welcome to know your rights new jersey i'm your host ronald ponder on today show we're going to discuss a variety of issues around immigration including extreme vetting daca also known as the dream act and some orders and positions of the federal government which are designed to keep certain people out of this country with us today is our returning guest to help us much well i'm to be here thank you for the invitation well welcome and and thank you for joining us again thank you so much well it's been about a year and a lot has changed since you were last with us their environment not only a new president but apparently a new international a national identity hope was by starting out starting us out with a general idea of what this confusion is make it as simple as possible for us what's going on well it's been a bit of a roller coaster ride since we've last been together and obviously we had a couple of projections some of those projections were clearly not on the market and i think that everyone was a little shocked about the way that the new administration you know took to the country by storm and with regard immigration it's a brave new world for us it's been a roller coaster ride since the end of january when the president after it was inaugurated one week later he put into place a travel ban a muslim travel ban  so called muslim travel ban was actually a travel ban which was against seven countries as you know that was one of the executive orders and now it's been since it's gone through the course it's been reduced to six i understand exactly with the first executive order which was on january twenty seventh was restrained in its totality you know then there was immediate second second executive order they came into place which is you're absolutely right was six countries they took iraq off and remember that this was a temporary ban this was only for it was to be for ninety days well i was going to ask you later but since where are you you mentioned that since the ban was in place or since the orders hasn't that the period that was indicated in the band i believe six months hasn't it not passed but hasn't moved forward and exactly and that's really interesting because then what we have one of the arguments for the supreme court as well you know the ninety days are gone so what is the what is the point but i think that it really boils down to an issue of presidential power and when he passed that executive order what he was doing is he wanted to show that the president's right and ability to to stand for national security was more important than the constitutional rights of the people who or the  rights of the people who were coming to the united states and well and still on the band what is the signal that the supreme court is now sending after over ruling orders from hawaii and by i don't recall the other state you write so it was actually i believe it was maryland and that's right maryland hawaii so the way the way that it shakes out right now where we are today is there had opened up they said the ban will be in place however what they did is they loosened it to many many exceptions and so in fact i what i do is i went through the exceptions i just have a couple of notes here obviously green card holders are an exception approved refugees are an exception visa holders are an exception and then the interesting thing that they dealt with over the summer i believe it was in july the supreme court addressed individuals who have bonafide relationships to the united states and that's really interesting because doesn't that open an interesting can of worms and did not define what bonafide was and left it to the courts so what ended up happening is that things like immediate familial relationships were dealt with or relationships with entities ok so that was ok so basically parents children siblings spouses fiances parents in law children in law and then there was  sister with grandparents which i thought was really interesting because it's like how can you say that a grandparent is not you know this is not a familial relationship or does is not a relationship or a toy so that was interesting that they wrestled with but initially uncles cousins nieces and nephews were not sufficient but now they are so that's where that's where they are and what we're beyond say is we're also exclude i believe where they i think no i think they were included originally  it could be that it was later put in again it's been a bit of a roller coaster ride to say the least right just keeping up on what the courts are coming out with on a day to day basis is you know is really difficult for us so on this particular issue give us a little bit of what you think the supreme court might do in the end if you can call it and yeah i kind of had a feeling you were going to go i'm like a sports show make a prediction you know last time you asked me for the and i was exactly right so i don't know if i'm really comfortable making a prediction but again i think what it's going to come down to again is it's the it's going to be a very delicate balance and it's going to be a very delicate balance between the president's  the president's power of course or the rights of individuals to enter the united states as to whether or not this is a a religious to scream in the issue of religious discrimination because if you take a look of course at the countries that are being addressed they are all muslim countries and if you take a look at this tweet that the president has put out unfortunately he's sort of led he's put out evidence ok i think that leads to the potential for a colorable argument of discriminatory intent and that puts him into a very difficult position so i think that as you know with any judicial branch it's about weighing and balancing and they're going to have to come up with some way to decide what is you know what is the limit of presidential power you know with regard to the security issues i think that if you take a look around the world and we see we continue to see these terroristic activities i think that weighs heavily in the direction that the supreme court might go i think that we you know they may and it's highly likely that that they may say that the president to the president the executive has the power to make determinations like this i think however what they could do is also say not withstanding that determination we feel that the issue that was originally brought forth w moot and therefore we don't need to address it so that might be the way that they do it ok so so we're you know it's the supreme court's a very interesting place under the hood send a message and yet not make a determination that really means a whole lot within the realm of what the price was originally so we'll have to see what shakes out ok so the travel ban is one of several issues was so what else is going on that will be in this very very hot issue which you and i have been discussing of course any ability so as you know i think it was what happened in texas was that judge hainan had filed a restraining order against the the top of program and dapo was restrained dockets to never went into effect and now what's interesting is of course the president has altogether taken doc a one out of commission it's basically rescinded so anyone who has doc on now has until october fifth to file an extension and  they will probably still get two years of work authorization but then the question becomes what happens from there and that's a really good question so this is this basically this program affects it hundred thousand people  t the the studies out there say that it effects potentially for our g n p close to four billion dollars in monies that these individuals will be paying in taxes and also in contributions that they're going to be making to social security so be very self directed to our economy according to some reports exactly right so this is this is seems to be what they're saying and you know i just from i'm going to give you sort of a personal surely said you know we had a  a person she came into our office and we applied for doc and i think i saw she was a very very talented individual right and we hired her and she was working for us for a long time she's now moved on to another place of employment but she worked for us for a long time i can say  united states prior to the age of sixteen who was not brought here by choice usually it was their parents who were undocumented they were brought to the united states and then it was president obama who issued what's called an executive action and that's also something very interesting because a lot and the media tends to get a little wrong and it's a little frustrating for me when i hear and i see in the media how they're discussing it because they talk about it as an executive order which doctor was not so president obama did something first of all president obama was brilliant with the way he did what he did was he vetted daca through all of the count and he you know he's a constitutional law professor i'm so right so he vetted through all of his appropriate staff and all the appropriate methodology that doco was permissible because it was a logical extension of what we call deferred action right ok to further action so it's a deferred action type of program it was it's been around for years and years and never have never questioned its its constitutionality has never been questioned and it was actually a logical extension first by  julie myers who is in charge of the immigration customs enforcement which she did was she issued a memorandum which said that what we're going to do is we're going to take a no action position with regard to individuals who fall into certain categories and then a couple  years later john morton was in charge of the immigration customs enforcement he did the same but he was a little he honed that a little more and and part of one of those categories where we're not going to remove people we're the dreamers and right and then what president obama did was he just took a logical next step there and said we're going to allow the dreamers to stay he basically set forth certain criteria and and for example they had to be before the age of sixteen there were certain dates in place when they had to enter the united states and be physically present and and so that was dhaka one and that was open that opened up basically the ability for these eight hundred thousand people to get work  so what you're telling us is that the suggestion by sessions and president trump that it this was illegal is inaccurate so again very interesting so so presidents of president trump he keeps referring to it as an executive order that president obama passed but it wasn't an executive order ok again it was an executive action right and then he basically took it offline so he it does say in the memo the original document that they do have the ability not to renew and so he took the memo off you know so basically what he's doing is he's rescinding the memo but then the question is that is he in violation of the administrative procedures act because president trump and actually the and this was going back to when dr was passed everyone said oh well you know president obama is exceeding the the ability that he has under the law he's making executive orders he's just basically making it up as he goes but that's not really what happened but that's what everyone alleges ok but here's the thing is the argument then against what he did was well he should have put it in front of congress and congress should have passed a law and then that law should have been signed by the president that would have been the proper way to do it so the same now are one hundred eighty degrees where president trump is taking it off line and everyone's saying well no in order to take it offline you have to do the same you have to go and you have to file follow the a p a the administrative procedures act and you have to also give notice rulemaking and then you can take it offline so that's the yard is very interesting so before we go to break and discuss specific individual rights i want you to tell us a little bit about the issues order is what's old extreme vetting so what he's trying to do is he's trying to make sure that people's cases are properly that the background checks are done properly and extreme vetting in this environment is taking a couple of different forms one of the forms that it's taking is what's called administrative processing and we're dealing with that the u s consulate offices abroad where they're doing background checks heavy background checks on everyone and what it's doing is it's holding up like we meet with consular officers they always talk about capitation and they are they're always talking about how many cases they get through with they don't tell you of course is how many cases end up in administrative processing so we get calls as immigration lawyers from individuals who have been to the consulate giving them all the information and the case goes into what's called two twenty one g administrative process so those administrative processing holds have been very frustrating for us for our clients lots of students coming to the united states  all over the country who unfortunately their cases are being held at the u s consulate is very difficult so yes so they're having trouble making their start dates appropriately the other thing is now the announcement was made a couple weeks ago that every single case now is going to be interviewed in the united states so whereas for many years we didn't have to worry about employment based cases being interviewed now they're going to interview every single case which means family based cases and employment based cases are going to be interviewed at the district offices which means that basically the ripple effect of that is that we're going to have severe backlogs wait times and much more frustrated clients unfortunately there are there is a lot going on and thank you for breaking it down but i wait what we'll do we'll take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk more about the specific rights things that people our viewers need to know in order to exercise those rights in this very challenging time we're back with david knox min and we're discussing immigration david there's so much going on but there must be something that we're missing in that the press is missing what what is the subterfuge what is actually happening so i'm glad you asked because i think this is something that gets by a lot of folks and if you a lot of folks didn't really comb through the executive orders that's my job i have to read through in believe me it's a bit of a snoozer especially the first one when i read through it and then all of a sudden it ended up getting restrained so then we were back into reading the second one which is not that much different but it's strangely what lies in those executive orders and it's not even between the lines it is blatant is a complete restructuring of the national security system and i think that that goes to this whole ninety day travel ban because what i think that if you remember the discussions about the need for the temporary travel ban was so that the government could put into place of vetting system that would work now obviously this is the ninety days is all gone and it's interesting because all the people who are being asked in court about why they need this ninety days they're all saying they say well you know have you have you done and the answer of over lawyers for the government is no because we've been in court are you getting so you have to do the vetting so but but what's interesting is almost like what happened in two thousand and one under the usa patriot act which was passed right after nine eleven so the government tends to be extremely reactive and i think that that in light of all of these you know terroristic activities abroad here in the united states over the course of years has forced us now to be proactive and the proactivity has to do with this provision that subsumed in the executive order where what they're going to do is they're going to reorganize the national security system and reconnect databases and we're starting to find that the day and our clients this every day the databases are getting better and better so what does that mean for us practically that these that databases are getting better and better so maybe back in the day where you would think that information was not necessarily getting to the desks of the adjudicating officers at the u s c i s when cases were being done for example let's say an individual had entered the united states on lawfully was stopped at the border and gave a false name and the fingerprints were taken that that information was not readily available now that information becomes much more readily available to the desks of the adjudicating officers and then you start to see there's a section of the law called to twelve a nine three and to twelve a nine three is a permanent bar and if the individual has reentered the united states after departing they are permanently barred and so we're finding more and more cases coming under this permanent bar so are you telling us that basically there is becoming a consolidation of information on individuals under these orders under the right so so i think what i'm saying is that i don't know if i'd call it a consolidation as much as i would say that there's much more interconnectivity and i think that you know donald donald trump you know he is a businessman and as a business person and as you know being in business i know being in business that there is value to having resources within your organization communicate and communication is important and i think one of the things that as much as the things that he does are extremely frustrating he is bringing communication to the government and forcing communication among these different security organizations and there's a bunch i think there's a clear sharing of resources and there is valley you too and i believe you would agree with me that there is value to having security information being shared among organizations that are enforcement agencies so that if we do have a threat potentially that we would be able to identify that threat before it becomes a reality but for many people out here that seems to be more of a cover for some other nefarious ends and whether it is or not there are a lot of people out here who are afraid to leave their homes to execute their public lives to go to school to go to restaurants to wash their clothes to dry absolutely how what can you say to them whatever law or order impacts them about how they can conduct themselves and protect themselves in