BREAKING: Supreme Court Keeps Trump-Era Immigration Policy In Place

This is Jay Sekulow. We've got breaking news. The Supreme Court keeps the Trump era immigration policy, Title 42, in place for now.

Hey, everybody. The Supreme Court of the United States issued an order in the Title 42 case. We're going to really get into this because there's a lot to discuss. And part of the discussion here is what actually Title 42 is. But I want to tell you that the order itself, let me give you kind of the thumbnail version of it first. What the order does is this. Number one, it grants the petition for certiorari. So that means the Supreme Court is hearing the case. So the stay stays in place. In other words, there will be no expiring of Title 42, which is the executive orders on immigration relating to COVID. So we're going to get into that in a little bit because it's all very connected here.

And I really need to explain this to people. Number two, it says it will be expedited. The review is going to be expedited. So they're going to actually hear oral arguments in February. And then the analysis is going to end up at, I think this is what you're going to see, is whether the states could intervene or not.

That's the only issue the court is looking like they're going to address at this point. So that's the nature of it. But I think the starting point has to be what is this all about? Yeah, I think a lot of people don't know the exact origins of how this happened. It kind of happened during sort of the COVID haze everyone was under. You know, all the different laws and things that were changing going forward. People see Title 42, they just think immigration.

So maybe we need to explain from the beginning. Yeah, so Title 42 is a series of executive orders that were put in place when the COVID pandemic first broke, Professor Hutchinson. That was the initial response to control migration into the United States from unlawful entrants who could be communicating and spreading the disease. That's what it was put in place for.

Absolutely. So if you look at Title 42, you should think about Title 42 as really a health care measure. It was designed to slow the spread of a rapidly spreading virus and a poorly understood virus, at least at the time. And so Title 42 allowed the administration, that was the Trump administration, to expel illegals based on health care grounds. Title 42 has continued in force for the first couple of years of the Biden administration. And now the Biden administration seeks to end Title 42, and that may open the floodgates to... It sort of wants to get rid of it, because what the government said in their brief saying we want the Title 42 to expire was, we want it to expire, but don't have it expire during Christmas because we're not prepared to handle it. In one sense, I think what the Supreme Court did here was give the federal government time to figure out what to do.

We've got a crisis on that border. And the way this came down, by the way, five justices are in favor of hearing the case. There are four justices that do not think the case should be heard. So when you're going into this, it's 5-4 right now, and the four justices that don't want to hear it are, ready for this? Sotomayor and Kagan, not shocking.

No. Gorsuch and Jackson. And Justice Jackson signed on to Justice Gorsuch's opinion. All right, so I guess a bipartisan, if you want to be. Right, Republican and Democrat appointees to the Supreme Court.

But the question is very limited. I think people are looking at Title 42 as the end-all be-all, and it's just not. Does this just punt the ball, essentially? Just keep it going, just keeping the policy going as we still try to figure out what to do? I think that, you know what? I think that's what they've done here.

If you really look at this, and we're going to break this down in the next couple of segments of the broadcast, but if you really look at what they've done, that's what they've done, Logan. They're giving time. The expedited review, I mean, the briefing is going to be done probably in January.

Okay. Argument at the end of February, probably decision in March, that's three more months to figure out what to do. And I'm going to go through the particulars when we come back from the break, but, you know, these are very technical cases. And the real legal issue is, could the states, can the states intervene in this, or is this exclusively a matter for federal jurisdiction?

Which I think is an interesting legal argument, and as Justice Gorsuch said, reasonable minds could differ on that, but we'll get into the analysis of it. But I hope that Title 42 is not the panacea, it's not the end-all be-all here. Yeah, if you have questions or comments, you can give us a call right now, phone lines are open, 1-800-684-3110. Also, it's the end of the year, support the work of the ACLJ by visiting ACLJ.org, and make your donation, all donations, effectively doubled right now during our end of the year matching challenge.

We'll be right back. Welcome back to Secular, we are taking your comments and calls at 1-800-684-3110, that's 1-800-684-3110. We're talking about the, now the stay kind of put in place for Title 42, the immigration policy that really had to do with COVID. I think we need to break it down still for people who are just tuning in, or people that maybe are just sort of numb to hearing the term Title 42 and don't really understand.

I want to take the time to break this down. Title 42 is an expulsion order, it allows unlawful entrance to be expelled without going through judicial review, and it was put in place as an emergency because of the COVID pandemic. The argument that is being made by the states is, hey, the federal government wants to get rid of this anyway, so they're not really willing to defend Title 42, we the states will. The legal question, of course, is who decides immigration and naturalization policies, and here's the countervailing. The countervailing is the federal government uniquely has the authority to determine border access and control.

