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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Well, here we are, again, holding our breaths on a Supreme Court decision day and as the clock strikes 10 o'clock, the hour at which the court begins to release its rulings on days like this every June. We are of course waiting for the ruling in the Mississippi abortion rights case. Will Roe v. Wade be completely reversed, or something short of that? Remember the Mississippi law at issue bans abortions after 15 weeks not before, but the court may use it as an opportunity to undo all of Roe.

We're waiting for the ruling on gun rights in New York City, which could also have national implications. The city strictly limits which licensed gun owners may carry their firearms in public. The Supreme Court may declare that the Second Amendment right to bear arms means the right to bear arms in public on the streets of New York and everywhere else, not just in your home for the most part. If the city agrees you have a special need to be armed as you walk around, they issue a license for that. That's the status quo that the court might throw out.

We're awaiting some other key decisions too. Can a public school football coach take a knee in prayer on the 50-yard line after every game, or is that a kind of establishment of his religion by him as a school authority figure that creates an uncomfortable environment and violates the religious liberties of students of different faiths?

There's also a religious school vouchers case. When can the taxpayers be asked to find a family's decision to go for a specific religious education for their kids? That's a particular case for particular kind of families and particular kinds of areas, but it could have larger implications. There's the big climate-related case that could come down today as well. Was President Biden within his rights to order certain clean power standards without an act of Congress?

We're awaiting a major immigration decision regarding the program known as Remain in Mexico that President Trump imposed on people seeking asylum and coming from the south, and the Biden administration wants the right to end. We will focus on that one for part of our first segment today, as we wait to see what the court actually has in store for us.

We will also take this opportunity to note an important 10th anniversary that is occurring this month, the 10th anniversary of a program begun by President Obama, which itself remains the subject of a case likely heading to the Supreme Court, the program known as DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

President Obama: Effective immediately, the Department of Homeland Security is taking steps to lift the shadow of deportation from these young people. Over the next few months, eligible individuals who do not present a risk to national security or public safety will be able to request temporary relief from deportation proceedings and apply for work authorization. Now, let's be clear, this is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It's not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.

Brian Lehrer: Talented, driven, patriotic young people. I don't think you have to pass a patriotism test, or establish a special talent, or that you're particularly driven, but that was the law. DACA recipients, heads up, we're inviting your calls on how DACA has worked out so far for you with the particular temporary, and President Obama there said, temporary legal status it has conferred. How has it worked out for you or other members of your family? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.

What kinds of legal advantages did you take advantage of? In what ways are you, or your parents, or your younger siblings still in legal limbo? What would you like to see in future policy? 212-433-WNYC for any recipients of DACA to start out today as we await the other court rulings anytime now. 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

With us now is Elora Mukherjee, Columbia Professor and Director of the Columbia University Immigration Rights Clinic at the Columbia University Law School where she teaches. Professor Mukherjee, thanks for coming on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Elora Mukherjee: Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: First, as we hold our breath waiting for Supreme Court decisions, remind us of the immigration case we're waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on. What's it called exactly and who are suing whom?

Elora Mukherjee: Right. The case is called Biden v. Texas and the decision may come down at any moment. This is a challenge to the Biden administration's rescission of the Remain in Mexico policy. I'll provide a little background on it.

As you already mentioned, the Trump administration created the Remain in Mexico policy, which forces people seeking asylum to await their immigration court dates in dangerous conditions in Mexico. Tens of thousands of people, about 70,000, in fact, have been required to participate in this program and many tens of thousands of them are waiting in unsanitary tent encampments just south of our border.

There have been widespread reports of sexual assaults, kidnappings, torture, and murders of asylum seekers, including children and families subjected to this program. I've been to these refugee camps and spoken with families and children who've been kidnapped, who've been sexually assaulted. I've walked through these camps that don't have basic necessities like running water.

In recognition of this humanitarian crisis, when he was on the campaign trail, President Biden promised that he would end Remain in Mexico recognizing the grave harms that it caused to asylum seekers. Biden followed through on his promise and terminated the policy, but the states of Texas and Missouri then sued, and a federal district court judge in Texas ordered the federal government to restart the program.

