Afghanistan, and the Bigger Picture of Asylum and Immigration
Ilya Somin writes persuasively that we should let in more immigrants—and not just the most obvious victims.
The sudden (but not entirely unpredictable) collapse of the American-trained forces in Afghanistan has woken much of the country up to the futility of our “forever wars” in the Middle East. Beyond the waste of a trillion dollars and countless lives over twenty years (for what?), we are now left with yet another humanitarian refugee crisis. Many European countries seem to have had their fill of refugees, and the Biden administration has yet to follow through on its promises to expedite asylum for the most desperate Afghans, who are now facing brutal persecution at the hands of the Taliban.
Most people agree that those who assisted the U.S. effort and thus find a target on their heads should be given priority for asylum status. But what about those who are seeking asylum from forced labor under terrorist groups like the Taliban or, in other countries, ISIS? In a recent USA Today article, GMU legal scholar Ilya Somin directs our attention to a bizarrely cruel ruling by the Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals in 2018 classifies such slave laborers as ineligible for asylum because their forced labor qualifies as “material support” for terrorism.
Somin joined me to explain how such legal gymnastics were ever justified in the first place, and what the current Attorney General can do about it. We also considered the arguments for and against letting in larger numbers of refugees from Afghanistan and other countries.
Buy Ilya’s Book or follow him on Twitter and at Reason’s Volokh Conspiracy blog.
TRANSCRIPT
Bob Zadek 00:33
I’m happy to welcome back to our show this morning Ilya Somin. Ilya is a professor of law at George Mason University. He focuses on the areas of constitutional law, property law, democratic theory, federalism, and migration rights. You will recall that Ilya joined us a while ago upon the publication of his most recent book, Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom. It is interesting that Ilya brought together in one book so many important and very related concepts. Ilya studies the rights of those who wish to travel — the rights to travel freely both within the country and between countries. Ilya’s views and writings are particularly important in light of the chaos at the Afghan airport and in Afghanistan more broadly. Ilya, welcome to the show this morning. Thanks for giving us the time for you to share your wisdom with us.
Ilya Somin 01:54
Thank you very much for having me.
The History and Constitutionality of Immigration Laws
Bob Zadek 01:56
When we talk about immigration, let’s start at the legal top. What does the Constitution tell us about who controls immigration and what should be the rules, if any, governing immigration policy?
Ilya Somin 03:14
The text of the Constitution actually tells us very little about immigration. The Constitution enumerates a large number of powers that the federal government has, but interestingly, restricting immigration is not one of them. There is the power to naturalize new citizens — that is, to make somebody who isn’t already a citizen and give citizenship rights, but interestingly, the Constitution does not specifically enumerate any federal government power over immigration. I think the implication therefore, at least at the time, was that most authority over immigration was actually in the hands of the states, which is the way that it worked for most of the first 100 years in American history.
“The Constitution does not specifically enumerate any federal government power over immigration.”
Early on, even in the 1790s, there was debate about the scope of federal power over immigration. Congress under the Federalist John Adams enacted the Alien and Sedition Act, which gave the power to the President to expel any non-citizens that he thought were dangerous in some ways. Many people, including James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, argued that the Alien Act was unconstitutional because the federal government did not have any general power to restrict immigration. They eventually prevailed. When Thomas Jefferson became president, he allowed the act to expire. It was never actually used.
Beginning in the late 19th century in the Chinese Exclusion case, a ruling heavily influenced by racism against Chinese, the Supreme Court has said that there doesn’t need to be a specifically enumerated power over immigration. We should just assume that the federal government has the power over it because all governments were supposed to have that power. Ever since then it has been taken for granted that the federal government does have the power to exclude immigrants if it wishes. That’s certainly the state of affairs under current jurisprudence. In terms of what the Constitution says, it says almost nothing directly. It does imply that the power over immigration is largely in the hands of the states rather than the federal government although this is one of a number of areas where we’ve greatly departed from the text and original meaning over time.
Bob Zadek 05:33
To say “powers that the federal government has created” is not quite right because the Supreme Court cannot endow the federal government with powers. It really says the powers are already there — you just have to really look closely to find them. In fact, that distinction may seem almost to an average citizen somewhat silly, either the powers are there, or they are not there. We can start with the premise that the Supreme Court created enormous powers that the founders perhaps never intended. The Supreme Court at the time felt otherwise in reviewing the Chinese Exclusion Act, but there we have it.
We start with a premise that the federal government has power to limit immigration that perhaps the founders never intended us to have. The Supreme Court did not make that decision based upon any lofty principle. They simply decided the power was there. We would like to say that the Constitution builds the government around certain principles, such as those written about by Ilya in his many books, including Free to Move. The fact is that there is an inherent right that people have to freely travel within a country and from country to country.
Next we have the Supreme Court saying the government should have or has the power to control immigration. We’ll start there with the Chinese Exclusion Act at the very end of the 19th century. Now, Ilya, you and I firmly believe that the issue of immigration is not simply drafted under the statute, but there are. We would like to think first principles that govern immigration, specifically, and the right to travel even between states in general.
Just so our audience can follow the conversation this morning, what would you say and what does your book present as the first principles which ought to govern all legislation regarding immigration and migration from country to country to find a better life?
Ilya Somin 09:10
In my view, there should be a presumption of freedom of movement across international boundaries, much likely there is already a presumption of freedom of movement between states within the United States. That way, people would be free to move to a location which has better government policies, where they can be more free, where they can seek out opportunities for themselves and their families, and so on — even if there should be limitations on that right.
“[T]here should be a presumption of freedom of movement across international boundaries.”
I don’t claim that any right can be completely absolute. Even if there should be limitations, they should not be based simply on where you were born or who your parents are, which is the main limiting factor in most current immigration law that in almost any other context we take for granted. The people’s liberty should not be limited based on who their parents are or where they were born. That’s one of the reasons why we reject Jim Crow’s racial segregation or South African apartheid or other similar policies, and a policy which says that if you were born south of the Rio Grande River as opposed to north of it, that means that your liberties should be severely constricted because you were born in that particular location.
Much like your race or your ethnicity, where you were born is not something that you can control. It doesn’t say anything about whether you’re a good person or not or how much freedom you should be entitled to. Again, I don’t claim that the right of freedom of movement, either international or domestic, must be 100% absolute. I doubt that any right can be completely absolute but there should be at least a strong presumption in favor of free migration that could only be overcome by some very strong evidence that if you don’t restrict it, some great harm will occur, and also that the only way to prevent the harm is to keep you from being able to move.
Immigration Laws: The Return of Peerage?
Bob Zadek 11:05
In support of that, it’s easy to demonstrate that it is a founding principle of our country — a first principle — that your parents, who your parents are, should have no effect upon the rights that you would enjoy. After all, one of the reasons why the colonies broke with England, and one of the principles of English society that the founding generation of our country found abhorrent, is peerage. If your parents had peer status in England, you were entitled to something. Indeed, even in our country, within society, there is I dare say a bit of resentment if you are wealthy, because you will have inherited wealth, and somehow, that fact is a minus in your character. We believe you should be measured only on how you succeeded based upon starting from zero, not based on advantage. I daresay most Americans would agree that peerage was one of the principles we fought for in the revolution. If that’s the case, then the fact that you can’t enjoy the benefits of life in our country unless your parents lived here when you were born is clearly peerage. You, the newly born human, have an advantage simply because of the accident of your birth. Those who promote strict immigration rules are promoting, in my view, the principle of peerage, which has never been one that was part of our American DNA. I couldn’t agree more obviously with that principle.
Now, here we have immigration. We have a highly complex set of rules. Observers have commented that nothing is more complex than the rules governing immigration except the Internal Revenue Code. You can’t make that comparison but it sure sounds right to me. Let’s drill down a bit to the principle we have in immigration law. This is going to seem absurdly irrational when we drill down to the law — that’s a trigger warning for those of you who like principles to make sense. And then let’s go down to the sub issue of asylum. First, we have a country which by statute — not by the principles of the Constitution — says we are going to limit who can enjoy the benefits of civilian life in America. We’re going to limit that by a whole bunch of rules. One subset of rules relevant to this morning’s discussion is those around asylum.
In the context of immigration, what does asylum mean? Tell us the bullet point headlines about the principles of asylum when applied to immigration law.
Ilya Somin 15:22
The normal default under current federal law is if you enter the United States, and you don’t have some kind of special visa that the US government granted to you, and if you’re not a US citizen, then most likely you get barred from entering or you could get deported. However, asylum is a major exception to that, in that if you’ve been persecuted in certain ways, then you can claim asylum. If the government agrees that you have been persecuted or threatened with persecution along these grounds, then you can stay in the US, even if you don’t otherwise have any kind of immigration visa or right. The grounds for asylum are usually that you’ve been persecuted on the basis of your race, ethnicity, religion, gender, political views, and one or two other things as well.
