December 17, 2025 • 34 mins
Immigration law expert Leon Fresco, a partner at Holland & Knight, discusses a first of its kind trial of a Wisconsin judge for allegedly interfering with the ICE arrest of a migrant. Then Bloomberg Law senior reporter Emily Siegel, discusses a Bloomberg Law study of the number of cases across the country involving strip searches of kids in school for minor offenses. June Grasso hosts.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Heads Up dug, Heads Up, Heads Up Douge.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
A crowd outside the Milwaukee courthouse protested the trial of
County Circuit Court Judge Hannadugan on two federal charges for
allegedly obstructing an official Department of Homeland Security removal proceeding
by helping a migrant evade arrest. It's a first of
its kind case testing the limits for a judge interfering
(00:36):
in the Trump administration's efforts to deport migrants. Here's Nick Ramos,
executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
We are optimistic because we believed in the Constitution, We
believe in the power of solidarity through working people.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But we are deeply concerned. We see the chilling effect
that occurs when a federal administration attempts to consolidate power
and move off impunity.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It's unusual, to say the least, for the Department of
Justice to prosecute a sitting state judge, But then this
same Department of Justice sued the entire bench of federal
judges in Maryland. My guest is Leon Fresco, a partner
at Honden Knight. He was the former head of the
Office of Immigration Litigation during the Obama administration. Leon tell
(01:26):
us about the prosecution's case against Judge Dugan Well.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
The judges on trial for basically impeding and obstructing Ice
in ICE's ability to arrest a person that they were
looking for at that time who was going through criminal
proceedings in the Milwaukee County Court. So this whole trial
so far has been trying to determine that what the
(01:51):
judge did in terms of letting this individual out through
the back door, the jury dort that all of that
was irregular, that none of it had ever been done
by and that because of that, the judge's intent was
clearly to impede Ice from arresting people in the court. Now,
the problem is, because there's a trial, it's unclear if
(02:12):
the judge will be able to take advantage of a
lot of the legal defenses about control over their courtroom
and ability to manage their proceedings and Ice interfering with
all that. This seems to just now be a trial
about whether the judge actually had the intent to block
Ice from arresting this individual. And so we'll have to
(02:33):
see if basically what the judge is going to try
to do is a jur nullification play because the facts
and the law are pretty clear here where the facts
show that the judge acted in a way the judge
had never acted before, and that the judge's intent was
to have the individual floor as Ruiz not arrested by ice.
(02:53):
So this may just end up being a pure jur
nullification claim.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah. So the prosecution presented evidence that the judge had
told a court reporter, I'll do it, I'll get the heat,
and also audio tapes of what happened in the courtroom
that day, and you could hear the judge talking to
the court staff suggesting the defendant could quote go down
the stairs away from the agents.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Absolutely. If the facts of this case are really what's
a trial here and you have sort of what I
would call robot jurors who are not trying to look
at the whole issue from a three hundred and sixty
degree perspective, they would probably find that the judge would
be guilty here because the evidence appears to be overwhelming
that the judge knew what she was doing was illegal
(03:42):
and did it anyway, did not have this individual Eduardo
Flores Ruiz arrested by ice. He's subsequently been deported already.
But the question is, is the judge, like I said,
trying to rely on juror nullification. And we've seen this
in other contexts, in other prosecutions with the sign went
guy here in DC and then with you know, potentially
(04:03):
Jim call me or Latsia James. You know you're seeing
juries not wanting to make these convictions, and so maybe
this is what the judge is hoping for.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Here the fact pattern becomes a little better for the
judge because the defense attorney, instead of taking his client
out by the stairs, went into the hallway, which was
less than twelve feet from the main door to the
judges courtroom. And so the judges lawyer said in the
opening statements, quote eleven feet ten inches, that's what she's
(04:32):
on trial for. So is that sort of a way
to give the jury and out correct?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's what they're trying to do, is they're trying to
give the jury an ability to say, look, this is
all so insignificant. Why are you going to throw someone
in prison over this? And you know the subtext which
obviously they're not going to be allowed to say, and
the court is prison is a place where you keep
criminals who are going to endanger you, and so you
really want to send this person to prison because there's
(05:00):
not any danger to the community from having this judge
outside of prison, and so that's what they're leaning for.