On the other hand, as Harry, as you pointed out in our pre-meeting, the states have an affirmative obligation to protect the health and welfare of its citizens. So this is intention, and what the Supreme Court has said here is we are going to leave 42 in place right now. We are going to hear the case on an expedited basis, but the question is limited to, and I think this is important to point out. It says the question, the court's review is limited to the question of intervention. I'm going to put up on the screen, when I reviewed this, I break this down line by line, and that's what I did this morning, right there.

And that's the breakdown. So here it's about midway through, it says the court's review on certiorari is limited to the question of intervention. Intervention is, Harry, is the states saying we can come in and defend this if the federal government doesn't want to. But the tension with that is, it was, and I think we've got to be clear, and you and I are taking the view that Gorsuch was probably right, that this was a temporary order for the pandemic.

That has expired, and everybody acknowledges that. I think you're precisely correct, and so the question of intervention, if you will, is really, I think, a question of standing with respect to federal policy that is enforceable by the federal government. And I believe that each administration has the right to set its own policy with respect to the enforcement of the law.

But here, I think the states are saying, the federal government is really not doing its job. We need to be allowed to come in and to defend a policy that the existing administration wishes to invalidate. I think long term, the Biden administration has an argument, even though I think virtually every American will agree that the border is in chaos, the border is a mess, and that is a result of deliberate malfeasance by the Biden administration. Notwithstanding that, I think the states have a difficult case to make here.

So is the thought that this could expire, this is done, Title 42 is over, and we come in and replace it with something that's stronger and better, that's the wishful thinking? I think what the justices are saying, and I'm going to go to Justice Gorsuch, he filed a dissent from the grant of certiorari and the expedited nature of the case, joined by Justice Jackson, the newest justice. And this is what he says, Logan, to go to that point, he said, courts should not be in the business of perpetrating, or in this particular case, administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency. COVID was the emergency, that's different than immigration.

They collided when there was a COVID emergency and we had this excess on the border and the unlawful entrance. And then he says, we are a court of law, not policymaking of last resort. And when he says by policymaking of last resort, what he means is exactly what you said. The concern that the political fix to this is a political fix. Congress and the President have to get some action here.

Now, they probably bought themselves, Harry, you and I were just talking about this during the break. The President is saying we'll have a decision in June. I think we'll probably have a decision in March or April.

Okay, March, April, June. By the end of the term is what he's saying. By the end of the term, you're going to give us a chance to figure this out. We have to do something. Border security is a disaster right now. So we do have some comments asking about, okay, you mentioned the justices that voted.

What about the others? Are their words being stated? Will they say we need this to be or is this just a here's the vote, here's what it is, stays in place for now? People want to know sort of the court, like the conservative court justice, did they say anything or did they just say it's on hold? No, they said more than that. They've issued an order. It's a per curiam order of an application for a stay. What that means is not signed by a justice.

But we do know this. Since we know who the dissenting justices are, Sotomayor, Kagan, Jackson, and Gorsuch, we know they dissented. Thus, we know the ones that granted it are at least the remaining justices, Alito, Thomas. So what does the grant say, I guess, for those people? The grant is very specific. First, it says the stay stays in place, so Title 42 stays in place.

That's number one. Number two, it's expedited. The case is going to be heard out of order. Normally, you get 90 days to file your, you know, your 30 days to file your brief. The other side gets time. Here, they want the case argued in February. The parties are directed to brief and argue only one question. And I'm reading right from the order.

And like I said, I marked this order up. Whether the state applicants may intervene to challenge the district court's summary judgment order. The district court said Title 42 was arbitrary and capricious should not have been entered. Period.

Even during the COVID pandemic. Now they're saying, they then say that the underlying merits of the district court's summary judgment order, while pertinent, in other words, why did the court decide that, it's not conclusive. But it's going to, it's a factor you cannot ignore in this, Harry. And the court says that.

I think that's cracked. But the real failing in this particular instance is with Congress and the President of the United States. Keep in mind that Congress recently passed a 1.7 trillion dollar omnibus bill that failed to deal with the border crisis that virtually every American is aware of. On the other hand, Congress and the President supported strengthening the border for the countries of Jordan, Tunisia and elsewhere. So it makes no sense for Congress to allocate money to the United States government.

So long as the government fails to enforce the law, which is precisely what the omnibus bill does. So I think at the end of the day, the American people and the border states, and virtually every state today is now a border state. They are upset with the failure of the Biden administration. They're upset with the failure of the Republicans in Congress to do something about the border.

That's the real frustration. And that is the genesis, if you will, of this particular litigation. We do have some calls coming in a lot on this topic. Let's start with Mike who's calling in Pennsylvania on Line 2. Mike, you're on the air. Hi Mike. Thank you.

Thanks for taking my call. My question is, if Title 42 is based upon the pandemic being in existence or being done with, why can't the states test the immigrants that are coming across the border and when they reach a certain number of positives have the state declare a regional pandemic? Well, you have to have data to support that, number one. And again, this runs into this conflict between state authority and federal authority when it comes to immigration. Border access into the United States is traditionally a federal function.