The Biden administration has since made multiple efforts to end the program but those have not been successful. The Biden administration is currently implementing the remain in Mexico policy, while the litigation continues and remains pending at the Supreme Court.

Brian Lehrer: For you as a law professor, just very briefly in thumbnail form, what are the arguments in that case from both sides?

Elora Mukherjee: There are three basic principles at stake in the case. The first is what is the ability of an incoming president to conduct foreign affairs and undo the policies of a former administration? Traditionally, the Supreme Court has granted very wide deference to the executive branch conduct of foreign affairs, and there has also been relatedly a democratic principle animating the idea that an incoming president can change the policies of a prior administration.

Second, what is at issue is whether the federal government is required to detain all asylum seekers. There's a provision in immigration law that was passed in 1996 that says that all asylum seekers must be, shall be detained but never has Congress appropriated sufficient funds to allow for the detention of all of the immigrants who come through our southern border. Let's take 2021, last year, for example. The government processed about 670,000 migrants arriving along the Mexican border, but only had the capacity to detain about 34,000. At issue in this case is whether the government must detain all of these asylum seekers.

Third and perhaps most importantly, the lives of asylum seekers are at stake. I've already mentioned the tremendous grave harms that asylum seekers are facing when subjected to this program, this Remain in Mexico program. We need to see whether our country can live up to its best ideals and our commitments to upholding international human rights norms.

Brian Lehrer: Let's go on to DACA. We will come back to Remain in Mexico if that case is decided in the coming minutes while you're on the show, or we'll come back to it later in the show, if that's a major decision that comes down today. We're watching news feeds from news organizations that cover the court and we will let everybody know exactly what comes down as soon as it comes down. They’re starting to release decisions already. There's one just got released that's not on our list of major things. I'm not going to get into it now, but they have started releasing decisions.

There are 18 if I'm not mistaken, or I think- -it’s 13 actually left to go for this term, including the ones that I mentioned. Professor Mukherjee, they do tend to have a bit of a sense of theater at the Supreme Court. The opening acts lead up to the headline blockbuster superstars. We got the big ones that everybody's waiting for in the last days of the term usually. Is that a matter of theater on the part of the court?

Elora Mukherjee: I don't know if theater is quite the right word, but it certainly does feel like a nail biter. I think that the justices are working to develop their best work product and respond to one another's arguments. Both the majority opinions and the dissents in these controversial cases need to be thoroughly fleshed out and address each other's points before they go public.

Brian Lehrer: Certainly with the leak of the Alito draft on abortion rights, we know there was more contentiousness among the Supreme Court justices than there usually is in a typical year, and some positioning through the leak to try to affect how it turns out from one side or another. I've heard speculation that somebody who wants the Alito draft enshrined as is, to throw out Roe v. Wade entirely wanted to make sure that the world knew that enough justices were lined up with him at that moment, as of February when that draft was written so they would get, I don't know, politically intimidated into staying on that track rather than compromising and going for something softer that Chief Justice Roberts reportedly wants.

Or there are people who speculate that it was leaked by somebody in the know who is aghast, that the Supreme Court would go so far and was hoping for a public backlash and a softening of the final ruling. We don't know what's going to happen, but we know to your point that there's back and forth often on the big cases right until the end.

All right, let's turn to DACA while we wait. This is the 10th anniversary. We heard that clip from president Obama from June, 2012. Remind us of how the DACA program came about and how a president was able to start it with executive action when Congress was gridlocked on what to do legally with respect to these young adults at that time, but who were brought here as children through no decisions of their own by their undocumented parents.

Elora Mukherjee: Sure. At the outset, we must recognize the massive successful organizing and advocacy campaign that dreamers had engaged in four years, leading up to the passage of DACA through executive action 10 years ago. They worked extremely hard to change the hearts and minds of both policy makers and the American public in general. When their efforts in Congress failed repeatedly, they turned to the executive branch and convinced the Obama administration to take positive executive action on their behalf.

10 years ago, then secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano issued a three-page memo creating the DACA program. The result is a fundamental change in the lives of about 700,000 dreamers. Who qualifies for the program? Under the Obama era program from 10 years ago, qualified individuals were brought to the United States as children. They would be given temporary legal status, so two-year reprieves from deportation if they graduated from high school or were honorably discharged from the military, and if they passed a background check. In addition to this reprieve from deportation, these young people would qualify for the first time for lawful work authorization in the United States.