However, while this asylum system is an exception to the general rule, there are in turn other exceptions which say that even if you’re otherwise eligible for asylum, you still can’t get it if you fall into certain categories. One we’re going to talk about today, says that even if you’re otherwise eligible for asylum, you cannot claim it if you’ve given “material support for terrorism.” When that statute was drafted, Congress most likely intended that the idea is that if you’re engaged in acts of terrorism, or you have supported terrorist groups, then even if you otherwise were persecuted, say, based on your political views, then you’re not the kind of person that’s worthy of asylum. However, the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, which is an executive branch agency, which can make legal decisions about, among other things, asylum issues, ruled back in 2018 that the material support for terrorism of principle applies, even in a situation where the person in question was a slave labor for a terrorist group.
In this case, it was a woman from El Salvador. She and her husband were kidnapped by left wing guerrillas in El Salvador back in the 1990s. The guerrillas proceeded to kill her husband before her eyes, after forcing him to dig his own grave. Then they forced her to work as slave labor for them — cooking and cleaning, washing clothes and the like. Absurdly, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that her serving as a slave labor for these guerrillas qualified as material support for terrorism, and therefore she was not eligible to apply for asylum. This has much broader applicability than just this one person’s case. It also applies to many terrorist groups, including the Islamic State or the Taliban, which often make use of forced labor of various kinds.
For instance, in the extreme case, under this ridiculous reasoning, if you were one of the many Yazidi women that ISIS used as sexual slave laborers, then you on this theory provided material support for terrorism, and therefore you’re not eligible to apply for asylum in the US even though if there’s anybody who’s a victim of oppression of the kind that asylum is supposed to protect against, it’s somebody that was literally turned into a slave based on their religion or their ethnicity, as happened with many people captured by ISIS, and to some extent, the Taliban and other terrorist groups as well.
“[I]f there’s anybody who’s a victim of oppression of the kind that asylum is supposed to protect against, it’s somebody that was literally turned into a slave based on their religion or their ethnicity.”
Similarities Between Asylum Laws and Hate Crimes
Bob Zadek 19:21
When you were describing all of the types of oppression which qualify the immigrant to asylum, it sounded to me very similar to hate crime legislation, which says if you’re murdered or if a violent crime is committed against you, the punishment for that violent crime will be “x” years of prison if the perpetrator is convicted. However, if the reason you were killed or harmed was because somebody hated you, then the sentence is enhanced. In other words, certain types of motivations are punished more severely. The crime is the same. The victim is still dead or harmed. It doesn’t matter to the victim.
How absurd is that? Here we have the same types of political judgments being made. Some would be immigrant’s life is horrendous, but to get asylum, it has to be horrendous for the right reason. In other words, haven’t we decided as a country that we don’t care if you are oppressed, but you have to be oppressed for the right reason before we will let you win?
Ilya Somin 22:37
Pretty much. At least under the asylum rules, the idea is that if you’re oppressed based on this list of characteristics — race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinions — then you’re eligible for asylum. If, on the other hand, you live in a totalitarian state where everybody or almost everybody is oppressed or if you were oppressed for some other reason not covered on this particular list, then you’re out of luck. I think the analogy to hate crimes makes some sense, but it actually underestimates the scope of the problem because at least in the hate crimes context, we’re not saying, “if you murder somebody, just because you don’t like them, that’s not a crime at all. Whereas if you murder somebody based on their race or religion than it is,” we’re just saying that you’ll be punished a little bit extra, if you do it based on race or religion.
On the other hand, here, we have a list of characteristics for which if you qualify, you’re eligible to stay in the US. If you don’t qualify, it’s not just that you get some less valuable status that still enables you to stay in the US, you’re excluded completely. The differences are much more stark than it is in most hate crimes contexts in that we don’t have in the criminal code, as far as I know, any crimes which say that this is only a crime if done for racial reasons or for reasons of religion, or whatnot. If you do it to somebody for some other reason, like beat them up or steal from them or kill them, then it’s not a crime at all.
Addressing Common Objections to Immigration
Bob Zadek 24:18
You and I do our very best, as do most people, to not just establish personal rules of behavior and rules, but also rules by which we think our government ought to operate as well. We’d like to think there are principles governing those rules, and we stand behind our principles.
Now, assume that all of the would-be immigrants say they want to have a better life for themselves and for their children and family members. That’s the best reason in the world, as far as I’m concerned. Let us also assume that by one measure or another, the collective quality of life of existing American citizens would be somewhat diminished. Let’s say their wages might go down. Let’s say their quality of life or social life would be impaired. Let’s say housing would become more expensive. None of those are true, but just to test the principle, would that be grounds to limit the number of immigrants who can enter our borders if all they want — and I’m not minimizing it — is to enjoy a better life? Should they be allowed to move even if there is some statistically supportable detriment to collective life in America?
Ilya Somin 27:45
In my book, I go over two types of reasons why people argue that the government should be able to exclude potential immigrants. One reason is that the government just has a general right to exclude people for any reason they want, even if the immigrants are not causing any particular harm. We talked about that a little bit earlier, we might perhaps talk about it again later. There’s another category of reasons which requests and touches on, which is that maybe immigration or at least immigration of certain people causes particular types of harms, like, it might reduce the wages of native born workers, it might overburden the welfare state, it might increase crime, and so on.
In my book, I outline a useful three-part way of thinking about those problems. First, we want to ask, is the problem actually real? In many cases, the answer is either no, or at the very least, that it’s greatly overblown. For example, far from increasing crime in the US, immigration actually reduces the crime rate because immigrants, including even undocumented immigrants have lower crime rates than native born Americans.
Let’s say there is a genuine problem — the evidence shows that there are some negative side effects of migration. The second question we want to ask is, can we address this problem by some means less draconian and harmful than excluding immigrants entirely? For example, let’s say you are worried that immigrants will overburden the welfare state, there’s an obvious alternative solution for that, and that is simply limit eligibility for welfare benefits, which by the way, we already do under the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 and various other types of legislation. That’s a problem which has what scholars call a “keyhole solution,” a solution that addresses the issue but without keeping people out.
Finally, let’s say there is a real problem and there isn’t a keyhole solution which is likely to work. Still, before we say that immigration restrictions are justified, we have to remember that immigration creates vast new wealth. When people move from poor and oppressive societies to more free ones like the US or Europe or Canada, they become vastly more productive than they were before. Obviously, that enables them to get more wealth, but also creates more wealth for the host society as well. If necessary, we can tap some of that wealth to alleviate negative side effects of immigration that we think deserve to be addressed. For instance, let’s say you are worried that there’s some category of native born workers that will be disadvantaged, and their wages might fall if there is immigration of a particular type. An obvious solution to that is to tax some of the new wealth created by migration and create wage subsidies for that group of workers. I’m not necessarily arguing that this is a good policy. All I’m suggesting is that it’s better than excluding people entirely.
In the book, I apply this three-part test to a wide range of problems that people claim are caused of immigration such as immigrants might be bad voters, immigrants might lead to job competition or reduction of wages and might increase crime and a large number of other issues as well. For virtually all the standard issues that are raised, either it’s just not much of a problem in the first place, or there’s a keyhole solution, or there’s some way that we can tap the vast wealth created by immigration to address the issue. In many cases, actually, all three are true — that it’s not much of a problem and there’s also a keyhole solution, for example, if it were to become a problem.
Now, I don’t claim that this applies to all conceivable harms caused by immigration in all conceivable situations. One can imagine cases, though they’re very rare in the real world, where there’s some great harm caused by immigration that there’s just no solution for no way to alleviate other than by exclusion. Even then, however, I think you need proof that the harm really is great, and that it’s so great that it justifies consigning large numbers of people to the lives of poverty and oppression. I would apply the same standards to this as we would apply to the restriction of any other important human rights.
For example, I strongly believe in broad freedom of speech, even for people with awful political views. You can imagine circumstances where maybe your only options are either to suppress the freedom of speech of fascists or to let fascist come to power and take over the country. In theory, this could be the only alternative. In that situation, restrict the freedom of speech, but I would want to set a high burden of proof for showing that those really are only two options. If it’s the Weimar Republic in 1933, maybe they really are the only two options. Most situations are not like that.
The Exception within the Exception: Asylum, but Not for Slave Labor?
Bob Zadek 32:56
Now, in your recent article, you called attention to this sub-exception dealing with slave labor, and to a policy in the Biden administration and to what is going on with the policy leftover from the Trump administration. It carried over to the Biden administration with certain actions taken by Attorney General Garland. You mentioned it a second ago in dealing with the El Salvadoran woman who was, under cruel circumstances, denied a visa. Explain to us exactly who gets asylum, but tell us a bit more about giving aid and comfort to the enemy. It seems like common sense. After all, if somebody gives aid and comfort to the enemy, they ought to be excluded from the free right of entry into the US. Tell us a bit about the history of those rulings. They were rulings by the executive branch, which violates the first principles of our country about how the judicial system ought to be separate from the executive.
Ilya Somin 36:17
If you’re subject to certain kinds of persecution in your country of origin, then you’re eligible for asylum upon entry into the United States, for example, if you’re subject to persecution based on race, religion, nationality, your political views, and some other criteria as well.
But there are in turn some exceptions to that where even if you were subject to that kind of persecution, you’re still not eligible for asylum if you’ve done certain other kinds of things. One of them is providing material support for terrorism. I think when Congress adopted that law, their idea was that we want to keep out terrorists. Remember terrorist groups include people who have provided them support. That’s at least a reasonable policy. You can argue about how much support is enough for something like that, but on its face, it’s reasonable.
Unfortunately, this issue then came up in a decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, which is part of the Justice Department. It’s an executive branch agency, which makes administrative rulings on immigration cases, including in this case, asylum cases. They absurdly said that this principle of excluding people for material support for terrorism applies in a situation where the person in question with a slave labor for a terrorist organization. I highly doubt that this is what Congress intended when they enacted the law. Nonetheless, that’s what the Board of Immigration Appeals says. The Board of Immigration Appeals, BIA for short, is one of a number of administrative organizations in the executive branch, which make what arguably are legal decisions. They make judicial-like decisions, but they’re not part of the judiciary. They’re part of the executive branch. Their decisions sometimes can be appealed to the courts or reviewed by them in certain cases. At least in the first instance, they get to make these kinds of legal decisions here back in 2018. The BIA decided that if you’re a slave laborer for a terrorist organization, you provided material support for terrorism, and therefore you’re not eligible for asylum. I don’t think you have to be a lawyer or a legal scholar to see how absurd and ridiculous that is. Nonetheless, that’s what they said.
Certifying Power of Attorneys General
Bob Zadek 38:59
Thank you for pointing out the distinction between the judicial type decisions made by the executive branch, which violates constitutional principles of separation of powers. I just want that to not get past the audience without special mention. For this decision, which is now precedent within the administrative agency, how easy can that line of reasoning be overcome? Does it require legislation? Does it require executive action? Can the Attorney General acting alone through the powers of the Attorney General simply say, “No, we are not going to adhere to that administrative ruling? How much is the country bound by that? Has that now become part of our jurisprudence?
Ilya Somin 40:04
This big decision is binding on lower level executive branch officials, including case officers and alike who consider a request for asylum in the first instance. However, under the statute, which establishes the powers of the BIA, the Attorney General can actually reverse their decisions pretty much anytime he wants to add a mere stroke of his pen, he can use what is in legal language called his certification power. He can simply put out a memo saying, “I certify this decision and I reverse it.”
He can then say, “Instead of the rules set up in this decision, this is what I think the correct rules should be.” Then his ruling would be binding on the BIA and also on the lower level executive branch officials who are supposed to obey BIA rulings. This power was actually used in the Trump administration a number of times by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse BIA rulings that were favorable to immigrants and asylum seekers. The new Attorney General, Merrick Garland, has used it in some other cases himself already. He can very easily reverse this if he wanted to.
Now, you might say it’s a bad system where the Attorney General can do just this on his own – change the law, so to speak. If so, the problem is in the statute authorizing this. I would be happy if Congress were simply to pass a law, making it clear that being a slave laborer is not material support for terrorism but unless and until they do that, the Attorney General does have the power to certify this decision and other decision of the BIA that he wants to and potentially reverse it.
Maybe Congress should adopt a system where all these issues are decided by an independent judicial body that is outside of the control of the Attorney General. Until they change the law, the Attorney General can do what he or she wants. I hope in this case that Merrick Garland, if he catches wind of this issue, will see how ridiculous a ruling was and therefore certify to reverse it.