The states can, you know, when you've got unlawful entrants, and I draw the distinction between an unlawful entrance, someone coming into the United States without going through any of the required paperwork and processing that you would have. And these are numbers that are out of control. Title 42, by the way, hasn't stopped this problem. I mean, Title 42 is something, but it's something that was tied into something that doesn't exist anymore. Thank goodness. Not to the level that it did.

Not to belittle it that it's not out there. I mean, there's still COVID cases and people are still sick. But the fact of the matter is that the basis upon which Title 42 was issued has expired. And that's where the difficulty in this comes in and where the legal challenge is so interesting because the question really is, can the states intervene? That's the federalism question here.

I think that's correct. So states clearly have a responsibility to reduce, for instance, criminal activity. They have a responsibility to deal with pandemics. And if you actually look at the history of pandemics in the United States, the Supreme Court has agreed that the states, as opposed to the federal government, has the states have power to deal with pandemics.

So I think the caller asked a very, very good question. But Jay, I think you raise an equally good question, which is there's a basis for a conflict between federal power given by the Constitution and state power given by the Constitution. But the real failing here, let me restate it, is Congress and the President have failed to deal with a pressing immigration crisis. It's been going on for 25 or 30 or 40 years, and it still hasn't been fixed. And look, the Republicans have tried, the Democrats say they've tried, but when the Democrats had control of the House and Senate, they didn't get immigration reform through. But you've got to do something on the border.

Title 42 is not the answer to this, by the way. It's a good temporary, like you said, Logan, you hit it exactly right. It's a temporary reprieve. It's buying a couple of more months.

That's what this Supreme Court thing is going to do. We're going to take more calls on this. We've got to really break this down.

We do. A lot of people are calling in. We're going to take all the questions that we can. 1-800-684-3110.

Phone lines, couple lines are open. 1-800-684-3110. Also, again, support the work of the ACLJ. So we head into this break at ACLJ.org. Most important week of the year, so we appreciate it. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the broadcast, everyone.

We're breaking down. So the Supreme Court has issued a stay. They issued a stay last week. But now the chief justice, the court, issued an order saying the case involving Title 42 will be expedited. It will be briefed in January. It will be argued in February, probably get a decision in March. In the interim, it stays in place, but it's limited to one question.

And that one question is this. Can the states intervene in these proceedings when the federal government is saying, we're done with this? Title 42, to restate it, Logan, this is the question that I think everybody has. Title 42 itself was put in place when the COVID pandemic first broke. And it said, summary, removals from the country, no process.

You didn't have to have process for unlawful entrance. And then the federal government came in when the states said, hey, you're not defending this, we want to defend it. And that's an interesting legal question. The court is split right now, 5-4.

Now, how it lines up is this. The Chief Justice John Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Barrett, and Kavanaugh obviously voted to hear the case. Four justices voted not to hear the case. We always talk about the 6-3 Supreme Court conservative. But in this case, it was Kagan Sotomayor, Jackson, new justice, and Gorsuch. Gorsuch actually wrote a dissenting opinion saying, we shouldn't hear this case. It was based on COVID. The COVID pandemic doesn't exist to justify this action.

It should expire. And don't blame us, American people, us being the courts, when it is the failure of the executive branch and the Congress to put in place the right measures to protect our border. He's not wrong on that. I mean, it's just not. Now, here's the thing. When the court grants review, which they did, Justice Gorsuch could say, you know, I don't think they should have heard the case, Harry. But on the other hand, since they've heard it, I think the states can intervene. And Justice Kavanaugh could say, and this obviously is just speculation, could say, well, I thought the court should hear the case, but I actually don't think the states could intervene. So it doesn't mean how the case is going to end up on the end.

I think that's precisely correct. And I also would caution listeners to keep in mind what Jay just said. We cannot necessarily forecast an outcome with respect to this preliminary decision. So we will see a more substantive decision in the next two, three, four months. But right now, I would also add that even the Biden administration is breathing a sigh of relief because on one hand, they want to get rid of Title 42. But on another hand, they don't want to face the consequences of getting rid of Title 42. Meanwhile, huge numbers of illegals are massed on the United States border with Mexico and they are prepared to cross at any moment. And I think we should keep that in mind. So I think at the end of the day, it is imperative for the American people to demand that Congress and the President do something, but do something that respects the United States law and our Constitution. You know, it's interesting because, Harry, Justice Gorsuch and Justice Jackson and the dissent say the courts should not be in the business of repudiating administrative edicts, which is what is an administrative decision.