In announcing the program, Obama described the dreamers as, “Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way, but one, which is on paper." The program has allowed dreamers to get college degrees, to start their careers, to buy cars, to buy homes, but it hasn't been all happy in these past 10 years. It's worth noting that just months after taking office, President Trump's administration moved to revoke the program.

In 2017, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared DACA illegal and unconstitutional, and very shortly thereafter, acting DHS Secretary Duke issued a memo rescinding DACA. Now that case wound its way to the Supreme Court, and two years ago on June 18th, the Supreme Court issued a 5/4 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts saying that the Trump administration's decision to rescind DACA was arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.

In other words, when the Trump administration ended the program, they didn't do so in a thoroughly reasoned opinion and the Department of Homeland Security didn't adequately consider the reliance interests of the dreamers who had built their entire lives on this program.

Fast forward a few years, today DACA is in the middle of another legal challenge. A federal judge ruled just last year that the program is illegal in a case brought by the state of Texas. The current state of DACA is that people are not-- so this current generation of dreamers, the folks who are currently graduating from high school, they are no longer eligible to apply to the DACA program. The only petitions that the Department of Homeland Security can currently grant are petitions to renew DACA.

For the existing dreamers who already secured their DACA status, they're able to renew their two-year temporary reprieves from deportation and their work authorizations, but new people are not allowed into the program. What that leaves is about 80,000 immigrants in limbo, whose DACA applications are on hold indefinitely and hundreds of thousands more who at this point do not have a chance to apply to the program.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to give some numbers here, which are pretty interesting from an LA Times story the other day. Again, to remind people of the basics as Professor Mukherjee was just describing, to qualify for DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, you had to be a childhood arrival, first of all. You had to have been in the US since 2007. You have to have arrived before turning 16 and be under age 31 as of 2012 when the program went into effect. They also needed to meet certain educational and criminal history requirements as the LA Times remind us.

As they say, as DACA turns 10, it's bittersweet for a lot of people. You estimated 80,000 people, they estimated 100,000 people. Other immigrant youths in these same circumstances who were brought by their parents before age 16, they're now under age 31, all the things that allowed people into the DACA program to work here legally, to be here legally, to get that renewed every two years, the exact same conditions for these young Americans. But what the Trump administration managed to do, and through these court cases was to suspend DACA, as you were just describing for anybody who wants to join the program now.

It's this particular discreet group of people from a moment in time 611,470 people, according to this LA Times article, who were just the right age in just the right status, at just the right time who were able to qualify and are now here legally as they approach their 40s, right Professor?

Elora Mukherjee: That's right. I think it bears noting what President Obama said in announcing this program, this executive action. That it was only intended as a temporary stopgap measure. What we need is comprehensive immigration reform as well as comprehensive immigration legislation for dreamers that would expand the program and create a path to citizenship for this highly patriotic, highly American group of people. As the Supreme Court noted in its opinion from 2020, dreamers benefit American society as a whole and dreamers contribute more than $60 billion in tax revenue to our coffers.

I think another point worth mentioning at the outset is the DACA program only targets a small fraction of the 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in our country. It was never intended to be a permanent fix, and there are so many people left out of the program

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we renew our call. If you are a DACA recipient, or if you know a DACA recipient, maybe you employ a DACA- -recipient, maybe you're related to a DACA recipient, maybe a DACA recipient is one of your friends, maybe you are the younger sibling of a DACA recipient and you don't qualify even though you're in basically the same position that they were. Who wants to call and talk about your experience as a DACA recipient, or somebody looking in from the outside, or somebody who employs, or is otherwise close in any way to any DACA recipients? How's this working out on the 10th anniversary? 212 -433-WNYC. 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer with Professor Elora Mukherjee, who’s the Director of the Columbia University Law School Immigrant Rights Clinic.

Let's take our first phone call. Brian in Randolph, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Brian.

Brian: Hi, good morning. Good morning, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Love your show. Listen every day. I grew up in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. In 2007, our mayor Lou Barletta, who has since been in Congress and ran for governor of Pennsylvania, passed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. It was a municipal ordinance. I didn’t get into the details. It disgusted me.

I was in law school at the time. When Trump came into power, and I heard your guest, talk about the various things that Attorney General Sessions did, and I took on a pro bono case. I was an attorney, a securities lawyer in the New York area. I took on a pro bono case representing a 33-year-old father and his eight-year-old daughter who left El Salvador. He was a police officer who had been receiving a number of threats. He was involved in a shootout with the gang, injured a gang member and had an ongoing court case where he was found to have fired his weapon fairly and in the line of duty, but didn't stop the threats. He had no choice but to leave when they threatened his daughter.

He and his daughter were separated in May of 2018 at the border near El Paso. She was sent to New York, he was sent to New Mexico. Eventually, they were reunited through an organization called KIND, Kids In Need Of Defense, it’s the organization I did the pro bono matter with. Just as I was talking to your screener and just realizing how much these two wanted to be citizens, the freedom, the security, the feeling of safety and being able to have sleep, just to have some type of protected status in the United States, they would do anything.

When he was pulled over for not wearing his seatbelt, he was terrified. Every three weeks we had to go to ICE in the Rodino Building in Newark. We'd stand in line at 6:00 AM. The security he felt having an attorney by his side made a ton of difference. Eventually, they were able to move to-- it was a scary situation having to get on a plane without ID, flying to California, where he would be able to work year-round, provide for his daughter, have better access to medical resources, healthcare, just a better community network.

Just to know that some states are so welcoming, others try to be welcoming, but they're just not. Then just realized how it shouldn't be this way. It shouldn’t, these are people who work hard. They wake up every day just yearning to be part of this country and trying to be a positive part of this country. To see and here constantly, these are illegal human-- no human being is illegal. Everybody has a right to seek asylum. It's such a terrible, terrible situation. I love that you're having this program. My heart goes out to everybody who's fighting this fight. I hope so much that the future holds some better days in store for them.

Brian Lehrer: Brian, thank you.

Brian: Thanks very much, thank you.

Brian Lehrer: That's great. Thank you very much for your call. Thank you for doing pro bono work. As an attorney involved in, I think he said securities law, something completely unrelated, and taking on a case of an immigrant who he found extremely sympathetic as well as important for what that individual case represented. There was so much in that call Professor Mukherjee, but I imagine you were having some thoughts and feelings as Brian was talking. Anything you want to particularly react to?

Elora Mukherjee: Thank you, Brian. I just want to echo the thanks for your pro bono work, and for your heart, and for your empathy. I think you're raising such an important point, which is that the overwhelming majority of migrants and immigrants and asylum seekers coming to this country flee because they must. It's not because they want to leave their homes behind, but they must. Refugee poet, Warsan Shire has written, “No one flees home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”

In my daily work, everyday I'm working with asylum seekers from around the world. They have left their homes because they have no choice, but to do so to save their own lives and to save their children's lives. America has an opportunity to live up to our best ideals, ideals that our nation committed to after the horrors of World War II when The Refugee Convention was developed by Western countries. Our nation adopted those principles into domestic law with the passage of The Refugee Act in 1980.

Since then, our country has consistently made efforts to live up to The Refugee Convention with a dramatic exception during the Trump administration, when the Trump administration tried to decimate asylum in the United States, but we have a long way to go to live up to our best ideals. I encourage any of your listeners out there who care about asylum seekers and refugees to do what you can in your communities to support these both vulnerable and extremely resilient individuals.

Brian Lehrer: There's really two different groups of people we're talking about here. I realize there's a lot of overlap, but one, the asylum seekers in the Remain in Mexico case that the Supreme Court could decide any time now, those are the asylum seekers, or at least they say they're asylum seekers. Do they have a right to be in this country while they petition the government for political asylum from the conditions that they're fleeing in the Central American countries or wherever? Or do they have to live in camps and horrible conditions on the other side of the border?

How much of a right should they have to be in this country while applying to be in this country? That's the one group.

Then the DACA recipients are really different, right, because their parents may have brought them here under whatever circumstances. They may have just, as some people might put it, snuck in because they weren't next in line to apply for immigration status, but they wanted to better their lives, they wanted to get a job so they crossed the border, whatever, but the children's themselves didn't do it. They weren't necessarily here applying for asylum like first group being refugees, as you were just describing, they were just here but they were here through no choice of their own.

There was enough sympathy in the country to say, “Okay, you can stay here at least temporarily under DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival.” We're talking about two groups of people. Is that fair to say?

Elora Mukherjee: Yes, absolutely, Brian. We're talking about two very distinct groups of people. For the dreamers, it's easy to think of them as Americans. They are Americans except for a piece of paper showing where they were born. With the asylum seekers who are subject to the Remain in Mexico program, it is much easier for American policymakers and the American public to think of them as the other, as people who are not us, who don't belong in our nation. That is part of why our nation currently is tolerating tens of thousands of refugees living in squalor at our Southern border.

This was not the case before 2019. We didn't have tent encampments along our Southern border. This is a direct result of both the Remain in Mexico policy and the Title 42 order developed by the Trump administration to keep migrants out under a public health pretext.

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute. Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC with Columbia Law Professor, Elora Mukherjee. She's also Director of the Columbia Immigrants’ Rights Clinic as DACA turns 10 years old. Brenda in Princeton, you're on WNYC. Hi, Brenda.

Brenda: Hi. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: You're a DACA recipient?

Brenda: Yes, I have been for very long time. I just wanted to call and highlight the limbo that a lot of us DACA recipients are still in. Yes, I came here when I was 10. I'm going to be 40- -soon. I have two brothers that were deported who I cannot visit because we can't travel. My parents are getting older and if they go back, then what do we do? How do we see each other? They have grandkids here now that they won't be able to see at least not as often.

It's a difficult situation for people who do have DACA, but have this mixed status where families just can't see each other. It makes things really hard because we've just been here for so long and this is our home. It would be nice to just not worry about losing DACA or getting separated from more family members if you have already been separated.

Brian Lehrer: When you talk about limbo, one of the things is you have to apply for it every two years. At some point, there could be a Republican president who succeeds in undoing the DACA program altogether. It's just an every two-year temporary renewal at this time for you. Even though you have legal status in this way, it's still limbo. That's part of what you're describing, right?

Brenda: Exactly. It can be taken away at any moment and everything that we've built here, our careers, our families would be destroyed. We think about it sometimes, my husband and I, but it would just be a horrible situation. I've already gone through something like this with my brothers being deported. I just wish that it could be fixed, but there're so many things to fix. I hope that maybe people hearing more stories of our lives will just help them remember that we are still there and we still need people to support this to be fixed for the long-term.

Brian Lehrer: Did you consider at all when the DACA program was implemented not applying for DACA status? I remember we took calls on the show back then in 2012, 2013, from people who were like, "Well, this would be great. I could work here legally, et cetera, but I'm afraid of officially registering myself with the government as somebody who is undocumented because what if my application isn't accepted and now they know who I am, and where I am, and they're going to come and get me and deport me? Or if DACA does turn out to be temporary, I'm registered with them, they know who I am, where I am, they might come and deport me." Was that a tough decision at all for you at the time?

Brenda: We thought about it, some family, especially because of my parents. I figured that I would be okay because I was trying to show that I had all the checkbox. I was a good student, I wanted to go to school, I wanted to continue to build a career. It was definitely scary to think that if I was denied or they came after me, they would take my parents if nothing else. It was scary, but it was worth the try. Now it's been 10 years later and I have a career that I'm really proud of and I'm able to help my family because of that and so I think the risk was worth taking.

Brian Lehrer: Brenda, thank you so much for your call. We really, really appreciate it. Good luck to you and your whole family. Wow, what a story Professor Mukherjee, and a perfect example of something that you were talking about before, she got DACA status, two of her brothers were deported.

Elora Mukherjee: That's right. With dreamers, we see so many individuals in mixed status families where one individual or two individuals are lucky enough to have some form of legal status, DACA or another form of immigration relief, but their lives are constantly consumed by worry for their undocumented family members who may get deported, whose lives are risky and unstable. There are studies of mental health for dreamers and those in mixed status families that show understandably that these populations are at much higher risk for adverse mental health consequences stemming at least in part from the instability, the uncertainty that accompanies this type of mixed status family. Brenda, I wish you and your family all the very best.

