be planned and a criminal defense can be implemented in
a court of law. Here is, if you lived in I don't know, Houston, or you lived in Atlanta, or you lived in New York, you could be detained in Kansas or in Louisiana or something and then whatever lawyer you would have procured wouldn't have done you any good because that lawyer is not going to travel to Louisiana or Mississippi or somewhere else in order to be able to reach you. And then even if they did, you
might be moved the next day. And so the question of how you actually conduct the defense when you can't speak to a lawyer is very, very complicated. And this is yet another issue that is going to have to come to some resolution because people are going to start saying that they've had due process violations within these contexts, and the courts are going to have to decide what is the process that you're due in these situations.
Even when ICE does release detainees, judges are finding that they're releasing them in other states without their papers or phones and with just the clothes on their back. So
some judges have been issuing very detailed orders. For example, one Minnesota judge said ICE had to release a detainee one in Minnesota, two with all personal documents and belongings such as driver's license, cell phone, three without conditions such as ankle monitors or tracking devices, and four with all clothing and outer wear he was wearing at the time of detention or other proper winter attire.
It is very complicated, no doubt. And this is something I remember from the very first case that I won with a client in detention, a long long time ago. I won't date myself. I remember speaking to a senior lawyer and I said, what do I do now? And they said, no, when you win a case and your client is in detention, what ICE does is they just opened the door of the facility, and so you better
go get them. Because my client was in the middle of the Everglades, and so it was just a matter of that they either are going to walk from the middle of the Everglades into civilization or somebody has to go get them. This is not new. This has always been that way. That all ICE does is open the door of the detention facility and say, okay, walk out of here. And so as more and more people are detained, and they're detained at more remote locations, people are saying, well,
I can't just drive to go get this person. That's not a thing anymore. Because I'm an attorney in Minneapolis and my client is in Louisiana. So what do I do now? And so this is why you're seeing some of these orders.
Now you've got a trip to the Everglades out of that case, Leon, thanks so much as always. That's Leon Fresco of Holland and Night coming up next, And appeals court is weighing undoing a block on federal grant freezes. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. The DC Federal Appeals Court seems skeptical that a court order blocking the Trump administration from freezing trillions of dollars in grant
funds was still needed. That was after a Justice Department lawyers said the government would have quote no conceivable reason to do it again. The three judge panel heard arguments in a challenge by nonprofit organizations to the administration's pause last year on financial assistance programs, the move that prompted widespread confusion across agencies. Joining me is Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monnac. Suzanne tell us about the underlying dispute.
Explain what was it handy, what was.
It issue here? I mean the original court order.
So the DC Circuit, the Federal Appeals Court here in Washington, is considering what to do with a lower court ruling from really about a year ago that had barred the Trump administration from freezing federal assistant funds nationwide. And these Federal assistants funds were grants that would go to nonprofits
or small businesses. And shortly after we saw President Donald Trump returned to office, they issued a memo that ended up sparking quite a bit of chaos and confusion to federal agencies that these funds vendoral assistance programs needed to be reviewed for alignment with other executive orders. It resulted in a pause to trillions of dollars worth of funding, really at the expense of quite a few companies or nonprofits that rely on those funds.
So a lower court judge had issued a temporary injunction to stop the government from freezing the funds.
That's correct.
So we saw a lower court judge, which was Judge Lauren Alikhon and the DC District Court had specifically prohibited the government from implementing any quote unilateral, non individualized directives end quote with.
The respective federal funds.
So that really applied to a broad based freeze on federal funding as opposed to individual friezes of certain funds. And so that was really what was that issue or largely part of what was that issue during this appeals court hearing that we had last week, and what the d C Circuit is now considering is whether such a broad order has a place today.
There were hearings around the country about these friezes of federal funds. How is this freeze different from some of the other ones we heard about.
Of course, we saw a lot of litigation that was prompted when this funding freeze happened, largely just because there was so much confusion. I mean, the judge herself described
chaos in this funding freeze. The Trump administration did seek to walk it back shortly after they issued the initial memo that caused so much confusion by issuing a Q and A that stopped to clarify that this was not intended to be a full funding freeze, but rather something for individual agencies to only freeze funds that were potentially in conflict with executive orders. So there was just confusion really about the scope initially. But yes, of course we
saw a lot of litigation across spurts. This is specifically the DC case, and that one was about the funding freeze overall.
As opposed to grant freeze.
What was the main issue that the DC appellate judges were concerned with.
The Trump administration is now on appeal seeking to have.
This lower court order lifted.
They're arguing that essentially it's not needed anymore, that it's relevant, and that it's causing problems at their agency. Specifically, they've said, you know, this funding freeze that we did was really specific to the fact that the new administration had just come into office. We wanted to do a full review of the money that was going out. This wouldn't apply again,
like this just would never happen again. And they claimed that we saw the government lawyer or tell the court that it's led to some confusion about what the White House's Budget Office is allowed to do.
Are they allowed to freeze what funds? What other funds?
And so they said to the court, even if you don't choose to fully, you know, order this lower court ruling to be lifted, that perhaps you would order it to be clarified so that we could have clarity that it really only applies to a full one hundred percent funding freeze as opposed to more tailored funding pauses. That way they may be interested in doing, and the court seemed somewhat i would say, receptive to that argument that perhaps this preliminary injunction from a year ago just really
doesn't apply anymore. It was, you know, in its time, and we saw the appeals court judges even say, you know, we understand why the lower court did this given the information it had before it, but now, you know, given what we're hearing from the government, it's been a year, We're not sure that it makes sense that this would still be in place. It was a temporary order after all.