But it also said even the federal government acknowledges that the end of Title 42 orders will likely have a disruptive consequence. And no one, I don't think anybody can doubt that. Let's go ahead and take, we're taking your calls at 800-684-3110, 1-800-684-3110. Let's go ahead and take a call. Yeah, let's go to Theresa who is calling in Texas on Line 1. You're on the air. Hey Theresa.

Harry, yes, thank you for taking my call. I really have something to say and I think it goes far beyond COVID. I have been the victim of crime from illegal aliens and almost lost my life twice in the past six months. And one other incident that was just disgracefully disgusting, but it didn't almost cost me my life.

And so I think it goes beyond COVID. I was driving, by the way, Plano, Texas area, North Texas, and I was driving down Plano Parkway and I got crashed into by a drunken, intoxicated, illegal alien who was driving his friend's truck. And he hit me, injured me, almost killed me, and thought it was funny, laughed at me, got out of the car, dropped. Let me ask you this, was he, because some states won't even give them a citation. Now, sanctuary cities will not give a citation even if they're at fault. Did this individual, unlawful entrant, get a citation?

Here's what I did. I immediately, because he was harassing me and following me and threatening me. There's a reason I'm asking this. The reason I'm asking is, did the individual that caused the accident that was unlawful in the United States without paper documents, appropriate paperwork and documents, did that person get cited, Theresa, by the police?

Yes, he did. Okay. Here's the problem that you've got. Your case is not that unusual. It is happening all over the country. And the problem is getting, now you have insurance, so you're going to be okay, but you're not going to get a judgment that you're going to collect on an unlawful entrant into the United States. There are some cities will not even cite the individual, Logan, will not cite the person if they are not here legally. The sanctuary cities, they don't even cite the individual that caused the crime. Well, I think a lot of people have those concerns in their local areas. And look, I think you have a lot of cops who probably just don't know exactly even what they're supposed to do in the situation because they haven't been given the power. Well, listen to the El Paso mayor. He's a Democrat from El Paso, Texas.

Listen to what he had to say. But again, this is just a bandaid on a broken immigration system. The system has to be fixed because we can't continue to go this way. We can't continue to work, whether it's El Paso all the way up the Texas borders. We can't continue to go in this manner with a broken, like I said, immigration system that has to be fixed.

And it's bigger than the United States. I have to work with the U.N. and countries around us to be able to fix it because, again, it's a bandaid that they cannot continue to go in this way. Mayor Lesser is correct.

He's 100 percent correct. It is a bandaid. Title 42 is a bandaid. Now, it gives some authority, but look, folks, at some point it expires because it's based on COVID pandemic.

I think, Logan, that's where this is, you know, I'm trying to call it straight so our audience knows what's going on here. Title 42 is not some massive immigration mechanism. It is a temporary fix. It cannot go on ad infinitum. It just can't. It wasn't supposed to.

It was designed for a short period of time. And the problem is nobody, this is where Harry's absolutely right. I blame the Republicans, I blame the Democrats, I blame the President, I blame the Congress. You can't blame the court. That's what Gorsuch is saying in his opinion.

I think that's precisely correct. So, there has been a dereliction of duty by the Biden administration. There's been a dereliction of duty, I would argue, by Congress. Basically, there has been a refusal to enforce the law or even have a coherent plan to enforce the law. So, if we go back to the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, how much was in that particular bill that would deal with this border crisis?

Virtually nothing. In fact, money was given to the customs and immigration authorities so long as they did not fully enforce the law. So, this is incoherence on steroids, but that, I think, is the testament of the Biden administration. And I think that's what Justice Gorsuch is really saying here. He's saying, you know, don't come to us as the administrative, you know, legislative remedy when we're the courts. So, they're going to decide whether a state can intervene or not.

Close question. We'll talk about that when we come back from breaking the second half hour of the broadcast. If you're watching on Rumble, hit like or when you hit plus because a lot of people are watching on Rumble. I will say that we appreciate Rumble very much. On the air on Rumble and Facebook, on YouTube, but Rumble primarily will take some of those comments if you have any.

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And now your host, Jay Sekulow. So the Supreme Court did grant review in the Title 42 case, which means the court's hearing it on the merits. But the thing they're hearing on the merits is whether the states can intervene against the federal government in the Title 42 litigation. And let me be clear as we've been, and I think, Harry, this is helping a lot of people, what Title 42 is and isn't. Let me tell you what it's not. It's not a comprehensive immigration plan. It's not a comprehensive immigration enforcement plan. Title 42 is a temporary measure signed by President Trump when COVID first hit the shores of the United States saying we're not going to let in unlawful entrants in mass numbers coming to the United States when, in fact, it could spread a communicable disease. It was designed as a temporary fix. Justice Gorsuch in his dissent on granting review in the Title 42 case says, hey, don't come to us, the court, to fix your legislation that's not working.

He's not wrong on that. But, again, I think Title 42 right now is giving some help, Logan, to the Border Patrol. It's giving some time to figure out what to do.

And this probably buys another three or four months. Yeah, I think a lot of people have those questions. We have some calls coming in. Yes, let's take them. Let's go to Justin, who's calling California right now.

Justin, online, too. Welcome. Hey, thanks.

I appreciate you taking my call. My question is this, how exactly could or would states intervene in Title 42 here? Okay, so it's intervening in the – they're not intervening in Title 42 in the sense of the actual enforcement of Title 42.

That is uniquely Customs and Border Patrol. What they are intervening on or attempting to intervene on is the litigation involving the revocation of Title 42. Federal government is saying, hey, it was based on COVID.

We don't have that pandemic now, so we're not going to have that enforced. I mean, that's what it is. And what's happening is the Supreme Court is going to decide whether Title 42 litigation will allow the states to intervene or not. So that narrow question is whether the states themselves can intervene.

We're looking at it. It's not an easy question, by the way. I mean, Justice Gorsuch, even in his dissent, says people of good conscience could disagree on this. And there's a competing interest. The federal government has an interest of determining who comes into the United States. But the states, Harry, as you said earlier, have the health and welfare considerations that they have to deal with. Precisely. And I think from a policy perspective, the Biden administration wants to allow COVID-positive illegal immigration in the United States.

That is, I think, their bottom line. But the states have a health and safety interest in all of that. And even at the end of the day, even if we allow the states to intervene, even if the Supreme Court rules in their favor, it will not solve the underlying problem. The underlying problem of illegal immigration in the United States remains, and it remains in part or in large part because the Biden administration has taken a deliberate decision not to enforce the law.

I'm telling you, folks, we're explaining this to you because I think reading every headline on every cable channel is Title 42, as if that's solving the problem. It's a temporary fix. And it's not a fix. It's a temporary mechanism, is the best way to say it, Logan. It's a temporary mechanism that now allows the federal government and the Congress to figure out what the heck they're going to do to help these border patrol agents that are being overwhelmed. And cities and, I mean, I saw Catholic Social Services said, basically, they're out of money.

They can't do this. And this is the taxing nature of what this is putting on the citizens of every city in the United States. The people feel that. It's not like they don't see it or don't feel it.

I think Harry brought that up as well. This is not something that's some secret or some quiet crisis that's happening. We all are experiencing the problems coming from it, whether it is the drug cartels or the drug trade or whether it is the actual humanitarian issues that are happening at the border.

So you have to be able to balance both. And next segment coming up, we have Rick Grenell. Yeah, we do. And we want to ask you to support the work of the ACLJ. By the way, a border fence would help control this because then you could have some order and dignity down there. But we don't have that. We have some of it.

We'll talk more about that, too, with Rick. Well, I'm going to ask you to support the work of the ACLJ. We're down to the last four days of the month here. And this is when it counts, folks. I mean, I look at I get a daily report and we're up against big numbers.

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If you're on Facebook or YouTube, share it with your friends. Back with Rick in a moment. Welcome back to Secula. We are joined by Rick Grenell live to discuss a bunch of topics, Dan, that have come up as well as what we were talking about the remainder of the show. And also, if you're watching during the breaks, what's going on in China and Taiwan?

Yeah, I want to start, Rick, with Title 42. So the Supreme Court issued an order yesterday, a pretty comprehensive order, saying, A, they're going to grant review, B, limited to whether the states can intervene or not, and C, not get into the merits. That's Congress and the President's decision on what the laws should be.

And when they expedited it, they'll keep the stay in place. So Title 42, when you were in the administration, was put forward as a temporary fix. I mean, when you look at the President's executive orders, when he signed it, it was a temporary fix because of the COVID pandemic. And Justice Gorsuch, and I think rightly so, acknowledges, you know, this isn't a permanent fix.

It does give the authority for Customs and Border Patrol to remove unlawful entrants. But the fact is, even with Title 42, if we're all being honest, it's out of control at the border. And when you don't have border security and you don't have orderly process, you have chaos.

And right now, Rick, we're seeing chaos. Look, I think that's where most conservatives are right now, is to say, yes, this was a temporary fix, but we're very concerned that if you remove this temporary fix, you're going to make the situation worse. And we can't make it any worse without literally creating a national security crisis. I think we could argue that right now it is a national security crisis because we've seen reports of it's not just Mexicans or people from the Americas trying to come up for a better way of life economically. It's now literally a worldwide phenomenon that you can fly into Mexico City and go up into the border.

We've seen people from the Middle East, we've seen people from Moldova. And this is just within the last 24 hours. It's a real national security crisis. And so we don't want to change anything.

And so this temporary fix about COVID, I think people are just saying, look, until we get a better policy, let's not make it worse. You know, it's interesting because Justice Gorsuch, who is Trump appointee, here's what he said. And I'm going to read from the order because I think he's right, actually.

He's not saying, by the way, that the states, he doesn't take a position whether the states can intervene or not. He said, because that's not really before, that's the only question on the merits they're going to decide. But this is what he says. And I think this was a lesson. This is a lesson to the Biden administration and a lesson to Congress as well.

Here's what he said. Courts should not be in the business of perpetuating administrative edicts designed for one emergency only because elected officials have failed to address a different emergency where a court of law, not policy makers of last resort. And I think the failure of the Biden administration here, which is so evident, is when you stop the construction of the border wall and border security, when you stop that, you stopped an orderly process as well. There's a consequence to not following through with the security fence. And that was when you had a security fence, you would have an orderly migration system. When you don't have a security fence, the whole world thinks Title 42 means if it goes, everybody can come in. That's the perception.

That's reality. It's common sense, but common sense does not ever enter Washington, D.C. And so we have a situation where everyone knows that a border fence, a wall works. But somehow because it's Donald Trump's wall and it was his idea, the Democrats are saying, well, we don't want to do it.

And they need to start looking at the policy, not who gets the benefit. And if they would, they would understand, like all Americans realize, that a fence works. And by the way, we should say this and I've said this before, but the American people shouldn't feel bad about wanting border security. We're the most generous nation in the world when it comes to immigration. We give roughly a million people a year the chance to become a U.S. citizen. And the reality is, is that we have 100 million people that want to come in. You don't have a border and you don't have policies and a line and rules. Then you have chaos and then you get things like Brexit, which is why the British left the European Union is because they didn't trust the rest of Europe's immigration policy.

Rick, you were the director of national intelligence. You dealt with the security issues for our entire country, both domestic and international. And what would you think what do you think needs to be done on the border right now? The fence, obviously, to me, is just the starting point of securing it, which would increase order and stability.

What would you do? Look, this is one of the reasons why I constantly tell the American people never to feel bad or selfish or mean spirited about having policies, because what I would do is I would enforce the immigration policies. We have rules and we have a border. And we have border patrol agents who are there to stop anyone who's cutting the line, trying to jump in front of the line.

Now, look, I worked at the State Department for 12 years. I understand that you do have situations where individuals want to come in because they're having, you know, human rights issues or their lives threatened. We have a process for that.

And we are, again, very generous and very we have big hearts when it comes to this at the State Department. But you've got to have rules. You can't just enter the country and then say, give me my cell phone.

And by the way, I'm now a status where you can't touch me and I can't be removed because then you're making a mockery of our rules. And no one should feel bad about enforcing this because we've got a long line of individuals. Think about the people who are waiting in line, who are following the rules. You're not being very kind to them. No, you're being rude to them. And it's immoral to somehow create one system where people have to wait in line and follow the rules and then somehow allow this whole other group to break the law, enter the country, ignore the rules, jump in front of the line.

It's not being fair. And I would just say, if I were in charge, I would enforce the rules and constantly articulate the fact that we have a line, wait in line, and that's not being rude. If you want to somehow claim a status as seeking asylum, we have a process for that as well.

Don't break the rules and just jump into the country. Absolutely. We got a lot of calls coming in related, specifically related to what's going to happen over the next few months as Republicans in Congress start to, everything starts to move. Let's go to Gwen who's calling in the state of Georgia on line three, Gwen, welcome. Hey, Gwen.

Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I just wanted to know, could the incoming Republican Congress allocate money towards the border wall and finish it and, you know, get more patrols down there? So the incoming Congress- Security in general, yeah.

What can they do? Well, a bunch of them were in our office. We had a reception for them last month and there's, I would say it's fair to say, Rick, that the incoming members understand that part of their election success was we got to have border security and they want to allocate money to protecting the border. And I mean, you've got Congresswoman Tenney's bill, which says, hey, you know what, instead of giving the IRS money for 87,000 new IRS agents, which would double the number of IRS agents, by the way, I mean, just think about that for a moment. You're talking about a fiasco.

I mean, there's one. Allocate that money to the border and let's get border patrol agents. So do you have Congress, at least members of the House, starting to say we could reallocate budgetary items to get more protection for our border?

Well, I would say to Gwen, it's such a great question and it seems like a common sense question. It's one that everybody outside of Washington, DC wants to know. But the reality is, is the political will of the Democrats is that they won't spend the money because they don't want to give Donald Trump and the Republicans a win. So they're going to do everything they can to ignore this and pretend like they need some sort of different solution. But Glenn is right that we must have a border. And when Republicans begin to say, let's spend money on the border, that's the right thing to do.

But I don't believe that the Biden administration will do it. There is a tiny bit of good news in that Kyrsten Sinema and some other Democrats are beginning to complain. I think they should have been complaining two years ago. They're a little late to the game, but we now are seeing cracks in the Democrats and they're beginning to complain about this disastrous policy.

Really quickly, we got less than a minute and a half, but China sent 71 warplanes, seven ships towards Taiwan in the last 24 hours. What are we looking at there? We're looking at American weakness.

I mean, they're reading what's happening. We see Kim Jong-un beginning to create conflict to get some attention. I just think we have to have a better secretary of state who can have these meetings, diplomatic meetings, have ideas and solutions before we just immediately delve into a military conflict.

We just have this system right now in the Biden administration where everything goes immediately to a military conflict and there's no thought to avoid these conflicts beforehand. All right. We're going to take Rick.

Thanks for being with us. Rick Grenell, of course, Senior Advisor on International Matters, Global Security, and former Director of National Intelligence, part of our team here at the ACLJ. Your support of the ACLJ makes all the difference as to how you're getting this broadcast.

We've actually broken down Title 42, so you know what we're talking about. It's not the panacea to end all. It doesn't solve the border problem, but it gave a reprieve. So you're getting that analysis here.

You're not going to find that kind of analysis, I don't believe, anyplace else. Your support of the ACLJ makes all of this possible, including our litigation in courts here in the United States and around the globe. Support the work of the ACLJ. Logan is going to let you know how you can do that.

Yeah, you can do it pretty easily. Just go to aclj.org, make your donation today, and it will be effectively doubled. Most important week of the year, we can't emphasize that more. So if you have the time and the resources right now, this is the moment, go to aclj.org, make your donation here.

A lot of people do that at the very end of the month, but because this week, New Year's Eve ends up on the weekend, it gets confusing, people get distracted. So do it now. We appreciate it.

Go to aclj.org. Make your donation today. We'll be right back with your questions and comments. All right, we're going to take your calls right off the top.

If you have a question or comment, you can get it in last chance for the day. 1-800-684-3110. Let's go to Mike. He's calling you in the state of Texas on Line 1. Mike. Well, hi Mike.

Hey, how are you doing? Thanks for taking my call. I'm in San Antonio and it's just obvious to me that no matter what type of laws we put in place or make or policies, the current administration is just not going to enforce them. They're not going to give our border agents the authority and the resources to enforce them no matter how good of policies we put in place. You know, and he flew right over my house in the helicopter over to heading over to Uvalde. Well, he's only 90 miles away from the border. He still didn't go.

And even if he went, even if he went or Kamala Harris went, it doesn't matter. They know what's going on down there. It's not like they're going to show up at the border and say, oh, we didn't realize this was going on. No, of course they know what was going on because they put in their brief to the Supreme Court.

Hey, look, we know if we remove Title 42, it's going to be, you know, chaotic down there. Disruptive is the word they used. They're right. There's nothing you're saying I don't agree with. I mean, the fact is I don't think they're going to do anything, but the court is not the fix it. That's the problem here. The fix it is the President and the ledges, executive branch and the legislative branch. The court is not a policy making body. And that's the real legal issue here.

We don't want the court to be a policy making body because then you would have nine unelected people making policy. That's a mistake. The founders were really smart there. So the President and the Congress better get on board here to fix this mess. And just saying, oh, it's, you know, there are more important things, which is what President Biden said.

I, you know, to the people around the country right now, this is on the top three of everybody's list. Yep. Let's continue on. Take some more calls. Thanks, Mike. Let's go to Jack.

Who's calling in Illinois online too. Jack. Welcome. Hi Jack. Thank you.

Thank you. Hey, Jay, what, what's really puzzled me is, is where does the President derive this constitutional power to unilaterally open the borders the way he did and, and, and, and, you know, shut off domestic oil production, all this other stuff that was constitutionally mandated. So he's, you know, this is the old election has consequences and here's the consequence of the election. And that is, uh, they get to set policy of President. So border policy is uniquely, normally a federal responsibility. That means the federal government decides policy. The President can put forward enforcement priorities, what they call prosecutorial discretion, can't ignore the laws. But the problem is the laws that we have on the books right now don't solve this problem. So title 42 is not a law on the books.

It's a bunch of executive orders under the previous administration logo. And that's what I hope I've clarified today. It is not this salt, you know, one law fix all fix it.

It does. It's not that at all. So that's what's going on here.

But look, he's the President for two more years and the country can't just have this. It's a humanitarian crisis. It's a security crisis.

That's horrific. What is happening on the board? Yeah. There's a lot of fronts that we get.

Hopefully we'll be able to kind of explain both of those to you. Uh, let's take one more call at least for right now. Kathleen in Maryland on line three. Hi.

Um, thank you for taking my call. I wanted to ask, is there any way to change the title 42 from a clove it prices to a fentanyl crisis? Hmm. That's a great question. And I think the answer is if the President were to issue an executive order today that said because of what's happening with a fentanyl crisis in the United States, there's more fentanyl brought in in the last year.

Could kill every American twice. I mean, this is serious stuff that I think it's 10 times, 10 times. Okay.

10 times. Yep. Okay. So you bring up a really important point. Kathleen could the President declare an emergency and say no unlawful entry. We're securing our borders because this stuff's coming into our Southern border. We're securing our border. We'll have immigration as normal through process, but we we've got a federal emergency here, a national emergency. And the answer to that is yes.

The President has that kind of process that he can exercise as President of the United States. For some reason refusing to it. I think that's what people are concerned about. They don't want to talk about the fentanyl crisis. Since it all became political. So did all of these crisis. How did the fentanyl crisis become political? Because the same reason they won't go to the border, they won't go to the border because now if they go to the border, then it's like you're giving up something to the Republicans because they've been asking you to go to the border.

It's all cyclical. It all becomes this just dividing the nation more and more and more when there are a few things. There are a few crisis is happening that actually could unite people in the sense of going, okay, we all agree this is bad.

Let's figure out what to do. Instead, they politicized all of it. I think the federal crisis is much more serious than the COVID crisis at this point. Yes.

I mean at the initial stages of it, maybe not, but now, so could the administration exercise its authority under the same kind of laws and the answer is yes. Will they? Probably they will not. And I think that's the concern everyone has, but as you say, the elections have consequences, but it's also why we'll continue to fight here. It's why you have new elected representatives just a few weeks that the ACLJ is meeting with. And I think as we wrap up today, we just take a couple of minutes and talk to people about that.

Tell people why they should support the work of the ACLJ, why it's important, why we don't just talk about it and just complain and say there's nothing we could do. There's always something that can be done. Even if you don't have power in the presidency, even if you don't have power in the government. The House is controlled by the Republicans. The Senate is controlled by the Democrats and the White House is a Democrat. So does that mean you have no hope?

And the answer is no, you have hope. You've got an incoming group of congressmen, men and women, that want change. They want to secure the border. They want to allocate resources from the IRS, that ridiculous grant of $80 billion, and they want to secure the border. They want to give Customs and Border Patrol more money so they have more officers protecting our border where we're most vulnerable. Congress can do that. We've met with those. In our office in Washington, we had a reception and meetings for the incoming members of Congress for precisely that reason, to educate them.

Mike Pompeo was there. He said, use the ACLJ as a resource. We're able to be a resource for members of Congress, for city councils, for mayors, for Presidents.

I mean, I crossed the globe because of your support of the ACLJ. Now, as Logan said earlier, we are down to the last four or five days of the month here. In fact, Saturday at midnight is when our year ends. And by the way, we're going to have a J-Sec Hilo Band concert that night that'll air at 8 o'clock Eastern time. So you don't have to stay up until midnight. You don't have to stay up until midnight. We figured the audience watching that, probably not staying up until midnight. Same audience that's also in the band.

Yeah, but the audience and the band age is about the same. Yeah. Y'all aren't waiting. No, but every tune we play, you know. You know it too. You know.

There's a few there. I don't know. You don't know? I don't know. There's some extended jams.

Okay. We did a couple. We do a couple of extended jams. There's some key solos that I'm not that aware of, but they're great. Thank you. Some deep tracks. Deep tracks. Yeah. Anyways, that's going to be at 8 o'clock, Logan. Yeah. That's going to be deep tracks.

Like Channel whatever it is on Sirius XM. That's going to be on New Year's Eve. Yes. New Year's Eve. So before then, because a lot of people will be out busy celebrating, bringing in New Year.

Support the work of the American Center for Law and Justice. We are in the last four days of our matching challenge. What that means, folks, is any amount you donate, we're getting a matching gift for. And it's Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and that's it. And what comes in the next four days plays a big part in determining what our budget's going to be in 2023. And we have major announcements we're going to make in 2023.

I'm not going to make them today, but major expansion. But that doesn't happen without you. And that's where you come in. We're getting a matching challenge, which means any amount you donate, we're getting a matching gift for. So we want to encourage you to go to ACLJ.org. And when you go there and you donate $50, someone else is donating $50.

It's a match. If you donate $1,000, if you were able, we get another $1,000. That happened. We've had larger gifts than that. But listen, the ACLJ is built on individual donors.

The average gift to the ACLJ is about $34 a month. And we're proud of the fact that it's a grassroots supported organization. And you are part of that. This broadcast, the work that we do around the globe, none of that happens without you. So I want to encourage you right now to go to ACLJ.org, if you're able, and support the work of the ACLJ with your contribution. Year-end contributions make a big difference. Your support will make a big difference. You just go right over to ACLJ.org.

That's ACLJ.org. And you make that donation. And any amount you donate, we get a matching gift for. Also, let me encourage you, as I said, Saturday night at 8 o'clock, the band will be playing a New Year's Eve concert. We encourage you to tune in from that. It'll be on Rumble, Facebook, and YouTube. We'll talk to you tomorrow.