They're definitely leaning for the journalification angle, and we're just
gonna have to wait and see if that's what happens.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So these ICE agents are stationed outside the courtroom, sometimes
in the courtrooms, I mean, what's wrong with the judge
saying go out this way? I don't think these ICE
agents should be here.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Well, I think the question is this, If the ICE
agents are in a place where a warrant is required
and they don't have a warrant, then there's absolutely no
problem with the judge directing ICE not to arrest people,
or saying that ICE is in the wrong location or
ICE needs to leave, or helping someone to maintain their
(05:45):
rights in a situation where ICE is acting against their
rights because ICE doesn't have a warrant. But the problem
is here, ICE was trying to detain this individual in
a public area where it they didn't need a warrant,
and because of that, the judge knew This is the
problem with the recordings here. The judge certainly knew that
(06:06):
the judge was impeding, and that the judge didn't actually
have a great legal argument for why the judge was
going to act in the manner to allow this individual
to essentially escape the courthouse without Ice. It would have
been one thing for the judge to confront Ice and
say you're acting illegally and I'm using my authority as
(06:28):
the judge to order you to leave the courthouse, et cetera.
But the judge didn't do it that way. Perhaps the judge,
had she thought it through, might have done it that
way is to issue an order and order Ice to
go leave and say they're acting illegally, and then they
would have been a fight about who had jurisdiction over
that courthouse. But that's not what happened here. The judge
(06:51):
basically indicates through her speech that she knows she's acting
unlawfully and does it anyway.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Of course, the defendant does not have to testify the
moment right not to you. But is this a case
where the jury might say she's a judge, shouldn't we
hear from her?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well? I think absolutely this is the kind of case
where she doesn't testify, the jury will say, what the
heck I mean, she must have had some explanation for
doing what she did. We'd want to hear it. But
of course they are not allowed to draw that in
for into it's just something that human beings do again
because they're not AI robots, but they're not allowed to
say it anywhere. They're not allowed to actually base a
(07:30):
jury decision on the fact that she didn't testify. But sure,
I'm sure that I want to say, this is a judge.
The judge should be able to explain why she did
what she did and why her intent wasn't to evade
the ICE agents. So all of that will accrue against
her if she doesn't end up testifying. But she just
may really be banking on the fact that, look, at
(07:50):
the end of the day, I'm in a big city,
and there's enough people in a big city who will
not want to prosecute a judge and put a judge
prison over something like this that I can get one
or two holdouts and that'll be the end of the story.
And I think, if I was a gambling man, that
that's actually pretty likely, even if the facts and the
(08:11):
law may not necessarily be on her side. I do
think it seems pretty likely to me that you'll get
one or two hold out, but just won't want to
put this judge in jail.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Do you think it makes a difference that the migrant here,
Eduardo Flores Ruiz was facing domestic battery charges.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I think it doesn't help her, There's no doubt about it.
And the other thing that doesn't help is there's nothing
that they can sort of put in there that mitigates
this individual or says why this individual was sympathetic in
any way, shape or form, because none of that evidence
would be deemed relevant to the criminal trial issue. So
it's definitely not helpful. But to the extent that unfortunately
(08:52):
you see this. I mean, the best example I've ever
seen of this was the Johnny Depp trial, where the
lawyers after lunch would respond to whatever was being made
on social media because they would think that the jurors
were looking at social media and they wanted to confront
whatever was being made. Jurors are these days tending to
take matters into their own hands, even if they're not
(09:14):
supposed to, and so we'll have to see what they
end up finding about this judge and everything else.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So let's also talk about immigration judges. Eight immigration judges
in New York were recently terminated in one day. A
San Francisco judge was fired in the middle of a
complicated asylum hearing. Overall, about one hundred judges out of
seven hundred have been let go, and many of the
cases involved judges with high rates of asylum approvals or
(09:43):
even backgrounds representing migrants. Is this legal for them to
fire the judges based on that?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well, the court so far have been very deferential to
the Department of Justice in terms of their ability to
fire these immigration judges. And in fact, there's been this
case law about if the president and the Attorney General
can't fire someone who's an inferior judge like this, then
that judge isn't constitutionally appointed in the first place. So
(10:14):
it appears in terms of if you were to take
that case law along its logical conclusion, it appears that
the firing of these judges is permitted for pretty much
any reason, unless it's some discriminatory reason or something else
like that. But if it's an ideological thing that that
would be permitted. The problem that it's creating is it's
(10:34):
taking a lot of experience away from the immigration bench.
None of these judges had a one hundred percent approval rate.
Many of them had let's say fifty percent approval rating,
forty percent, sixty percent, which may have been higher than
their other colleagues on the court, but weren't one hundred percent.
And the reason why I bring that up is, well,
(10:55):
those other forty percent that they were deporting on a
particular day now aren't being deported. There's no hearings for
these people, and those people will have hearing scheduled one
year or two years from now, and sure they may
be in front of a new judge that may have
a ninety percent refusal rate or a ninety five percent
refusal rate, but it may still be a year or
(11:16):
two from now. So those are tough sort of choices
that the Trump administration is trying to make about short
term versus long term. But I mean, you look at
their social media advertising and they're saying, please come join
the Immigration Court and be a quote unquote deportation judge,
which is not their job. Their job is to look
(11:38):
for the law and the facts and decide if deportation
is the correct remedy or if giving asylum or cancelation
of removal or something else is the correct remedy. And
so the fact that they're advertising those positions as deportation judges,
I don't know if there's going to be a long
term negative connotation or inference that come from that, where
(12:00):
those decisions that are issued by those judges may not
have any force of law, or if an appellate court
ends up saying that that judge was predisposed to grant
deportation because that's why they were joining the court. So
I don't know why that line of social media advertising
is there, but nevertheless that's clearly what they're trying to do.
(12:20):
There are some members of Congress that are trying to
put in some basic standards for these future hires of
immigration judges, whether it be a number of years of
experience practicing immigration law or a number of years of
experience on the bench or anything else. But we'll have
to wait and see if any of that can actually
get into an appropriations bill. But at the moment, a
(12:43):
lot of these hearings, they're basically being done with judges
that are not necessarily conversed in immigration law, and that
creates its own problems because if they make errors, then
you waste years on appeal, and then the bounces back
and you've accomplished nothing anyway. So all of those things
(13:04):
have to be weighed and considered together.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Coming up next, Why the case against Kilmore Abrigo Garcia
is starting all over again? This is Bloomberg. The Homeland
Security Department has leaned into a recruiting pitch that calls
for candidates to bring down the hammer on criminal illegal
aliens and quote, defend your communities, your culture, your very
way of life. I've been talking to immigration law expertly
(13:29):
on Fresco of Holland and Knight. I saw the numbers
that only about thirty six percent of asylum cases were
successful during Biden's last full year in office. That seems
pretty low.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, the problem is the large majority of people coming
into the United States under the Biden administration, we're just
trying to articulate on asylum case in order to get
in the country. But they never had the expectation that
they would actually ever have to show up in court
any day and asked for asylum. A lot of these
asylum cases were very weak at the end of the
(14:05):
day because they were either in countries, for instance, if
you were coming from El Salvador, or El Salvador has
actually fixed a lot of its gang violence problems, and
so it's very hard now to get asylum from a
place like El Salvador. Or if you were coming from
countries such as Venezuela. You know, you would theoretically easy. Okay,
(14:25):
you have this maduro and so you might be a
political dissident, but at the end of the day, you
had to prove what were you doing in Venezuela that
was noteworthy and famous that you would actually be persecuted
as opposed to just coming for economic opportunity. So a
lot of Venezuelan cases were being denied and all across
the world. Basically people were getting into the United States
(14:48):
with threshold cases, but when they were actually subject to
scrutiny and evidence, nobody had actually done anything in these
countries that had led them to be persecuted, and so
that's why you saw the numbers so low. It's not
that the adjudications were low because there was an emphasis
(15:08):
on making these cases denied. It's that a lot of
the cases shouldn't have been filed in the first place,
but were filed as a means to remain in the
United States.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So, speaking of immigration, judges, Abrego Garcia, he was willing
to go to Costa Rica. Why wasn't the government willing
to send him here? Why they wanted to send him
to someplace where he didn't want to go.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
This is a very complicated issue because this is why
kill Maar Abrego Garcia is still in the country, which
is there's a lot of machinations going on right now
about what stage in his case. Kill Maar Abrego Garcia
is in, because they just recently found out that they
had never actually ordered him deported, so he never actually
had a deportation order, and so he was deported without
(15:53):
a deportation order, so no one knew what the reason
was for his detention, and so they had to issue
