Matthew Kolken | How Can We Fix The Immigration Problem In The United States? | OAP #44
Chase Geiser is joined by Matthew Kolken.
Matthew L. Kolken is a trial lawyer with experience in all aspects of United States Immigration Law – including deportation defense before Immigration Courts throughout the United States, appellate practice before the Board of Immigration Appeals, the U.S. District Courts, and U.S. Courts of Appeals.
He is an elected member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association's Board of Governors where he has been a member since 1997. He is admitted to practice in the courts of the State of New York, the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits.
Mr. Kolken has received the highest AV peer rating by Martindale-Hubbell, has been named a "Super Lawyer" in Upstate New York by Super Lawyers magazine, was listed by Business First of Buffalo as being among the “Legal Elite of Western New York," and has received a "Superb" rating and "Client's Choice" award on Avvo.com. The New York Law Journal has recognized him as a "Lawyer Who Leads by Example" for his work providing pro bono legal services to unaccompanied refugee children, and he is the recipient of the 2018 Marquis Who's Who in American Law Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Kolken was also awarded the American Immigration Lawyers Association Upstate New York Chapter's Equal Justice Under the Law Peter J. Murrett III Pro Bono Award in recognition for community service, and the Erie County Bar Association's Pro Bono Award in recognition and appreciation for legal services performed in immigration matters before the Court.
Mr. Kolken has appeared nationally on FOX News, MSNBC, and CNN. His legal analysis has been solicited by the Washington Post's Fact Check of the immigration statements of Secretary Hillary Clinton, then Presidential candidate Donald Trump, and the immigration status of the parents of First Lady Melania Trump. His opinions on immigration law have been published in Forbes Magazine, Bloomberg, The Los Angeles Times, Business Insider, and FOX News among others. He has been an invited speaker at AILA's annual conference on grounds of removability, is the author of the Deportation and Removal Blog on ILW.com, where he is a member of the advisory board of the Immigration Daily, an online immigration news periodical with more than 35,000 readers. He is also a prominent immigration reform activist having been ranked as the most influential person on Twitter in the area of Immigration Law.
EPISODE LINKS:
Chase's Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/RealChaseGeiser
Matthew's Twitter: https://twitter.com/mkolken
They are easy, but because they are hard, Mr. Gorbach tear down this wall.
A date which will live in infamy.
All right, still have a dream.
Good night and good luck.
Good night and good luck.
Hey, hey, hey, it's Matthew Coken on One American Podcast.
How are you, sir?
I'm doing well.
Thanks for having me.
I'm just trying to talk to you like we weren't just having a conversation right before uh we went live.
Fair enough.
So what's your scoop, man?
Uh well, I'm uh I'm a rabble rouser and an immigration lawyer and uh a widower and a father of twins.
That's my deal.
Wow, twins.
Boys, girls, both.
Boy and a girl.
They're almost teenagers now.
So you name them Luke and Leia or what?
Close.
Uh I I I keep their names private for for the Oh, of course, of course.
But uh but they are named after royalty.
What if what if I had what if I had guessed it right?
Would that have just really pissed you off?
Like, it's supposed to be a secret.
Motherfucker.
That's some funny stuff.
It's like in the in Spaceballs when he's like, what's the password?
And he's like, one, two, three.
I haven't seen that movie in a long time, but I guarantee you my Schwartz is as big as yours.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I love that movie, but uh, it's a good one.
Um so how did you get into immigration immigration law?
Uh pretty easy uh and fast story.
My father was an immigration lawyer.
So um when I graduated from law school in 96, I started clerking for him, uh sat for bar, passed it, thankfully, and uh it was just a great opportunity to have my father be my mentor and uh ultimately my partner and uh he just recently retired after gosh, he's just about to turn 83 and just retired in February, so 55 years of practice.
Well, congratulations to him.
That's exciting.
Well, so what's he gonna do with all his time now that he's retired?
Uh well right now he's actually watching my twins.
Uh they're uh they're going to camp and he's he and my my mom have got them.
So uh it's uh it's a nice little break to be able to relax for a couple weeks.
So that's awesome.
So in terms of immigration law, uh is there like a specialty or an emphasis that you have?
What kind of cases are you working on?
I've got a full spectrum practice, but I've really made a name in deportation defense.
Um I I'm sort of a hired gun.
I go all all across the country to stop people's deportations.
I uh I like to say that I represent the Constitution of the United States.
If the government wants to deport my client, they're gonna have to do it the right way and they're gonna have to get through me.
So what are um uh I I'm just totally ignorant of this.
I mean, obviously um uh there's there's a lot of controversy around immigration just generally speaking.
And uh you know I I guess the the left sort of makes it look like the right doesn't want anybody to emigrate here, and then the right makes it look like the left just wants to let anybody in, right?
Which is sort of a gross exaggeration on both sides.
So from a practical standpoint, what is actually happening and how do you think it should be or how does the constitution suggest that it should be?
Well, uh obviously Congress makes the laws, so they Congress can make the law whatever they want it to be.
Um with respect to the political divide, um, I don't really think that either party uh is really genuine on the issue of immigration.
Um Democrats benefit from there being no immigration reform to a certain extent because they can use it as a cudgel uh during the election years to say that if you don't vote for us, um you're never gonna get out of the shadows or your your family members gonna get deported.
They use it as a scare tactic, and uh um there is the flip side of that where um Republicans say that all that the Democrats want are new voters, but realistically speaking, you don't just become a citizen, there's a long process to become an American citizen.
You first have to become a green cardholder, and then once you have your green card, you have to have that for five years, and after you have it for five years, then you have to apply for naturalization.
The whole thing can take a decade.
Uh realistically speaking.
I mean, or the better part of a decade.
So and then for the Republicans, they're a little bit more um, I would say ideologically Pure on the issue of immigration, and they're not lying to you.
They they they want to deport people that are here illegally, and they want to limit who want who can come to the country.
And I think that their policies play out their their stated desires.
So what's wrong with the system as it is?
Do you think that it takes too long for people to legally become citizens of the United States?
Because 10 years, I mean, that's like one seventh of a lifetime.
Well, I don't want to I don't think that's a problem with regards to how long it takes to naturalize.
And the reason why is I think that citizenship is something that you should earn over time.
Prove that you're an individual that maintains good moral character, that you've been paying your taxes, that you don't have any types of convictions in your record that negatively reflect on you as a human being.
Citizenship is special.
You know, you're not, unless you're born in this country or or if you automatically derive because of your parents, if you were born outside of a country, uh it's it's something that should be aspired to.
And a lot of my clients that are green card holders never apply for naturalization to become a citizen.
It's not something that everyone wants to do.
Um you just have to renew the green card every five years.
It's 10 years, actually.
Well, it depends.
If you get a conditional green card, that's a two-year green card, and then you have to uh file a petition to have the conditions removed, and and then it would go to a five years, but um a five-year green card, but then they can issue them for 10 years.
But in any event, regardless, um, it's that that's just the validity of the card, it's not the validity of your status.
It's sort of like um your passport expiring.
It's um uh if your passport expires, you don't stop being a citizen of the United States, you just don't have a travel document.
But as to answer the other part of your question as to what's wrong with immigration, um, our current system, which was designed when Bill Clinton was president, um, it's all stick and no carrot.
Uh and it doesn't serve the needs of American citizens, nor uh uh the employers of this country that need labor.
And I know that there's a very large contingency of people that say, well, you know, people that are in this country should be doing those jobs.
They're not gonna do those jobs.
And there are industries that will be completely crippled without immigrant labor.
And I'm not, and I'm not talking about uh lawyers.
I mean, we got plenty of lawyers.
We and uh uh although you can come to the United States as a lawyer, I know a few foreign nationals that are lawyers in the United States.
But if you don't want to pay $50 for a tomato, you better think you're lucky stars that you have immigrant labor.
And and there needs to be a system that is very, very simple where Congress designates specific industries that the US Department of Labor has already assessed as being um campered by a recognized labor shortage and say,
okay, if you're an if if you're an employer in that uh in that industry, all you have to do is file a form to designate yourself as uh uh a uh uh uh an employer, uh like a foreign worker employer, whatever you want to call it.
And then individuals can come to the United States with a specific employment-based visa.
That's it, you just apply for that, and then you come to the country, and it only allows you to work in one of those industries as long as you can prove that you're you're qualified and make it simple, match up labor with employers and make it so, and then you have to follow those employers, make sure that they're actually hiring individuals that are authorized to work in the United States, and if they're screwing around, borrow them from the system, and now they're gonna lose their labor force.
That's a really simple way to do it.
And honestly, it's long overdue.
So I think that one of the sort of implications, though, I'm not sure that it's ever been explicitly said uh from the left side of the argument is that look, you know, these people are practically refugees that are kind of pouring over the border, and um it's so expensive and difficult to get into this country legitimately that if we don't accept them, it's like a humanitarian crisis.
And I don't know if that's true or not.
But which is why I wanted to ask you like if I'm if I'm born in Mexico poor and I'm 25 miles from the border or whatever, and I want to legally come to the United States and stay for as long as possible without breaking any laws.
What does that look like?
It's incredibly difficult.
Incredibly difficult.
And the the program that I just outlined, which would be very simple to design and implement and monitor, would facilitate all of that legal immigration.
And more so it would alleviate the burden of customs and border protection, because the vast majority of the individuals that'd be coming to the United States would be coming lawfully.
And the people that would be sneaking are ones with that are the bad homes to quote President Trump.
The ones that have particularly serious crimes that mean to do us harm.
Now, the other thing is that if you want to go through that process, it's going to require vetting.
You're gonna have to apply for a visa.
You're gonna have to get your fingerprints taken.
You're there's gonna be clearance that'll have to be done.
We'll know who these individuals are to a certain extent.
I mean, obviously, there's always the ability to gain the system, but vast majority of the people wouldn't need to.
And the the way I have always phrased it is the best wall is uh a legal immigration system that works for everybody.
Um and you don't even have to make it so that system, if let's say hypothetically, if the Republicans are gonna dig in their heels and say we don't want new democratic voters, so make it so that this these individuals um can come to the United States with this type of visa, but they're not allowed to adjust status from inside of the US to a green card.
So they can't get a green card from inside of the country to circumvent the normal lengthy process to work that is required, but potentially um doesn't necessarily preclude them from getting a green card down the line through I don't know, some earned pathway, who knows?
Uh see the challenge I have with that though is that let's just say somebody comes over here and they're legally allowed to work for five years in a in a in a specific field or industry, right?
And then while they're here, they um uh maybe have a kid, right?
And then their kid is uh a U.S. citizen, but then they lose their job or the five years goes up and they have to go back to Mexico, their kid's a U.S. citizen, it's like, man, that's that's gonna create like tricky familial dynamics, right?
Right.
Huge problems.
Um, and the way the law is set up that the child can't sponsor their parent until the uh the child is 21 years of age.
Um, I mean, realistically speaking, uh I mean, they're depending on what industry is especially if there's a a series of industries that have been designated that allow foreign labor to jump from job to job, and they're not indentured servants to us and tied to a specific employer.
They have the opportunity to go to whatever employers have signed up for this process.
They may be able to get another job, especially in the in the in the farming industry.
I mean, they're always looking for people, always right.
Yeah, I don't think there's I don't think there are many unemployed illegal immigrants, but maybe I'm maybe I'm way off base on that, but it doesn't seem to me that there are.
They work their asses off.
Let me tell you something.
I mean, this country from the beginning of this country was built on the backs of immigrant labor.
I mean, all of the all of the monuments of this country were built by immigrants.
I mean, they and legal immigrants.
Yeah.
And it was easier for them to come here to do that back then.
So if you man, and maybe this is my privilege speaking for lack of a better term, but you know, if I want to go to Mexico, I just I just I just get a passport and I and I fucking go to Mexico, right?
And obviously, you know, visiting a country is different from uh inhabiting one for a period of time.
But I still don't, I still, as an American who is actively interested and constantly observing politics, I still don't know what you have to do to come here and get a green card.
Like how expensive is it actually?
Like, what's the deal?
All right.
Okay, I'll I'll I'll do that, I'll do the nutshell, the nutshell version of what you need to do to get a green card through an offer.
Thanks for humoring me, by the way.
I appreciate you.
Not a problem.
Uh, through an offer of employment or through family sponsorship.
Let's do employment.
Let's just let's just assume there's no family here already.
The worst case scenario.
Okay.
All right.
So the employment base categories are broken down into tiers.
Uh, and depending on what your qualifications are, we'll determine what tier you're in, and that will determine how long of a weight you have.
But before you can determine if you have a visa, because basically, in order to come to the US with a green card, you have to have a an immigrant visa, a green card visa to be able to come to the U.S. To get that green card visa, there's a prerequisite.
The US-based employer wants to sponsor you in most instances, has to first go through the U.S. Department of Labor to determine to be able to determine that they've undergone a recruitment campaign to try to find U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents to do The job, once they get that labor certification, then they can file a petition, an immigrant petition for alien worker with U.S. citizenship and immigration services.
Once that petition is approved, notification go to the council at abroad.
If there's a visa available, and then they can apply for that visa, and then once they have that visa, they can come in the United States and they're admitted as a green card specifically to work for that employer.
But in certain categories, the wait can be a decade.
I mean, if you're from India or China, you're not getting a – in a lot of categories, Here, I'll just let me pull up the visa bulletin.
And it changes every month.
So every month you get new numbers.
Let's see.
Hopefully my computer's working.
Okay, so employment-based first preference, uh, that's the priority workers.
Second preference are members of uh professions holding advanced degrees of persons of exceptional ability.
Third is skilled workers, professionals, and other workers, fourth are special immigrants, and then fifth is employment creation.
So for China, if it's for China, we're talking from China, and you're a family yeah, China.
Uh it's mostly current, ironically, but that's because of the pandemic.
But if you're from China, uh and you are second or third preference, it's uh three-year weight for second preference, it's uh two-year wait for third preference, one year weight for other workers.
And so third preference third preference is like say you want to be a landscaper, right?
Yeah, that's really hit the stereotype on the head.
So you gotta apply and wait three years while you know while you're desperately trying to figure out how to take care of your family in Mexico.
Ironically, right now, Mexico is current for all of those for employment base, which is very it's unprecedented.
Um India, but India, which is a large percentage of the employment-based immigration, because they're coming over to fill, you know, as professionals, as skilled workers, uh members of of uh professions holding advanced degrees, things along those lines.
Second preference, which is uh advanced degrees and people of exceptional ability, people that we want here, it's a 10-year plus weight.
So I mean, if you're from India.
Well, on the other hand of that, though, on the other hand of that, if we just take everybody's best people, it's good for us, but man, that really prevents them from fixing their own country.
Well, it's not my problem.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
I understand I'm an American first guy too.
But it doesn't, you know, if we don't if it if as long, but as long as the rest of the world sucks, it seems to me that we're we may have an immigration problem in the United States.
Well, I think the rest of the world's always the rest of the world's always gonna suck.
And and and this country is kind of circling the drain these days.
I mean, if I don't especially with what just happened today with the infrastructure bill, if it goes through the house, if it gets through the house and they go through reconciliation, I mean there's no way that we are ever gonna pay this back.
No chance ever.
It's I mean it's mathematically impossible.
There's more debt than there is money.
So I mean, when does hyperinflation and now we're on a tangent, obviously, but hyperinflation is gonna kick in and then and once hyperinflation kicks in, it's over.
Yeah, they'll blame it on crypto somehow, and then they'll make crypto illegal because everybody's gonna just move to it naturally.
Well, they're trying to they're there.
I think that there's stuff in in there to uh to tax crypto at a disproportionate rate now.
I yeah, I don't know the details, but I know that there were some uh antagonistic um uh attitudes in the in it, but uh it's not being reflected in my portfolio, so it must not it must be pretty vanilla.
Yeah, normally when bad news happens like that, you know, that just there's just a crash and it's just it's up.
I'm you know, I'm um I'm a gen X or crypto is still a little bit out of my my wheelhouse.
I don't really understand.
Well, I'm a millennial and I don't understand it either.
Because I don't understand fiat either.
Doesn't fiat doesn't make any sense to me either.
You're telling me that this piece of paper is worth if you know I don't even know what to compare it to because it's not it's not based on any standard.
No, yeah.
Uh and I think the gold standard flipped when I was a kid, I was under Nixon.
71 was it?
71, yeah.
That sounds right.
I mean, I was just an infant basically.
I think everybody was calling our bluff um on how much we were spending in Vietnam, like France and these other countries that had we were stuck we had all the gold reserves and they were demanding uh gold in exchange for US dollars, and we didn't have the gold Because we printed and uh and Nixon had to pull us off the gold standard because we couldn't honor the uh the exchange.
Well, did you happen to catch Biden today, his press conference?
Uh no, I did not catch his press conference today.
I didn't he like then he like wander off a sidewalk.
I heard that.
I didn't see that, but I heard something along those lines.
Yeah.
But I mean whatever.
Uh though one thing that he actually said, because they were asking about with withdrawing troops from Afghanistan and whether or not because of the fact that uh the terrorists are taking over the country again and are over overwhelming the um um the Afghani militaries uh whether or not he would reverse course and he's like, no, we spent enough money there.
And I'm like, I agree with that.
I mean, we don't want to be spending any more money on foreign wars.
They've been going on for most of my adult life.
Yeah, it seems to me, and I don't know the um like what the Intel community knows and if there was some you know very important and highly classified reason for these wars, which seemed to me to be have been ridiculous.
But it seems to me that it would have been totally acceptable for us to just go over there with special forces, find Osama bin Laden and just assassinate him and then be done with it.
You would have thought, I mean I don't know, I don't know if he escaped to Afghanistan.
I think he did it, escape to Afghanistan immediately.
He was originally in Afghanistan, yeah.
That's why we went in.
It's like Al Qaeda, Al-Qaeda was all you heard before it was a Taliban.
Well, but Bush went into Iraq first, that's my recollection.
I think he went to Afghanistan first.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that we did Afghanistan.
And then we invaded uh Iraq right after that because um the false claims of uh weapons of mass destruction.
It was either bad intel or a lie.
I don't know, I don't know which.
But um uh I'm pretty sure that's how that happened.
But it's neither here nor there.
Um my point is just why don't you just why don't you just assassinate the guy responsible for the terrorist attack instead of you know being in a war for 20 years.
We like for the first time ever, we have we have people who are at who are serving overseas in in combat who whose parents are also serving overseas in combat at the same time.
I I just got done reading uh I binged all four of uh uh I don't know if you've heard of Jack Carr.
He's um yeah, exactly.
Well, he is, he's a real life superhero.
He's a Navy SEAL sniper who uh yeah, and he just wrote uh not just he's been right after he uh retired, he wrote four novels.
Uh and one of the last novels talks all about this issue uh uh about 9-11 and who really started 9-11 and whether or not and you know, apparently there was the potentially might have been a larger connection to Iran, uh Iran then um than what we've been led to believe.
But in any event, read his books, they're fucking great.
Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I do like that kind of stuff.
Yeah, yeah, just speed reading, couldn't put it down.
I do uh I do books on tape, and uh the narrator that does I don't know if you do audible or not, but there's this yeah, I do there's a there um oh gosh, I can't think of the name of uh the narrator.
The narrator that does carr's books is one of the best in the business.
So I sort of jump from the to from book to book based on uh a couple narrators that I follow.
So that's how I found Jack R. Okay.
And he's got a good podcast.
Check that out, too.
Yeah what's it called?
Do you know off the top of your head?
Put you on the spot.
You call yourself a real fan.
You call yourself a real fan.
I know.
And I'll have to go on the Google and see what Al Gore has to say.
That's okay, I'll find it and put it in the show notes.
Don't sweat it.
Uh danger close podcast.
Ooh, sounds good.
It's on official Jack Carr.com.
Shout out, shout out to Jack Garr.
Awesome.
You should send him an invoice for that.
See if you're I should.
I should.
Uh, but I I think I actually owe him because the the amount of pleasure I got out of reading his four books, I got out.
I I'm way ahead of this equation.
Yeah.
Um, you know, my honestly, my just kind of on the topic of Afghanistan and Iraq, my whole my biggest issue with what happened after 9-11 is really the Patriot Act.
I I don't know what you think about that, but it's it seems to me that the domestic surveillance is a major issue and really catalyzing a lot of our other problems right now.
Well, I'm a l I'm a libertarian.
Uh I've voted for two Republicans in my entire life and no Democrats, and I've done libertarian.
Which Republicans.
George Herbert Walker Bush, my first vote ever in 1988.
And then based on what I saw, and I I was a two-time jerk Gary Johnson voter, was actually asked to be a delegate for him uh in the state of New York, uh, and really really thought seriously about voting third party up until the impeachment trial.
And I saw the first impeachment trial, and And what I saw, I just thought was basically just political retribution.
There was literally nothing to justify what they were doing.
And hey, hey, hey, there we are.
I don't know what happened there, but we got it, we got it fixed.
We got it going.
All right.
So in any plan B. So yeah, you said first one was HW.
Yeah, first one was HW and then I voted for Trump.
And I voted for Trump because of uh the first impeachment trial.
I just thought it was such a sham and it really pissed me.
So you vote for him in 20.
You didn't vote for him in 2016, but you didn't know.
No, you voted for Gary Johnson two two elections in a row.
Uh voted for the case.
What is Aleppo?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, it was embarrassing.
But I mean, you know what?
That's okay.
Everybody, everybody has gas, man.
I'm just I just like to tease him for it.
I'll be honest with you.
When when they asked the question and he said what is Aleppo, I was thinking to myself, yeah, what the fuck's Aleppo?
It was I wasn't paying, I I didn't have the answer either.
Right.
Well, if you're an American first sort of minded person, it's like, why do you why would you give a fuck anyway?
Yeah, well, I mean, and and why is it that they asked him such a specific uh name of an area rather than the country?
I mean, it's like, come on.
Right.
They were trying to get him in a uh in a gacha, but he I mean Gary Johnson wasn't it was a flawed candidate.
I mean, bottom line.
Yeah, he just fun.
I oh yeah, I love Gary Johnson.
Uh uh, and I wish I would have lived under his uh governorship in New Mexico.
Um what I was I think he got a balanced budget when he was in there.
Yeah, almost unheard of these days.
Impossible.
Possible.
Okay, so two, and then libertarian all the way.
So what kind of what what's it's funny because you when you when I when I hear immigration lawyer, I don't mean it doesn't immediately scream libertarian or anything other than left.
So are you the only one?
Pretty much are you the there's a few, there's a few.
Do they hate you?
Do they all hate you?
Oh, they absolutely despise me.
Why do they hate you because you're a better lawyer than they are, or just because it's a good idea?
They do, they do hate me because I'm a better lawyer.
I know that's a pompous thing for me to say, but I'm a fucking better lawyer than they are.
Yeah.
Uh I uh and I'm gonna I'm gonna uh pat myself on the back.
I went I had a 10-year win streak broken in the third year of the Trump administration.
So it took Trump about two and a half years to finally give me a loss.
Uh and I was undefeated for the entirety of Obama's term.
Um I I don't like to lose.
Uh so what is it?
What is it?
What is the illegal deportation that you fight look like?
Like what is the what are some of the what's the shit that they try to pull?
Oh, well, they don't have to do anything, they don't have to pull anything.
The government literally can just walk into court with no preparation with doing minimal work whatsoever.
And it's all being rubber stamped.
Um, but I mean, that's my job.
My job is to is to move the needle.
And you have to come in and you have to be able to present your case in a way that's gonna make the judge want to help your client.
And so much of it is fact-based.
There's a lot of law there.
Um, and chances are if you're arguing the law, you're gonna lose.
It's just as simple as that.
Because um the law doesn't really necessarily favor the immigrant in most instances.
So as a lawyer, how do you win a case without arguing the law?
Well, I mean, you have to are you arguing statutory eligibility for the relief that you're requesting, but but a lot of the cases that I have are criminal or criminal aliens, individuals that have been convicted that have green cards that have been living here legally and might have been convicted of a crime that subjects them to the institution of removal proceedings.
And then you have to break down, you have to break down uh what the what the precedent says with respect to that specific conviction.
And a lot of times there's no law that guides you, and you have to do your own independent analysis and then present that to the court in a persuasive manner.
So, what kind of like you know, minimum crime do you have to commit in order to be eligible for deportation?
Well like a DUI, like CEO?
Uh well, there's some DUIs, aggravated DUIs of uh can potentially be considered to be a crime involving moral turpitude.
Uh so basically a crime involving moral turpitude within five one conviction for a crime involving moral turpitude within five years of your lawful entry to the United States, subjects you to removal, and there's really no no way to waive that.
After five years, you need two crimes involving moral turpitude to be removable.
So what's the minimum crime?
Some assaults, some simple assaults.
Uh, crime involving moral turplitude is one that is basically uh, you know, one of the one of the sins, something that that um is morally reprehensible, something that society frowns upon.
And it requires a men's rea, something where you have to intend to do the evil.
It's not a statutory crime like going like speeding, you know, it doesn't make a difference if you were speeding because you needed to get your your child to the hospital.
You were speeding, you get pulled over, so there's no men's rea there.
There's no intent required.
So typically um an intent is required, and the minimum conduct necessary has to be something that would ordinarily be frowned upon.
Theft is almost always a crime involving moral turpitude.
And there's some exceptions for that.
There's it's called the petty the petty ex uh fat theft exception.
There's some can uh um certain simple possession convictions for marijuana, 30 grams or less.
That's most likely not gonna if you have one, you're fine.
Um, but uh one gram of cocaine, you're gone.
No waiver.
Uh that's too bad because the South American shit's really good.
Yeah, well, I'll take your word for it.
I'm just kidding.
I'm pretty sure whatever I've ever put up my nose was made in somebody's kitchen.
Well, hey.
So does anybody ever tell you that you look like Hugo Morgenson?
I I feel like I'm hanging out with Aragorn right now.
Uh well, no, I've never heard that.
I'll take it though, because I'm I'm a huge fan.
I'm a huge fan of the case.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, my wife would totally have a crush on you.
Yeah.
Uh I guess it it's better to be Aragorn than the guy in Eastern Promises.
What's Eastern Promises?
Oh, that's you've never seen Eastern Promises.
No, I've never even heard of it, man.
And I'm into that, all that dorky stuff.
Eastern Promises.
That's with uh it's with Vigo Mortensen, and he ends up having a naked fight scene in the in a Russian bathhouse.
Full frontal.
Your wife will not.
Wow.
That's awesome.
I'll have to let her know about that.
Next time she's handed me.
I got something for you to watch.
Just give me 10 more minutes.
I'm still working.
Meantime, watch this.
Well, to go back to your previous question about Patriot Act, the second that came out, yeah, I went full Tim Foyle hat.
Like full moon.
I'm like Alex Jones.
Yeah, I'm like, this is the end of America.
Well, you weren't wrong.
I fucking wasn't wrong.
See, the prognosis is always correct.
It's it's the timeline that people get wrong.
Like Schiff has been correct about collapse for like 10 years, 15, 20 years.
But they always said it is always acting like it's gonna happen tomorrow, and it's like, you know, maybe it's 50 years from now.
You're right.
The man is like Yeah, I was I was I thought there was gonna be martial law.
Like when when the when the planes hit the tower, I'll never forget that night going out and thinking to myself, they're gonna declare martial law.
There's gonna be tanks on the streets, like especially in the city, yeah.
Well, I mean, I grew up watching one of my favorite movies as a kid was Red Dawn.
So I was like, I love Red Dawn.
The 80s one's awesome.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's it's a classic.
Patrick Swayze.
Right.
I'm waiting for the I'm waiting for the chain like fences and revenge me.
I'm that's the whole thing.
I'm dying for the whole thing to do.
I forgot about that scene.
That's classic.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So uh I'm that's what I thought was gonna be happening within short order.
That they were gonna basically suspend the habeas corpus, there was gonna be martial law, uh, the the surveillance, the whole thing.
And we uh I had to dig through it.
Um turns out it was just the Patriot Act.
Yeah.
I mean very vanilla, very vanilla.
Basically martial law.
So, and then we would always like I would always joke for years that we're you know, uh don't make phone calls on yourself.
Just you have to use a landline.
And everyone looked at me like I was crazy.
Apparently, I was you know, you're not crazy if you're correct.
You know what blows my mind is how you know Snowden had that major his famous relief, release, you know, leak.
And 10 years go by, and it comes out that the NSA is listening to the uh Tucker Carlson's emails, and I'm like, you guys are surprised.
Like this literally leaked 10 years ago that they're listening to all of our emails.
Like, what the hell?
Like, why why are you why are you outraged now?
Like they they're always doing this, and I just think people don't care until it happens directly to them or someone that they follow.
And and the FISA court, and that's the reason why I voted for Donald Trump, because when I found out that they had a democratic agent That created a dossier that was was dropped into the laps of the FBI who used it to materially lie to a FISA court judge to unmask an agent of the Trump Trump campaign and then take that information and somehow use it to trump up impeachment charges against Trump.
I mean, I'm like, this is fucking this is from a a bad movie.
Like it's so it's so transparently clear that what they're doing is they're trying to remove a duly elected president.
I mean, and don't and I'm not even gonna get into the whole this last election with the with the the ballot harvesting and all that bullshit.
I I think I'd like to see what's going on in Arizona.
I want to find out what happens with all that stuff.
But I think for for me, the thing that upset me the most was that the Supreme Court ruled that there was no standing prior to the end of the election, and the then after the election it was moot.
So when do you have a cause of action if you can't bring it before you're aggrieved and then after you're aggrieved, you don't have anything to be pissed off about?
So I mean, and that was John Roberts.
That was John Roder, just fucking the constitution in the ass.
Hell of a guy.
Hell of a guy.
Yeah.
Wait a minute.
I know, man.
He does give he gives Michelle Candy and he paints.
So he's all is forgiven.
All is I'll tell you what.
I tell you what, Hitler was a bad guy, but his paintings are way more impressive impressive.
I will be honest with you, I have not seen a Hitler painting.
It's it's uh Google it.
It'll blow your mind.
Seriously, Google it.
Google um in and then in another tab, Google Winston Churchill painting.
Oh, I've seen his.
Yeah, that this they're the same exact style.
Oh, yeah, okay.
Yeah.
I've seen it.
I'm not I'm not an art connoisseur or critic.
You know, I I I know what I like and I know what I don't, but um it seems to me that he's pretty pretty good.
He had a knack for it.
Not necessarily not like Picasso, good, but you know, I mean pretty talented waters.
Yeah, yeah.
I know.
Bad guy.
No, I'm not endorsing his uh his personality because of us is uh his you know depth perception.
And and realistically, Trump was literally Hitler too.
So I mean Yeah, that's what they say.
That's what they say.
You know, you know what's funny to me, man.
Like, I totally believe that in the uh like manifestation of tyranny and that the direction that we're going is toward authoritarianism.
But why is it that the left thinks that every form of authoritarian authoritarianism is gonna immediately be Nazi?
Like I I think that one day it's very likely or possible that you know we're gonna have an authoritarian government in the United States, but I think it'll be a very novel form of authoritarianism.
I don't think it's gonna be like anything seen before.
No, it's gonna be like, well, show me your papers to get into the restaurant that you want to go to, right?
Or the baseball game you want to go to, or if you want to fly, or if you want to open up a bank account.
Uh and then and then they're and and then I mean what they're doing right now is pretty much akin to what's going on in China with regards to the your social media acceptability.
I mean, they can completely wipe out your ability to make money because you don't hold the correct left-leaning opinion.
Yeah, yeah.
Well, Ryan Dawson had to basically move to Japan because he can't do anything here.
Are you familiar with him?
Very controversial, and he's he's not an anti-Semitic uh from a racial standpoint, but very anti-Israel.
And um very vocal about it.
Kind of he makes like um So he's a Democrat.
No, he's not.
He's like a he's like a I would say almost like a Confederate.
He's just like a very kind of you know, South should have one type guy.
Oh and he's he's really bright, but he's a war of southern the war of the ex Northern Aggression, yeah, yeah.
He's a very bright guy, he's just odd.
And he and he makes these documentaries that are like four and a half hours long on his webcam, and they're very impressive and compelling, but they're you know, they're they're out there, right?
And anyway, he basically got banned from Venmo, banned from PayPal, banned from uh I don't think you can have a bank account in the United States, and um not on any social media platform, and he moved to Japan in two in 2006, he moved to Japan.
He moved to Japan after Bush got elected the second time because he didn't he said he he said I asked him why he said because I don't want to pay for the bombing of children.
You know, he's thinking like Iraq, you know, uh collateral damage type stuff, right?
I like the guy a lot, so don't get me wrong.
I know that I know that he's he's out there, but um, I don't know.
I don't know the point I'm gonna say.
I'm probably like to have a conversation with him as well.
I'll talk to anyone.
you know I could get you on at the same time actually you guys would have a good conversation but um the point that I was trying to make is that the stuff that you were citing as you know like like see like CCP type shit it does has started to happen already or has been happening to to the most fringe of us like like when Alex Jones got banned everyone's like oh it's just because he's a maniac and then now it's like every other person that I ever followed on Twitter is getting banned.
Like I'm no Nick Fuentes fan but like why'd you ban him the president of the United States got banned from Twitter.
Yeah I mean like what the fuck I mean I don't care what he says he was still the president of the United States he didn't break their terms.
They just said we don't we we don't want you here because you're an insurrectionist because of the banned him for inciting violence but he never once incited violence on his on Twitter.
Well what about all the Democrats that were calling for violence for the better part of a summer and or actually raising money to to bail out violent criminals.
I think this is the reason why, and the other reason why I ended up voting for a Republican, and not that Trump's a Republican, but voted for Trump, voted for a main party candidate, was because the hypocrisy became too much for me to handle.
I just, I can't deal with, it's, the Democrat, okay, we'll go back to my wheelhouse, with, I represented a large number of unaccompanied minors back under the Obama administration and the Trump administration, who were refugees coming to the country, and my own bar association, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and I served as an elected director of the Obama administration.
the board of governors on uh secretly and privately endorsed Joe Biden for president first time in the history of the association to make a uh an endorsement of a candidate and they did have that sort of privately endorse that's kind of an oxymoron almost right well they endorsed it they basically said you know all of the members need to vote for right Joe Biden and uh and they did because of the human rights violations that were being perpetrated by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, we're, what, nine months into the Biden administration?
Is it nine months?
Seven months?
Eight months?
January 20th, right?
January 20th?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We're in the eighth month of the year.
Eighth month, yeah.
So in any event, seven, eight months.
There's 17,000 kids in cages right now.
17,000.
And it's unheard of.
It's completely unprecedented.
There was a huge scandal.
It wasn't a huge scandal.
It was a huge issue that barely got a blip on radar that they were trying to downplay the amount of cases of COVID and immigration detention.
And all of the things that they were, that the far left immigration lawyers that are really just hyper-partisan Democrats, they couldn't argue their way out of a paper bag, let alone win in court.
They're way out of a paper bag.
Yeah, yeah.
They're pathetic.
lazy.
They're generally not all that smart.
very high um opinion of most of them if if they were marginal L set scores that's kind of why they went into immigration law uh pretty much because if if they commit malpractice their their clients deported and can't go after them that's the large I never thought of it like that.
Mm-hmm it's a large percentage of the immigration bar especially ones that go into court they're most of them are incompetent a large large percentage of them.
But in any event so it's just a hypocrisy it's like Orange Man bad was the rallying cry for Joe Biden.
There was no I don't really know any of the policies that Joe Biden ran on other than the infrastructure bill.
That was all I can really recall that and he wasn't Trump.
And he put a lid on he put on lid on the rest of his campaign.
Well I think that um I think that people were yearning for the comfort and predictability of a boring president.
You know because after Obama was out of office and I'm no fan of Obama but as I was a college student at the time and I I didn't like him then but everything felt like it was going to be okay.
Like he just felt like a president I didn't like but I wasn't worried about like the future of the the nation right and I think that with Trump though I supported him you know he was a he was a very incendiary figure is a very incendiary figure.
And so I I think the people were like, Man, I'd rather I'd rather have the guy who is very closely associated with Barack Obama and cannot, you know, utter a complete sentence as president than hear another good point, you know, from this obnoxious loudmouth uh guy, you know.
And I think that's you know, it if if Trump uh legitimately lost the election, um, which I I don't know.
I go back and forth on what I think happened.
But if he if he lost, it's because people voted against him, not because people voted for Biden.
Uh without a doubt.
And I don't believe that he legitimately lost the election.
And I and I think it's because they the Democrats changed the rules midstream.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Even if the even if the votes were all legal, it was still so shitty that they changed the rules in the middle of the game.
You can't change the rules of chess in the middle of a match.
That's exactly I mean, and and that's the whole point.
Yeah, if you follow Ron uh Ron Coleman on Do you follow Ronald?
Oh, yeah, yeah, he's been on the show, man.
I love it.
He's the best.
The best.
Yeah, you just started a podcast too.
Culmination.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's he's great.
Uh and he this is his wheelhouse.
He's a constitutional lawyer.
I'm just a fucking hack, immigration lawyer.
Um, didn't you have to take constitutional law in order to like it?
I did, I did, and I and I used to be.
It's not that long of a document.
Like anybody can read it.
It's true.
Well, yeah, I'm I don't know how many people in Congress have actually read it, especially, and I know that Governor Cuomo hasn't.
Don't get me started on the Safe Act, which he was railing on which he was towered.
What is the Safe Act?
Safe Act is the law in New York State that makes it illegal to have cosmetic features on uh your semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine, because it makes it to use Dana Lash's um uh uh he decided that he was gonna do that right before he resigned.
No, no, no.
That happened years ago.
That happened years ago.
They they passed the law, it was a clandestine law that they passed under the emergency provisions with no public comment in the middle of the night, had it signed.
Emergency provisions.
Yeah, the homicide rates are through the roof.
This is a public emergency, that kind of shit.
Yep.
That's a problem I have with emergency powers.
Because nobody nobody knows how like anybody can just declare an emergency.
It might have been going after Sandy Hook, I think.
I you know, so they banned assault rifles, which basically means that you can have a semi-automatic rifle with a detached.
It's already illegal to shoot schools, though.
Right.
Well, you know, we need more laws that says that it's illegal to take a rifle and kill children.
Right.
But in any event, uh all it basically did was it said if you have a rifle that's semi-automatic with a detachable magazine, it can't have a series of other cosmetic features because that will make it an assault rifle.
So it can't have a pistol grip, but it can have a grip at a 45 degree angle.
It can't have a muzzle blazing in California.
Right.
So the the weapon isn't any less effective.
I mean, maybe slightly less effective.
The vast majority of homicides are or death or gun deaths, rather, are are with a 22.
Like this very small round.
Like it it's it's it's the guns that aren't frightening that you know wind up are most common.
They don't this is the whole point.
They don't want the average citizen to be able to organize into an informal militia to be able to combat against tyranny.
And I know that that sounds ridiculous, but that's the design of the second amendment.
And we've seen it play out.
The I think it was the Bundy Ranch under Obama where the ATF came in, and all of these guys from all over the country came to um and were stationed on top of a bridge, and you saw the ATF like backing away.
They were in full blown retreat because there was like, I don't know, a hundred and something guys with rifles saying, Fuck you, you're not taking they're not coming on this guy's land and taking his shit.
How have I never heard of that?
Is there a video of that?
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
Um what year was that?
It was during Obama, Bundy Ranch, standoff.
Let's see.
I'm gonna Google that, man.
Yeah, the Bundes, uh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clive and Bundy's cattle still graze on federal land five years after.
So this was back in 2019.
Yeah, but were they trying to do eminent domain on his property for some stupid reason or something?
No, I think okay, and I I'm not sure about the whole thing.
But maybe it was BLM, the Bureau of Land Management that went on.
I can't remember if it was ATF or BLM.
Does make a difference.
It was the feds.
So don't call it BLM anymore.
Oh you're right about that.
Uh rebranded, man.
Like Delta Airlines and Corona Beer.
Okay, so I'm I'm sure I'm I'm sure I'm screwing up the whole thing, and I'm sure I don't remember anything that really happened.
But my recollection is that he had his cattle on federal land, and I think they were coming on the land to try to get his kid to kill it might have killed his cat.
Here, here's Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is always correct.
Well, it's correct enough.
Yeah, exactly.
So I think there might have been there was uh uh an order directing Bunny to pay a million dollar withheld grazing fees because Bunny's use of federally owned land adjacent to his ranch, and so his cattle was grazing on on federal land and they were they were charging him grazing fees a million bucks apparently.
He was fucking paying it, and they said if you don't pay it, we're gonna take your cattle, and he said come and take it and got all his neighbors to shop.
Oh, yeah, from all over the country, like and they're 15s.
Yeah, and they just they back the fuck out.
So what do you think?
What do you think would happen if every if every Republican just said we're not paying income taxes this year?
What would it practically how would that actually play out from a practical standpoint?
Well, uh, you would have to get um a Republican legislature and a Republican governor in that state to basically say that if the feds come in to try to enforce federal uh IRS law, we're gonna arrest you and we're gonna we're gonna put you in jail.
And then there's a standoff between the feds and the state, because otherwise, I mean, so that's what I I don't think that there's any way that it would happen without the backing of your state government.
Um I mean, it it if you could organize that, the feds would come in immediately, and there would be a giant the the ringleaders would be I mean, we've seen what happens, Ruby Ridge, they they'll they'll just they'll the feds will come in and just start killing people because that's what they do.
So, you know, um one of the things that I've uh that I think about a lot is just general the general decline of societies, right?
So, like a lot of people make comparisons to what happened in Rome to what's happening in America, and they try to you know see if there's any similarities or learn from what happened to Rome uh uh in terms of like you know, hyper expansion and debasing of currency and stuff like that.
But you know, this is really the first time, and I've said this before on the podcast, but I want to bring it up to you because I want to hear your feedback.
This is really the first time that there's ever been a civilization, at least in recorded history, that has like a hyper sophisticated intelligence um like branch of government that is like there's no checks and balances, right?
So, like, yeah, like Caesar had his own private guard or whatever, and his you know, his own police or whatever, but this is like the first time that yeah, this is this is like the first time that we have um branches of government that are like the intelligence community, for example, like the FBI or the CIA, where when something wrong happens, uh when when there's a crime committed by the these entities, it seems like all they do is conduct an internal investigation, and they don't have to tell anybody else anything, even politicians, even presidents, unless they specifically ask or have need to know.
And so I guess the reason I want to bring this up is um how are we gonna keep this branch of government in check?
I mean, it's we're not like a three-branch government anymore.
There's executive branch, judicial branch, a legislative branch, and an intelligence branch.
Yes, without a doubt.
And they're incredibly well funded.
And didn't they told when Trump was president elect, didn't they talk about withholding briefings from him?
Yeah, I can't remember the details of why that was.
I think it you know he was president-elect, and they weren't telling him anything because he wasn't technically in office yet, but it was unprecedented, and they were just kind of being assholes.
I I mean it there is no question that the FBI worked with the Democrats to try to get Hillary Clinton elected.
There's why did Comey screw it up for though, like two days before?
I agree with you, like I but I can't explain that.
I can't explain why he would have done that.
This is the reason why, because he figured it wouldn't make a difference.
Nobody believed, well, at least I'm not saying nobody.
I know I didn't try to win.
I didn't believe that Trump could win.
All we heard was uh was Nate Silver talking about the odds for uh a year.
There was a well and the pollsters hadn't lied that that much before.
Exactly, you know, exactly there was no way that Trump was gonna win.
So basically what comey was trying to do was, in my opinion, preserve the sanctity of the institution by saying this is what she did wrong, but it's not uh a criminal offense.
Completely make the case for a criminal offense, but then say that she's not gonna be charged, and then she wins and then it's all forgotten, and and and Trump goes away.
I mean, and that's what was supposed to happen.
And then she why is she not in prison, man?
I don't understand.
It seems like innocent people go to prison and the guilty people just don't.
I would I wouldn't be in jail so fat.
You mean you I have friends in Department of State.
If any single one of them had a private server in their bathroom that they were running professional emails through, classified shit.
Do you think those people wouldn't be spending the rest of their lives in jail?
I mean, that was her that was her pattern in practice.
And then she didn't even deny that that was happening.
Like that that that's not even a conspiracy.
The conspiracies are centered around what was the content of the emails because they were all deleted, nobody knows, right?
But there's a bunch of things.
The fact that she actually had this, the fact that she actually had the server, and we do know that some of the emails were classified, but the fact that she actually had it, that's undisputed.
I mean, I that that's public information.
The crime was committed.
It's I don't understand.
Why were there no prosecutions?
Is it up to the AG?
Is that is just is that just the deal that the AG has to decide what cases for us?
There was a freaking meeting on the tarmat with Bill Clinton and uh was a Loretta Lynch.
They were just talking about grandkids and golf.
Oh, yoga pants, I'm sure.
Yeah, I remember that.
I remember that.
But I tell you what, man, as much as much as Bill is a shithead, I just I like that guy.
Oh, smoothest motherfucker of all time.
Because those were uh those when he my first my first third party vote was um Ross Throw.
I'm all ears.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
So I voted for Ross Perot, and when Clinton won, and if my recollection is correct, it was Herbert Walker, uh, Perot, and and uh and Clinton.
So Clinton wins, and so that was my life, my life the end of college for me.
And uh I can remember hating Bill Clinton.
I was just I just hated Bill Clinton, but I'd watch ever I watched this year was the first State of the Union that I didn't watch in my adult life.
And I love the State of the Union, I just think it's great theater.
Uh like to see you know the whole thing.
And I can remember every single time that I listened to Bill Clinton's State of the Union, I thought to myself, motherfucker smooth.
Yeah, he says it all.
There's nothing I can really disagree with there.
He hits all the high marks.
Maybe he's just you know, and as much as I didn't like Bill Clinton, I didn't care about the whole Monica Mowinski.
No, better blow jobs and no jobs, bro.
So um the the if you watch the whole clip where you know he famously says I did not have sexual relations with that woman or something to that effect.
If you watch the whole clip, the thing it's I think it's really interesting how right at the end of the, it's all it's often cut off, but right at the end of that press conference, he goes, now I need to go back to work trying to get internet put in all our schools, it's just so dated, like makes it 1995 all over again.
And the irony is that internet's for porn.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like that's awesome, man.
But I don't know, man.
This yeah, the whole Monica thing is really weird because if that were to happen today, you realize how many like um abusive power allegations would be made against the president for like, you know, she was working for you, she was an intern, she didn't want to.
Like if that happened today, I think she certainly would come out and said I didn't want to, I just felt like I had to because it was the president.
How is it how is a president supposed to get laid, by the way?
So say say you're a single president, um, unmarried, whatever, and you want to sleep with somebody, like, you know, just because they're hot and you know, similar interests, whatever.
How do you do that without them being able to make the accusation that you know they they were overwhelmed by your power and they they they felt like they um couldn't deny you um your advances?
Go out with someone that's richer than you.
Oh, I like that.
I like that.
Rosie O'Donnell.
Rihanna's a billionaire.
Yeah, you just gotta hit on somebody with money.
Boom.
Dude, I knew I shouldn't have been sleeping with poor chicks.
I don't know what to tell you.
I don't know what to tell you, man.
What do they say?
First time for love, second time for money.
Is that is that is that what they say?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I've heard that.
I've heard that.
That was that.
Was that Marcus Aurelius?
Yeah, I'm sure.
Well, man, I tell you what, it's been great having you on the show.
Thanks for coming on.
Where can people find you?
Uh at M Colkin on Twitter, M-K-O-L-K-E-N is a Nancy.
Uh I'm always throwing fireballs, so feel free to to to yell back at me if you feel like it.
Awesome, man.
Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on.
Let's uh let's stay in touch and let's do this again sometime.