Brian Lehrer: I want to take another caller before we run out of time. Caller may not even be the exact right word because this is Brian Lehrer Show producer, Yesica Balderrama, who is a DACA recipient who we have on line eight right now. Hi, Yesica. First of all, thanks for all your work on the show recently and welcome to the on-the-air portion of The Brian Lehrer Show.

Yesica Balderrama: Hi, thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: [laughs] Here we are talking on the radio, Yesica, after countless meetings that we've been in planning the show and everything in recent times. Well, obviously, you want to talk about your own DACA status and larger lessons maybe for our listening audience from it, yes?

Yesica Balderrama: Sure. I got DACA, maybe I was one of the first applicants. It came out halfway through when I was in college, which was a relief because it completely changed my life around. I was able to get internships and jobs I wasn't qualified for before because I didn't have a social security number. We're now on year 10 without a pathway to citizenship. That makes me a little bit nervous. I've seen my own peers find ways around it and yes, we're all still fighting for citizenship.

At this point, it's not just for us, but it's immigration reform for our families. As the previous caller mentioned, so many of us are in mixed status families. We have older relatives who are undocumented, who are not going to qualify for things like retirement or health benefits. What's going to happen to them? Yes, I don't know if any other recipients are listening, but just continue. Life goes on.

Brian Lehrer: Life goes on. What would citizenship status mean to you? This is, of course, where the political system remains gridlocked year after year, path to citizenship not happening as of now until something changes politically. What would be the practical difference for you if you were able to become a US citizen, as opposed to, let's assume it's permanently renewed every two years, DACA status?

Yesica Balderrama: I think that I would have a greater sense of security. Every two years, I have to plan ahead or I have to keep on track of the news to see if there are any new major developments just so I can prepare ahead of time what am I going to do if it gets turned down? I've already made emergency plans before. Would I go back to Mexico? How would I stay in touch with my family here? I'm the only one out of my five siblings who is undocumented.

Yes, I would definitely have a greater sense of security. That part would be settled and I wouldn't have to worry so much about the future. There's also the aspect of being out as undocumented or a DACA recipient, always worried about things like being discriminated against. That's a whole other psychological component on its own.

Brian Lehrer: Yesica, thanks for your work on the show and thanks for making your voice heard on the show, on the air today. Thank you, thank you. Professor Mukherjee, we'll wrap up with one of the points that she made about her parents and various people's parents. The people who oppose DACA did win this round, that particular round in court because President Obama also implemented something for the parents of DACA recipients, but that was overturned.

Elora Mukherjee: Exactly. A federal district court in Texas held that the Obama administration's executive action in a program known as Deferred Action for Parents of Childhood Arrivals or DAPA, exceeded his executive authority and that was struck down. Yesica, I just want to wish you and your family, your loved ones all the very best and pick up on two themes that you mentioned, one, the feeling of discrimination. It's not just the feeling of discrimination. There have been repeated lawsuits on behalf of dreamers who cannot get the employment opportunities that they are entitled to, jobs that they're qualified for because of their immigration status as DACA recipients.

Second, Yesica, I want to pick up on your point about the insecurity that you and so many dreamers are feeling and just to highlight that this is real. When I speak with dreamers and other- -immigrants, one of the hardest conversations I have with parents, in particular, is about having them prepare a power of attorney for who would take care of their children if they're detained or deported. This is an unfortunate and daily reality that dreamers and many other immigrants need to think about on a daily basis.

Just to pick up on the themes of a number of your callers, Brian, I just urge that there be comprehensive immigration reform that addresses dreamers, that addresses those folks subject to Remain in Mexico policy, asylum seekers, as well as the 10.5 million undocumented individuals who are contributing to our daily life in our country.

Brian Lehrer: Happy 10th-anniversary DACA and DACA recipients. Obviously, the immigration debate goes on both in Congress, at the state level, and also at the Supreme Court. So far, no ruling today. They're still handing them down on the immigration case, the so-called Remain in Mexico policy case. We will keep watching the Supreme Court-related news feeds because they're not done for the day yet. But for today, we thank Columbia Law Professor, Elora Mukherjee, who’s also the director of the Columbia Law School's Immigrant Rights Clinic. Thank you so much.

Elora Mukherjee: Thank you, Brian.

 

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