what was called the new protunk removal order, which means
that it was back dated eleven years and now they're
basically starting his whole asylum case again from the beginning
from scratch. And all of this can be circumvented by
(16:15):
the government of the United States sending Abrego Garcia to
Costa Rica, and they just won't do it because they
want to say that if you try to circumvent the
United States laws in some manner contrary to what the
US government wants. Then the US government will make the
determination of where you go. And so they don't want
(16:35):
Kimara Abrego Garcia going to Costa Rica. And this is
one of those cases where I don't really understand it
from the standpoint of if your view is that he's
a threat to the American public, or that he's going
to be a drain of taxpayer resources or something, then
sending him to Costa Rica solves that problem. But nevertheless,
(16:56):
we are where we are now.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
The Trump administration is in increase the number of countries
whose citizens face a full or partial travel ban on
entry to the US from nineteen to thirty nine. And
of the twenty countries facing new travel restrictions, sixteen are
in Africa, and all thirty nine have majority non white populations,
(17:21):
nearly half our Muslim majority countries. I mean, is there
any logical reason?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Well, the reasons that they cite in the proclamation, So
let's go step by step. The reasons that they cite
in the proclamation are ones related to an insufficient vetting
that those countries have where they cannot give us enough
information that we can decide if someone is safe or not.
Plus they cite that each of those countries has high
(17:48):
visa refusal rate. Now there are a couple of Caribbean
countries in there, which is Antiguee, Barbuda and Dominica, where
what they say about those countries is, look, we've been
trying to tell you to knock it off in terms
of selling passports from those countries, because what happened is
people who were banned from other countries would get a
passport from Dominica or from Antigua and they would say, hey, oh,
(18:12):
I'm a member now of that country. I'm not a
passport holder of you know, Syria or Iran or something.
And they were circumventing US law through those passports. So
now they've had to say is if you're not going
to stop selling citizenship by investing in these countries, then
we're going to ban you too. So that those are
the two Caribbean countries that were banned. So they were
(18:34):
not banned for visa overstay or for lack of vetting,
but all the other countries were banned for visa overstate
rates and lack of vetting. But there are countries and
other places in the world that have hired visa overstate
rates and have other vetting issues. And in the end,
what you realize is there are some countries on these
lists that the United States want something from, and they're
(18:57):
using this to try to get those changes in whether
it be that they accept people that the United States
is trying to deport, or that they become third country
places that the United States can deport people, or whether
there's some other diplomatic agreement that they want to reach
with some of these countries. You do see some of
(19:18):
that here, but again most of this is related to
visa overstate rates, lack of vetting, and then again the
idea that the President has that the individuals coming from
these places are not, in his view, on balance, helping
the United States and its interests, as opposed to what
he thinks they're doing, which is harming the United States
(19:40):
and their interests. I would not. The most fascinating thing
of this is that some of the countries that were
banned actually are in the World Cup. Senegal is in
the World Cup, Cope var is in the World Cup,
and I wonder what's going to happen there because all
the visitor visas have been banned. So are those fans
not going to be allowed to visit the World Cup
(20:01):
even if they're very wealthy and you know, prestigious people
in those countries. So they do have an exception for
the athletes obviously and the coaches, but they don't have
any exception for the fans. So I do wonder what's
going to happen with some of those individuals.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And what about the requirement that tourists from forty two
countries have to submit social media data?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, this is going to end up being rolled out
universally and it's part of Now what the issue is
is this, we have something called the Visa Waiver Program.
It's known as ESTA, but it's really the Visa Waiver Program.
Esta's the name of the database. It's a travel authorization
system that checks people to determine whether they actually need
(20:43):
to go in and actually ask for a visa, or
whether their background is clean enough that they can come in.
And so what's happened is the government is trying to
basically harmonize the current visa application system, which is if
you apply for a visa anywhere around the world, in
any country for any reason, you have to put in
(21:04):
your social media background in order to get a visa.
So now it's trying to say, is even for the
people who are coming from Norway or Sweden or Denmark
or wherever, they're going to have to put in their
social media even though they're not applying for a visa,
just for the electronic authorization to enter the United States.
(21:25):
And they're obviously investing a lot of money on a
lot of these software vetting programs and AI programs to
try to determine if they can find something of note
to reject people. But the more onerous that they start
making these applications, you know, if it ends up being
something that you have to fill out for two hours,
which is essentially if all of the things that they're
(21:46):
proposing to implement, all of the familials schedule and work
schedule and education schedule and social media schedule and everything
else you're supposed to write in there, if all of
that ends up getting implemented, it might take you an
hour or two, depending on if the system is functional
or not. To have to fill out those applications, you
may decide, you know, what, visiting the US isn't worth
(22:08):
it for me anymore. I will go somewhere else. Why
do I need to deal with all of this. Also,
in addition, it's I think useful to note that it's
different to say, if somebody's gonna come here and live here, well,
maybe you want to be careful of what kind of
person you're bringing in. But at the end of the day,
(22:28):
I certainly am critical of countries when I visit them
around the world. I say, look, this thing doesn't make
any sense. What you're doing. This thing makes sense. We
all are, we're human beings. It would be very strange
if someone of wealth or of means or whatever, who
just wants to take a trip and vacation for a
weekend in the US suddenly can't come in because they've
said something that is a normal criticism of the United
(22:52):
States that you wouldn't care about because in the end,
they're not actually posing a danger to the United States.
That's the kind of thing that the very strange. I mean,
our government currently has a policy that says we're very
angry at Europe for patrolling it social media and saying
that people don't have free speech in their social media,
(23:13):
and then at the same time we're potentially doing the
same thing here where if a European criticizes the US,
we won't let them in. And so those are things
I think we need to balance, and we need to
do it the right way because travel is a very
delicate ecosystem, and if people decide they're not going to
travel to the United States, you start seeing things like
you're seeing in Las Vegas, where nobody's showing up and
(23:35):
the unemployment rate is skyrocketing and people don't want to
travel there.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It's great to have you as always, Leon. That's Leon
Fresco of Honda Night. Coming up next. How strip searches
in schools traumatize kids over minor offenses. This is Bloomberg.
School should be a place where children feel safe. So
you may find it surprising, perhaps even shocking, that public
(24:01):
schools are strip searching children as young as five for
allegations like pocketing a few dollars in change or carrying
a vapepen. Studies have found that strip searches can cause
long term psychological harm in children. The American Bar Association
says that strip searching a minor is almost never appropriate
(24:23):
and can result in long term negative consequences such as anxiety, depression,
and phobias. Bloomberg Law investigation found that across the country,
children and teenagers say their being strip searched at school
by administrators and staff, often for vatepens and minor offenses.
(24:43):
At least forty federal civil rights lawsuits since twenty seventeen
claimed children were strip searched at school. Joining me is
Bloomberg Law Senior reporter Emily Siegel, who was part of
the Bloomberg investigation. Emily tell us about Kristin Yeckley and
hert year old daughter. Sure So, we.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Interviewed Kristin Yekli. She lives in Indiana and her daughter
was in trouble at school for possessing a vape. She
got a call from the principal telling them that her
daughter was in trouble. She was pretty surprised by it
because her daughter doesn't really get into trouble that often.
And when her daughter got home, she said that she
(25:23):
had been searched, strip searched by a nurse in order
to see if she had the vape honor, which she
did not have. So Kristin was very upset, obviously by
what happened, and she filed a lawsuit. So what we
found after that is that you know, she wasn't really
alone in this circumstances. Is something that's happened all over
the country.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
And most of the time it's not weapons that they're
looking for.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
We reviewed federal lawsuits for this, and in some of
them they don't say what they were searching for. But
we only found four instances where they were searching for
a weapon, and they never found one. In those instances.
Most of the searches were for things like vapes or
drugs or even stolen money. And we also had many
(26:08):
instances where they were searching for signs of abuse on
the children as well.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
And when we're talking about strip searches, some of the
descriptions of what went on, it's just hard to believe
that people who are entrusted with children's care would subject
them to these outrageous searches, sometimes in front of members
of the opposite sex.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, we found many instances, I think it was fifteen
where they were searched by someone or in the presence
of someone of the opposite gender. We created sort of
our definition of strip searching, which was removal of clothing
that would expose parts of the body that are not
normally exposed. But we did have instances where children were
required to remove all of their clothing, including their underwear,
(26:52):
or were searched and had to remove most of their clothing.
There were just a variety of different circumstances.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Hio and Missouri lawsuits claim that school nurses perform vaginal
exams on a five year old and an elementary school
or they were searching for signs of abuse. Are there
different rules when they're searching for signs of abuse?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
There is one state that does allow strip searching if
it's for searching for abuse, but we spoke to experts
and that's not typically what you're supposed to do. School
employees are mandatory reporters, so if they see any signs
of abuse, they are supposed to report it to child
protective services. They don't need to do an investigation themselves.
(27:35):
And for a child that might be going through some
sort of abuse, it could be on top of that
traumatizing to be strip searched. So it's not always the
recommended approach for a school employee to be doing that.
They don't need to be doing that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
And in your article you talk about the long term
effects of a strip search on a thirteen year old
girl named Stephanie, her mother, said that she watched her
daughter from being a happy, singing fairy child to one
who threw up most days before going to school. Tell
us what Stephanie said about the effects even today, years later.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
She basically said that for her at that young age,
being forced to undress in front of her male principle,
I think was a big part of the trauma. It
was that made her very self conscious. She felt sort
of grossed down and disgusted with herself having to do that.
This is a male teacher that she had to do
this in front of she was young, and then after that,
you know, there was a lot of anxiety around being
(28:32):
around him in school as well.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Kids are so traumatized they don't even go back to school.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Sometimes not all, but sometimes. I mean, I think it
depends on the circumstance. But we did find that in
some of the cases they ended up transferring, and according
to studies some that have been done, that also is
a common thing. They'll drop out or they will transfer
as a result of the search. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
The American Bar Association stance is that strip searching a
mind is almost never appropriate. So the Supreme Court has
ruled about when schools can conduct searches of students.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
So the Fourth Amendment says, you know, just in general,
that you can't conduct unreasonable search and seizure. That was
tested in twice in the Supreme Court. The first time
was not regarding a strip search. It was in nineteen
eighty five, I believe. Basically it also ruled that there
are times when it is reasonable to search a student.
And then in two thousand and nine a school strip
(29:32):
searching case came to the Supreme Court, and that was
when a young girl was strip searched at school because
she had prescription ibewprofen on her, And they basically ended
up ruling that the search of her was not reasonable.
But they also ruled that the teachers involved were entitled
to qualified immunity. So that is sort of a rule
(29:54):
that's often applied to you know, police officers that protects
them from liability in these like civil case situation.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
As I mentioned before, some of the circumstances are so egregious.
I mean, you say strip search, but then what follows
is so egregious? Are these cases often settled?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
So in the ones that we could see, because you know,
settlements are not always revealed in the court docket we
found I think around eleven cases had settled. Some could
have settled, but it wasn't clear from the docket, and
we couldn't confirm that some of the cases they sided
with the defendants. There were those as well, so it's
kind of a mixed bag. These are harder cases to
(30:35):
work up because there's not necessarily a physical injury, so
I think that does make it more difficult. And there
is some case law on this, and these were just
in federal court. We haven't looked at state court or
anything like that, so it's possible there are more cases
like this.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Some states have laws that limit strip searching or prevent it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
I think we had about ten states that have laws
that prohibit strip searching or or limit them. So in
Wisconstant school employees cannot do strip searches, but law enforcement
are able to of miners. In another state it was
allowed that they could strip search for signs of abuse,
But in a lot of states there's no acknowledgment of this.
(31:16):
Many states have search and feisure policies looking into when
a student locker can be searched, when their backpack can
be searched, but they don't really address strip searches directly.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Are there any groups that are you know, working to
try to stop these strip searches.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
We had about six cases in Indiana, so we talked
to some state senators and state representatives there who get
express interest in introducing some sort of law. We have
reached out to other states as well, but we haven't
heard anything yet. But there are groups that the American
Bar Associations put together their own recommended policy on stript
searches of miners and their hope was that that would
(31:55):
be adopted in state law as well, and that hasn't
happened yet, but we did highlight some of the work
that they did and how they came to that policy.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
From your reporting, thirteen of the cases involved students with disabilities.
Were the facts similar in those? Are there reasons why
they're targeting students with disabilities?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
They were all sort of similar circumstances. We just found
some instances where students had you know, had some sort
of disability and so it was just another layer to
what was going on. There might have been more confusion
for the student as well. A couple of the students
had autism or they were you know, had some sort
of unspecified disabilities as well. So it was something that
(32:36):
we noticed as we were going through it, and it
was hard to figure out why that was. But there
were a fair number of cases that have that.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Are they searching their lockers first and you know, basics
before they actually do the strip search.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Sometimes they are. That's sort of what we spoke about
with lawyer from the Juvenile Law Center, is that they
should be taking other steps first to sort of talk
to the student figure out what's going on. Also depends
on the severity and seriousness of what they're searching for.
In many of the instances we looked at, there or
were not calling to parents ahead of time to let
(33:11):
them know that they were going to be searching the student.
In a couple of instances, the student would ask to
call their parent and they were denied the ability to
do that. So there are some steps that probably could
have been in place where they were doing other sort
of working their way up to strip searches, but it's
sort of hard to say from a lawsuits. Sometimes they
searched the locker first and didn't find anything, and then
(33:33):
they would conduct the scriptures.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
The results you found are really shocking, as I said before,
and it's so important to expose what's going on so
perhaps other children won't have to suffer through these strip searches.
Thanks so much, Emily. That's Bloomberg Law Senior Reporter Emily Siegel,
and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
(33:56):
our Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple
pod podcast, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com
slash podcast Slash Law, And remember to tune into The
Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time.
I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grosso from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Heads Up dug, Heads Up, Heads Up Douge.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
A crowd outside the Milwaukee courthouse protested the trial of
County Circuit Court Judge Hannadugan on two federal charges for
allegedly obstructing an official Department of Homeland Security removal proceeding
by helping a migrant evade arrest. It's a first of
its kind case testing the limits for a judge interfering
(00:36):
in the Trump administration's efforts to deport migrants. Here's Nick Ramos,
executive director of Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
We are optimistic because we believed in the Constitution, We
believe in the power of solidarity through working people.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
But we are deeply concerned. We see the chilling effect
that occurs when a federal administration attempts to consolidate power
and move off impunity.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
It's unusual, to say the least, for the Department of
Justice to prosecute a sitting state judge, But then this
same Department of Justice sued the entire bench of federal
judges in Maryland. My guest is Leon Fresco, a partner
at Honden Knight. He was the former head of the
Office of Immigration Litigation during the Obama administration. Leon tell
(01:26):
us about the prosecution's case against Judge Dugan Well.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
The judges on trial for basically impeding and obstructing Ice
in ICE's ability to arrest a person that they were
looking for at that time who was going through criminal
proceedings in the Milwaukee County Court. So this whole trial
so far has been trying to determine that what the
(01:51):
judge did in terms of letting this individual out through
the back door, the jury dort that all of that
was irregular, that none of it had ever been done
by and that because of that, the judge's intent was
clearly to impede Ice from arresting people in the court. Now,
the problem is, because there's a trial, it's unclear if
(02:12):
the judge will be able to take advantage of a
lot of the legal defenses about control over their courtroom
and ability to manage their proceedings and Ice interfering with
all that. This seems to just now be a trial
about whether the judge actually had the intent to block
Ice from arresting this individual. And so we'll have to
(02:33):
see if basically what the judge is going to try
to do is a jur nullification play because the facts
and the law are pretty clear here where the facts
show that the judge acted in a way the judge
had never acted before, and that the judge's intent was
to have the individual floor as Ruiz not arrested by ice.
(02:53):
So this may just end up being a pure jur
nullification claim.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah. So the prosecution presented evidence that the judge had
told a court reporter, I'll do it, I'll get the heat,
and also audio tapes of what happened in the courtroom
that day, and you could hear the judge talking to
the court staff suggesting the defendant could quote go down
the stairs away from the agents.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Absolutely. If the facts of this case are really what's
a trial here and you have sort of what I
would call robot jurors who are not trying to look
at the whole issue from a three hundred and sixty
degree perspective, they would probably find that the judge would
be guilty here because the evidence appears to be overwhelming
that the judge knew what she was doing was illegal
(03:42):
and did it anyway, did not have this individual Eduardo
Flores Ruiz arrested by ice. He's subsequently been deported already.