Bob Zadek 42:25
All that Garland would have to do if he’s worried at all about political consequences, not that he should be, is read one word, “intentionally.” This is now my opinion, as a non-immigration-specialist. That’s politically okay. It’ll pass muster. Then with adding that word, although this line of cases dealing with what you refer to is your piece in USA Today, the slave labor exception disappears. You just have to read one, obvious word, which is clearly intended anyway. Because if you don’t have “intentionally,” then theoretically, paying taxes to an autocratic terrorist government, your tax dollars up providing support to terrorism if the government is terrorist, and therefore anybody who pays taxes in a terrorist regime is therefore providing material support (albeit involuntarily and indirectly). I think that’s all that would be done. There I am, Ilya, practicing immigration law and practicing administrative law without the training to do so, just offering a thought.
Economic Refugees: A New Category for Asylum?
Bob Zadek 44:21
It is insufficient, that your life is really horrible. It has to be horrible for the right reasons. How irrational can that be? A premise in your book is that immigrants have rights. There is an inherent right to move from place to place. I think nobody would dispute that but we don’t grant asylum to somebody whose reason for coming here is their life is economically hopeless, though it is oppressing them, i.e., their life in Venezuela is economically hopeless and not likely to get better. They want to live a hopeful rather than hopeless life. Does that qualify for asylum? How can we take the most basic reason why people ought to be “Free to Move” (to use the title of your book) and say the most basic reason is insufficient. You can’t merely want a better life. That’s it’s almost painful to talk about. It’s so cruel.
Ilya Somin 45:43
Yes, I agree with you. The implicit idea behind the current system, not just in the US but also in many other countries, is that there’s a difference between political refugees — those fleeing political persecution — and “economic migrants.” Very often, the reason why people engage in economic migration is in fact because their government is awful and oppressive, as in the case of Venezuela. In Venezuela, the reason why so many people are poor and starving is primarily because of the policies of the government because of its socialist ideology, which we’re trying to implement. In a case like that, and in many other cases, the distinction between the political and the economic is largely artificial. It’s a little bit strange to say that if the Venezuelan Government targets you because of your political views, then you’re eligible for asylum. If you’re just oppressed in the same way, as everybody in Venezuela is, then you’re out of luck, even though that more generalized oppression might be truly horrific in many ways.
Bob Zadek 46:51
Economic oppression implies that these immigrants want to contribute to our economy. That is, per se, a profound benefit. Somebody wants to come here and wants to spend eight to 12 hours a day contributing to our economy and providing us with a good or a service that we would like to purchase at the price they are offering it. The effect upon Americans of being deprived of freedom of hiring these immigrants is that if I want to hire these immigrants, my government says I don’t get a shot at doing so.
I’ll close by saying we are being deprived ourselves the freedom to choose (now I have to borrow a phrase from Milton Friedman) who we get to hire. We don’t even get a shot at hiring these immigrants who want to provide us with goods and services. Now, Ilya, your book, which has become the Bible for those who want to learn about freedom to move from place to place, has been quoted extensively. You have become quite an expert on the book. I was delighted when the book came out. How could our listeners out there follow your writings and your work at Scalia School of Law?
Ilya Somin 48:32
The easiest way is you can just Google my name, Ilya Somin. You can find my website. Many of my readings are available for free there. I also write regularly for the Volokh conspiracy blog on the Reason magazine website and much of what I write there, all of what I write there actually is available for free as well. My book Free to Move, as well as various of my other books, are available on Amazon and other websites as well, though, sadly, if you want to get the books, you have to pay for it.
Bob Zadek 49:09
Thank you so much for giving us your time and sharing your thoughts. Let us hope that Merrick Garland has read and taken your suggestion seriously. It’s so easy with a stroke of a pen, the writing of three or four syllables to make life materially better for those would be immigrants who truly deserve it. Thank you so much for bringing that to our attention, Ilya, and for giving us this time on your Sunday morning. This is Bob Zadek hoping my friends out there have enjoyed my hour with Ilya. If you have, please let us know by indicating on the podcast that you enjoyed the show so that we get lots of lots and lots of stars and your comments are always welcome. Thank you again, my friends, for listening to us.
LINKS:
Related Shows:
- Foot Voting > Ballot Voting with Ilya Somin, May 14, 2020
- Rethinking Afghanistan with Jonathan Bydlak, January 3, 2020