So if the government says we're not going to do a funding freeze like that anymore, then why do they need the lower court order to be specific about what they can and cannot freeze.
That's a great question, and that was something that we really saw the attorney for the nonprofits who's with Democracy Forward Foundation press at the hearing. Well, if she's you know, she said, if the government is saying that we don't plan to freeze anything fully, then why did they care
about this injunction being lifted. I think where I kind of saw the government lawyer try to make that explanation was that they were arguing it was causing confusion at the Office Management and Budget, and so just the way that the lower court order was phrased, it was seeming to be interpreted as a full funding freeze, but I guess there was some you know, confusion about whether or not it would always be interpreted that way, and so they were asking for at a minimum, more clarity from
the appeals court. But that's correct, And that was really also one thing that Judge Bradley Garcia, who's one of the judges on the panel, you know, specifically raised that if we were to see the Trump administration try to freeze a specific you know, grant fund something that say didn't align with executive orders on DEI initiatives or environmental issues, that kind of thing, that it wouldn't even be covered under the current injunction because the current injunction only applies
to a full federal freeze, as he interpreted it, and wouldn't apply to a more narrow function. And he said, you know, it's hard to see what maintaining this injunction would do to protect your clients, the nonprofits. So that was, you know, something that we saw discussed as well. So it was just this idea that this injunction as it was issued might have made sense at the time, it
perhaps doesn't anymore. But then, of course we did see the attorney with Democracy Forward say, you know, feel that the government had not given enough assurances that this wasn't going to be repeated the government said, government's lawyer said things like, you know, there's no reason why we would do this again, but did stop somewhat short of saying specifically, I promise we will not do this again. And that's really what the nonprofits attorney wanted to hear.
In order for the judges to declare this mood, do they have to believe that the Trump administration is true to its word and it's not going to initiate any of these.
Freezes, not necessarily.
And that's one thing that it sounds like the judges did consider was they said, you know, if we take them at their word and we you know, go ahead and order that this injunction be lifted, and then the government were to go turn around and do the exact thing,
there would be a legal remedy for that. And so I think in a way they were that was part of their thinking was, you know, even if we did lift this injunction, there's still recourse for you to come back to court if the government turns around and says, never mind, we're doing exactly the thing that we did a year ago.
So there would still be legal recourse there.
So it almost seems that it doesn't matter, or at least in the view of the appeals court judges, you know, because there might be legal resource either way, whether the injunction were still in effect or not.
So did it seem like they were leaning toward the government in the hearing.
It seemed to me that my read of that panel was that they were leaning to the government at least, you know, really seemed to be receptive to the argument that this injunction. You know, this many months later, and given how much the situation has changed on the ground that perhaps this isn't the one that makes sense to have anymore. But certainly we'll see there's always a risk to trying to read the tea leaves in court.
Let's turn now to the Federal Judiciary's Research Office removing part of a climate section from an updated manual on Scientific Evidence after backlash from Republican appointed attorneys general. So they've had this manual and they're just updating it.
That's right.
This is a manual they've issued before. This is the fourth edition. The ord though, was back in twenty eleven, so it's been a while since we've seen an update. And of course, when it comes to scientific evidence, these things move quickly, so we see topics in this fourth
edition manual that include, for example, artificial intelligence. And the idea is to provide judges with a little bit more information when they're considering what evidence might be allowed to be you know, included in you know, in litigation, like just to kind of help them handle that evidence, to know what would be an expert, what are a good expert qualifications, just to give them an overview of some of the issues that might be coming before them.
More than two dozen Republican appointed Attorneys General objected.
To this, that's correct.
They specifically objected to a section within the scientific manual that was focused on climate science, written by two professors affiliated with Columbia University who wrote, you know, eighty plus ninety plus pages about climate science, s, greenhouse gases, you know, just various concepts overview of climate science and also and really what I think the Attorney General took issue with a bit on the role of humans in climate change.
So by doing this, by taking this out, then the federal judiciary is bowing to the climate deniers who think that humans don't have anything to do with climate change.
It would appear that way.
The Attorney's General argued that this was a disputed, you know, area of science, and that they didn't feel that the researchers had you know, done a good enough job to include you know, maybe more climate skeptics, you know, had you know, acted like a human role in climate change was you know, a given, and that they were concerned that this would sway or favor, say environmental advocates in climate related litigation where they may be seeking to hold
a government, local government, or a company accountable for their environmental impact. And I think that's where they felt like this would maybe put a thumb on the scale. I think, as they said, in those types of cases. I spoke to one of the researchers, and you know, she said that her section had gone through all of the same rigorous peer review as the other chapters that were left in.
And who is it that makes the final decision on.
This decision came from, at least as it was publicized, the Federal Judicial Center, which is the research arm of the Federal Judiciary. So we saw really a one sentence letter from Judge Robin Rosenberg, who's the chair of the FJAC, notifying the leader of the Attorney's General Group that the section had been omitted. As she phrased it, there was not any detail about what you discussion had gone on,
or you know, what considerations were taken into account. We really just have that one page letter and the FJAC decline to comment further.
It seems like they folded pretty quickly. Thanks so much, Suzanne, always interesting to talk to you. That's Bloomberg Law reporter Suzanne Monyac, and that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast Slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm
Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg