UNBIASED - October 8, 2024: Georgia Supreme Court Reinstates Abortion Ban, Biden Administration Won't Extend Parole Status for Certain Migrants, Supreme Court Hears First Firearm Case of Its Term, and More.

Episode Date: October 8, 2024

Welcome back to UNBIASED. In today's episode: Biden Administration Won't Extend Parole Status For Migrants Who Entered US Under the CHNV Program (1:12) House Republicans Release Report Showing 1.7M 'Special Interest Aliens' Encounters Since Biden-Harris Administration (6:45) Supreme Court Hears First Firearm Case of October 2024 Term (9:28) Georgia Supreme Court Reinstates 6-Week Abortion Ban (13:23) Quick Hitters: Hurricane Milton Heads Towards Florida, Google Gets Punishment Following Antitrust Loss, FTX Bankruptcy Plan, Largest Water Utility Company Hacked (16:31) *Correction: Fact-Checking JD Vance's Claim that the Biden-Harris Administration Has Released $100M in Assets to Iran (18:45) Daily Critical Thinking Exercise (22:27) Listen/Watch this episode AD-FREE on Patreon. Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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week of that. We're one week closer to getting back to four days a week, which is great. I'm just as excited as you. The not so great news is that next week there will be no episodes at all. So I'm actually taking the whole week off to enjoy my last week of vacation. So this week episodes Tuesday and Thursday, next week no episodes, and then the week after we'll be officially back to four days a week. As far as the format of today's episode, I have four stories for you. Two of those four stories relate to immigration, actually. Then we'll do some quick hitters, and we'll finish with the daily critical thinking exercise. And actually, between quick hitters and

the critical thinking segment, I'm going to issue a correction to my vice presidential debate fact check. So with those things out of the way, let's get into today's stories. On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced it would not be extending the legal status of migrants who were allowed to fly into the United States under a 2022 Biden administration sponsorship program, which was designed to reduce illegal border crossings. Instead, those who came to the U.S. under this policy will have to try to obtain legal status through other immigration programs, leave the country on their own, or face deportation proceedings. To be clear, the program, which is called the CNHB program, is not ending. It's just that those who have come to the United States through this program will not have their parole status extended once it expires. And the first of those who came

under this program will see their status expire early next year. So let's talk about what this sponsorship program looks like, what it's all about, and then we'll talk about what the government's notice specifically said. Back in October 2022, the Biden administration rolled out this program that was mainly directed at Venezuelans wanting to come to the United States. The purpose of the program was to discourage them from crossing via the southern border by giving them a legal way to enter the country if American-based individuals agreed to sponsor them. The program required these migrants to have, obviously, a sponsor in the United States, undergo a screening and vetting process, and be up to date with their vaccinations.

Once they were in the United States, they could live and work here legally for two years under an immigration law known as parole, which presidents can use to bring in foreigners on humanitarian or public interest grounds, similar to how the United States has recently allowed Afghan evacuees and Ukrainian refugees into the country. So again, the program was launched in October 2022, and then roughly three months later in January 2023, it was expanded. The expansion included migrants from Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti, who were also crossing the southern border in record numbers at the time. As of the end of last month, nearly 530,000 migrants have come to the U.S. under this program, the CHNV program. So C for Cuba, H for Haiti, N for Nicaragua, V for Venezuela.

Of those 530,000, roughly half are Haitians, 117,000 are Venezuelans, 111,000 are Cubans, and 96,000 are Nicaraguans. Now, once these migrants were in, the administration could have offered parole extensions, as was done with Afghans and Ukrainians. This is what the government calls re-parole. But instead, as we found out Friday, the migrants brought in under this CHNV program will instead be given notices instructing them to either apply for another immigration program or leave the country because their parole status will not be extended. Now, there are other immigration programs available to them. There's temporary protected status, which is available to certain Haitians and Venezuelans.

Cubans can request permanent U.S. residency or a green card through an old Cold War era immigration law. Another option for these migrants is to apply for asylum, but that's only available to those that can prove their fleeing persecution based on religion, race, political views, or other grounds. And finally, those with relatives that are U.S. citizens who are willing to sponsor them may be eligible for an immigrant visa. As for why the government decided not to extend parole, one potential reason may be the fraudulent applications that were being submitted by sponsors. So this past July, the DHS actually stopped granting these travel authorizations to Venezuelans because of this fraud. And then in August, the DHS expanded the pause to include the other three nationalities that are part of this program as well. At the time,

the DHS said it was investigating applications filed by U.S.-based sponsors due to concerns raised by the Fraud Detection Branch of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The Fraud Detection Branch had found that a significant number of would-be sponsors here detection branch of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The fraud detection branch had found that a significant number of would-be sponsors here in the United States were applying to sponsor multiple migrants, and thousands of sponsorship applications contained false information, like social security numbers, phone numbers, and addresses. In fact, the Federation for American Immigration Reform found that only 100 addresses were found on 19,000 forms. Those addresses included warehouses, storage units, and a trailer park.

After that announcement, the DHS said it planned to restart the application processing as quickly as it could with the appropriate safeguards in place. And in fact, it did resume processing just over a week ago with enhanced vetting measures. But then on Friday is when the DHS announced that those that have come to the United States through this program would not have their parole status extended. As the DHS said, these migrants will have to go back to their home countries before their parole status expires. Otherwise, they face deportation. However, whether they'll actually be deported is a big question mark because the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua,

and Venezuela are currently either outright rejecting or limiting U.S. deportations. So a lot of questions here, not a ton of answers, but I'll keep you posted if more develops. Staying on the topic of immigration, on Thursday, House Republicans released a report showing that there have been 1.7 million special interest aliens encountered at the southern border during the last three years of the Biden-Harris administration. Notably, these are encounters that we're talking about, not admissions. So encounters are something that, encounters were created by CBP in 2020 and include both apprehensions and expulsions. Encounters essentially happen whenever a U.S. official encounters a non-citizen attempting to enter the United States without authorization.

Once encountered, these migrants can either be apprehended and expelled or apprehended and allowed in to seek asylum. So combine those, you get encounters. Also worth noting, we're talking about all borders in this report, not just the southern border. So what are special interest aliens? According to the DHS, special interest aliens, or SIAs, are non-U.S. persons who potentially pose a national security risk to the U.S. based on an analysis of their travel patterns. More specifically, the DHS says not all SIAs are terrorists, quote, but rather that the travel and behavior of such individuals indicates a possible nexus to nefarious activity, including terrorism, and at minimum provides indicators that necessitate

heightened screening and further investigation. End quote. This categorization is different from being a known or suspected terrorist, another DHS designation. An SIA is technically not as dangerous as a known or suspected terrorist. In fact, having the SIA designation does not affect an individual's admissibility into the United States. In other words, these people could have gone through lawful ports of entry despite having the SIA designation and wouldn't have necessarily been denied admission because of that designation. Republicans report also accused the Biden administration of concealing some of this information and cited testimony from last month by a retired Border Patrol sector chief, Chief Aaron Hetke. He said, quote, I was told I could not release any information on the increase in special interest aliens or mention any of the arrests. The administration was trying to convince the public there was no threat at the border, end quote. And finally, the report details the heightened number of special interest alien encounters since the Biden-Harris administration began by noting that in fiscal year 2021, which was

obviously the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration, there were 98,565 SIA encounters. That number jumped to over 482,000 in fiscal year 2022, just over 597,000 in fiscal year 2023, and then dropped a bit, but still stayed over 530,000 in fiscal year 2024. Moving on, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments today on the second day of its new term in a firearm case. So let's give a little background. First, the Gun Control Act of 1968 is what regulates firearms here in the United States. Under the law, a firearm is any weapon which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive. That definition also includes the frame or receiver of any such weapon. More recently, in 2022, the ATF issued a new regulation that says

certain products, not just weapons, but certain products that can be readily converted into an operational firearm or a functional frame or receiver fall within the law's definition of a firearm and therefore are regulated by that law. Now, being regulated by law means that the manufacturers of these firearm kits and parts, including the frames and receivers, now have to mark their products with serial numbers, obtain licenses, and conduct background checks on purchasers. These are things that are already required for other commercially made firearms and all firearms that fall under the definition of a firearm under this federal law, but were not required for certain firearm kits and parts until this new 2022 rule. In fact,

these kits and parts could be purchased online and quickly assembled at home, so they're quite accessible. But by now defining them as firearms under federal law, these kits and parts are now subject to these additional federal requirements. So the plaintiffs here brought suit challenging the 2022 regulation, arguing that the ATF exceeded its authority in issuing the rule, therefore it must be struck down. The government, on the other hand, is of course arguing that they didn't exceed their authority and issuing this rule was perfectly within their authority. So there are two questions for the justices in this case. One, whether a weapons parts kit that is designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or

otherwise converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive is a firearm regulated by law, and two, whether a partially complete disassembled or non-functional frame or receiver that is designed to or may readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to function as a frame or receiver is a frame or receiver regulated by law. In the lowest court, the court ruled against the government saying the ATF had impermissibly quote rewritten the law and quote without congressional input. The government then appealed the case to the Fifth Circuit, which upheld the lower court's ruling. And now the government has taken it to the Supreme Court, which will have the final say in the matter. In coming to its conclusion,

the justices will essentially have to determine whether it was within the ATF's authority to issue the 2022 regulation without input from Congress. And the justices will also look at the actual federal definition of firearm, as well as the functionality of weapons, parts, kits, and or disassembled or non-functional frames or receivers to determine whether these things properly fall under the federal definition of a firearm. The Supreme Court heard a similar case last term, which it decided in June, and that was whether a federal rule banning bump stocks was permissible.

In that case, the majority of the justices ruled against the government striking down the regulation. So if this case goes the same way, then the 2022 regulation at issue in this case will also be struck down, but we'll see what happens. And I'll of course let you know once this case is decided, which can be anywhere from three to eight months from now. across Ontario sharing our love for milk, there's love in every glass. Dairy Farmers of Ontario, from our families to your table, everybody milk. Visit milk.org to learn more. And in our final main story of this episode, yesterday, the Georgia Supreme Court temporarily reinstated the state's six-week abortion ban less than one week after a lower

court blocked the ban. So here's what's going on here. This lawsuit was brought by the Sister Song Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective against the state of Georgia. And in short, the plaintiff alleged that the state's six-week abortion ban was unconstitutional under the state's constitution and sought what's called a permanent injunction to prohibit the state from enforcing certain sections of the law. In total, this law has 16 sections, but at issue in this lawsuit were three. Section four, which criminalizes abortions that happen after there's a detectable heartbeat, usually around six weeks. Section 10, which requires doctors to make a determination of the presence of a detectable

heartbeat before performing an abortion. And section 11, which adds a requirement that any doctor that does perform an abortion after detecting a fetal heartbeat has to report to the Department of Public Health the exception to the ban that justifies the otherwise illegal procedure. The lower court judge, in striking down these three sections of the ban wrote in his order last week, quote, whether one couches it as liberty or privacy or even equal protection, this dispute is fundamentally about the extent of a woman's right to control what happens to and within her body. The baseline rule is clear. A legally competent

person has absolute authority over her body and should brook no governmental interference in what she does and does not do in terms of health, hygiene, and the like. End quote. Consequently, the judge there deemed these three sections of the law, which were at issue in this lawsuit, to be unconstitutional. That ruling, in effect, struck down the six-week ban and reinstated a prior 22-week ban on abortions in the state. But soon after that ruling, the state attorney general appealed it to the state Supreme Court, and in doing so, asked the state Supreme Court to put the lower court's ruling on hold while the appeal to the state Supreme Court plays out. And that request is what the state

Supreme Court granted yesterday, which means that the lower court's ruling is paused until the Georgia Supreme Court makes its own determination. By pausing the lower court's ruling, this put the six-week ban back in effect. So from here, the Supreme Court of Georgia will hear oral arguments in this case and come to its own decision, which will be the final decision in the state unless the Supreme Court of the United States decides to hear it on appeal. As a final note, this law was before the Georgia Supreme Court in 2023, but then the issue was whether the law was unconstitutional since it was enacted in 2019 before Roe versus Wade was even overturned in 2022. Despite the lower court judge saying it was unconstitutional, that ruling was overturned by the state Supreme Court, which allowed it to take effect. But just to be clear, the issue in that case was entirely different than the issue before the state Supreme Court now.

And now let's move on to quick hitters. Hurricane Milton is headed to Florida currently as a category four hurricane, but that could change at any moment. As of Monday early morning, we're talking 2 a.m. Milton was a category one hurricane by 8 a.m. It had become a category three by 10 a.m. a category four and by noon a category five. Earlier today, the storm did weaken slightly back down to a category 4, and it is now expected to hit the west coast of Florida as a category 3, but as of the time I'm recording and as of the latest advisory, it is sitting at a category 4 with maximum sustained winds at 150 miles per hour. A federal judge has ruled that Google must allow Android apps onto

its Google Play app store for the next three years starting next month. This is just one of a few changes Google has to make after a jury sided with Epic Games in December, finding that Google had stifled competitors by controlling the distribution of apps and payments on Android phones. Interestingly, in 2020, Epic Games also sued Apple for the same reason, but the appeals court there ruled that Apple does not have a monopoly in mobile games. Google said it will be appealing these recent penalties. And yesterday, a court approved FTX's bankruptcy plan, which will allow it to repay customers using up to $16.5 billion in assets recovered since the crypto exchange collapsed. The bankruptcy plan is built on a series of settlements with FTX customers and creditors, government agencies, and liquidators appointed

to wind down FTX's operations outside the U.S. FTX will be able to use its assets to repay customers first and then potentially pay back claims from the government. And finally, the largest regulated water and wastewater utility company in the United States announced yesterday that it was the victim of a cyber attack. American Water, which is based in New Jersey and provides services to more than 14 million people in 14 states and on 18 military installations, said it became aware of the unauthorized activity on Thursday and immediately took protective steps, including shutting down certain systems. The company does not believe its facilities or operations were impacted by the attack and said staffers were working around the clock to investigate the nature and scope

of the attack. And now before we get into critical thinking, let me issue a correction to my vice presidential debate fact check episode, which was posted this past Thursday, October 3rd. I'm lucky enough to have a huge network of listeners, and I was fortunate enough to get the scoop from a vetted listener who actually works in the United States Senate for a senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. So I obviously did my research, made sure that this was in fact a real legitimate person, and I got a lot of context here. So in last week's episode, I fact-checked Vance's claim that Iran had received over $100 billion in frozen assets by the Biden-Harris administration. And I said that that claim was false and that we didn't know for sure what Vance was referring to

in making that claim, but what it seemed like was he was referencing the Obama administration Iran nuclear deal, which obviously happened when Biden was VP. That deal allowed $100 billion in assets to be unfrozen if Iran carried out its end of the deal, but it didn't. So at the end of it, $50 billion in assets were unfrozen. The other $50 billion remained frozen. I also mentioned that Trump's administration unfroze $10 billion for Iran and Biden extended that Trump deal, releasing another $10 billion. And then most recently, another $6 billion was unfrozen as part of a prisoner swap.

So if those releases were totaled up, we get about $76 billion in assets unfrozen by the U.S. for Iran. But, you know, I also said it was not the Biden administration specifically that unfroze all of this, all of these assets. Now, here's the information we needed. So this listener, who again is an aide in the United States Senate for a senator on the Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in this quote, Vance wasn't referencing the Obama administration's nuclear deal at all. I'm putting myself on background to say I know exactly what he was referring to because I am a foreign policy aide in the United States Senate for a Republican senator on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And this is a number that Republican senators frequently reference. Here is how he got $100 billion. $6 billion from the

prisoner exchange, $10 billion from waiving sanctions to allow Iraq to pay electricity payments to Iran. It was correct to say this waiver was also issued during the Trump administration, plus over $80 billion in unenforced oil sanctions. Iran was exporting about 300,000 barrels of oil per day in November 2020, and it only had about 70 ghost fleet ships at the time that it used to try to avoid these sanctions. Today, Iran exports over 2 million barrels of oil per day and has over 400 ghost fleet ships. The idea is that because the Biden-Harris administration hasn't been enforcing existing oil sanctions that the US has on Iran, they have allowed Iran to accumulate money, specifically 80 plus billion, that it shouldn't be able to have

if the sanctions were properly enforced. So adding those numbers up, it's between 96 billion and 100 billion, depending on how much more than 80 billion the oil revenue sits at. End quote. The listener added, quote, I'm not here to suggest anything about how unfrozen assets should be counted or if this should be considered a valid way of counting. But at the very least, I know that Vance was absolutely not referring to the Obama administration's nuclear deal, and I can shed light on what he was referencing, end quote. So just as this listener mentioned, regardless of whether you feel that's a good way to calculate unfrozen assets, now at least you know the calculation Vance was using in making that claim.

So that definitely helps. I want to say a huge thank you to her for writing in and giving us the context that we could all use. I feel so lucky to have such a vast network that allows me to provide all of you with the most helpful information that can otherwise be hard to obtain. So that brings us to our daily critical thinking segment. For today's segment, I want to go back to the story about the Biden administration deciding not to extend parole status to those or for those that were let in under this program. Regardless of how you feel about the program, I want you to think about some pros and cons of a migrant program like this. a program which is designed to get border crossings down and give certain migrants a legal pathway to live and work in the United States. As I always say, ignore the

first thought that comes to your mind that's usually indicative of your conscious or subconscious bias and think through some pros and cons, both pros and cons of a program like this. If you want to take it one step further, think about some effects that the government's recent decision not to extend parole status will have on those that have come to the country through this program. That is what I have for you today. Remember, the next episode is Thursday and there will be no episodes next week. So have a great Wednesday, and I will talk to you again on Thursday.