this challenging period so i absolutely agree with you i mean i think that it is really and most important thing that we're telling folks is number one seek good legal counsel because a lot of times and i believe i may have said this last time we were together is that a lot of people don't realize that there may be options that are available to them they may be out of status here in the u s but there are options for people who are out of status here for example i think we may have talked about it last time is there something called the you visa the you visas for an individual who has entered the united states even with that if it's without inspection who is a victim of a certain crime and the government allows them to work with a law enforcement agency to be able to get of these and they can stay and that's left out it's called there's also some call to forty five to forty five i program it was spearheaded by president clinton's administration it was a sunset back in april thirtieth of two thousand and one and if you did a qualifying filing before the government on april thirtieth of two thousand and one you're allowed to adjust your status and stay here the military parole program is still in place so if you have an individual in the family who is in the military if it's a direct relative you can file for parole in place and so there's also deferred action deferred action which is that thing we talked about before that again is what doc you know dhaka finds its roots in the concept of deferred action deferred action is still out there so there are all of these programs that people can take advantage of but they don't even know that they can ok so there are so there are number of options and going to counsel is one thing but some people might not believe they can afford counsel they might not know what counsel they can reach are there organizations that can th can help them are there certain attorneys that they should go to insure the void it's a great question thank you for taking me down that road because of course my assumption being an immigration lawyer is that everyone can afford the services that that are from provides but you're absolutely right and that's why there are excellent n g o s that are out there in various community n g o s are nonstory non governmental organizations that are funded you know their charitable organizations many of them they're funded you know by various by various large not for profits catholic charities is one excellent organization many of the folks who i know have worked for catholic charities there's something called hyas which is in the jewish community there is something youth which is in the spanish community so there are all these different organizations out and friends i think is a lutheran organization i'm not indorsing obviously any of them but i am going to say that i do have friends who work in these organizations they're excellent excellent lawyers and if you you cannot afford legal counsel that's a great place to go now usually when there are great problems there are people coming up were great solutions but on the other hand there are people coming up with great scams are there things that people should be aware of to avoid another great question so we tend to find that there are these folks out there we refer to them generally is n as are individuals who are not authorized to practice law they will help people unfortunately the problem is that we tend to find that they do not know the rules well enough and they place our clients who they subsequently become our clients because they are trying to undo the mess that the military has have created and so it makes things very difficult for us so we always try to steer individuals in the direction of competent legal counsel over you know them just going to a no terrio and doing something which later is going to come back to haunt them by way of an example i met with the a woman yesterday in the city in our office in the city and she showed me her documents and i saw she had work authorization cards and so what i did was i said how did you get that and so she said oh well this person told me to file a family unity about ten years ago and i said that it was horrible because what they did was they let her down the primrose path yes she got work authorization but if she had gone to her interview she would have got immediately deported or removed so you know this is the type of thing that we deal with on a daily basis i don't know if i'm going to be able to fix that problem for her but the nice thing about it is it wasn't done by her lawyer it was done by someone who said oh i'll get this for you and so she probably didn't even know what they were doing so i guess the the bottom line here the watchword is don't fall into the hands of a no terrio who's go make the case so much more difficult for competent legal counsel to fix the go to someone who knows what they're doing so let's this is been great so let's end the show with what is the most important thing that you want our viewers who need help to know to have and to understand so also thank you great question so what i'm going to do is i'm going to provide to you and i hope that you can provide it to all of your viewers is a know your rights card which is actually i'm not going to take credit for drafting it it was actually put out by the a c l u and they've been putting it out it's a little red card we give it out to all of our clients who come in to see us who do not have status the card gives you step by step the things that you first of all very important you have rights if you're in the united states whether you here illegally whether you're here without status you still have rights you have the right not to say anything if so if you're stopped you have the right to ask for a lawyer and then it lists out all of your other rights on this card i'm going to provide the cards to you and actually you could even maybe provide business screenshot if you'd like we were and and then you know that should be something that individuals carry around with them because in the event that they're stopped they may be nervous they may not want to say something all they have to do is take out this card and show it to the individual and that says