But the question is, is the judge, like I said,
trying to rely on juror nullification. And we've seen this
in other contexts, in other prosecutions with the sign went
guy here in DC and then with you know, potentially
(04:03):
Jim call me or Latsia James. You know you're seeing
juries not wanting to make these convictions, and so maybe
this is what the judge is hoping for.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Here the fact pattern becomes a little better for the
judge because the defense attorney, instead of taking his client
out by the stairs, went into the hallway, which was
less than twelve feet from the main door to the
judges courtroom. And so the judges lawyer said in the
opening statements, quote eleven feet ten inches, that's what she's
(04:32):
on trial for. So is that sort of a way
to give the jury and out correct?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
That's what they're trying to do, is they're trying to
give the jury an ability to say, look, this is
all so insignificant. Why are you going to throw someone
in prison over this? And you know the subtext which
obviously they're not going to be allowed to say, and
the court is prison is a place where you keep
criminals who are going to endanger you, and so you
really want to send this person to prison because there's
(05:00):
not any danger to the community from having this judge
outside of prison, and so that's what they're leaning for.
They're definitely leaning for the journalification angle, and we're just
gonna have to wait and see if that's what happens.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
So these ICE agents are stationed outside the courtroom, sometimes
in the courtrooms, I mean, what's wrong with the judge
saying go out this way? I don't think these ICE
agents should be here.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Well, I think the question is this, If the ICE
agents are in a place where a warrant is required
and they don't have a warrant, then there's absolutely no
problem with the judge directing ICE not to arrest people,
or saying that ICE is in the wrong location or
ICE needs to leave, or helping someone to maintain their
(05:45):
rights in a situation where ICE is acting against their
rights because ICE doesn't have a warrant. But the problem
is here, ICE was trying to detain this individual in
a public area where it they didn't need a warrant,
and because of that, the judge knew This is the
problem with the recordings here. The judge certainly knew that
(06:06):
the judge was impeding, and that the judge didn't actually
have a great legal argument for why the judge was
going to act in the manner to allow this individual
to essentially escape the courthouse without Ice. It would have
been one thing for the judge to confront Ice and
say you're acting illegally and I'm using my authority as
(06:28):
the judge to order you to leave the courthouse, et cetera.
But the judge didn't do it that way. Perhaps the judge,
had she thought it through, might have done it that
way is to issue an order and order Ice to
go leave and say they're acting illegally, and then they
would have been a fight about who had jurisdiction over
that courthouse. But that's not what happened here. The judge
(06:51):
basically indicates through her speech that she knows she's acting
unlawfully and does it anyway.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Of course, the defendant does not have to testify the
moment right not to you. But is this a case
where the jury might say she's a judge, shouldn't we
hear from her?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well? I think absolutely this is the kind of case
where she doesn't testify, the jury will say, what the
heck I mean, she must have had some explanation for
doing what she did. We'd want to hear it. But
of course they are not allowed to draw that in
for into it's just something that human beings do again
because they're not AI robots, but they're not allowed to
say it anywhere. They're not allowed to actually base a
(07:30):
jury decision on the fact that she didn't testify. But sure,
I'm sure that I want to say, this is a judge.
The judge should be able to explain why she did
what she did and why her intent wasn't to evade
the ICE agents. So all of that will accrue against
her if she doesn't end up testifying. But she just
may really be banking on the fact that, look, at
(07:50):
the end of the day, I'm in a big city,
and there's enough people in a big city who will
not want to prosecute a judge and put a judge
prison over something like this that I can get one
or two holdouts and that'll be the end of the story.
And I think, if I was a gambling man, that
that's actually pretty likely, even if the facts and the
(08:11):
law may not necessarily be on her side. I do
think it seems pretty likely to me that you'll get
one or two hold out, but just won't want to
put this judge in jail.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
Do you think it makes a difference that the migrant here,
Eduardo Flores Ruiz was facing domestic battery charges.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I think it doesn't help her, There's no doubt about it.
And the other thing that doesn't help is there's nothing
that they can sort of put in there that mitigates
this individual or says why this individual was sympathetic in
any way, shape or form, because none of that evidence
would be deemed relevant to the criminal trial issue. So
it's definitely not helpful. But to the extent that unfortunately
(08:52):
you see this. I mean, the best example I've ever
seen of this was the Johnny Depp trial, where the
lawyers after lunch would respond to whatever was being made
on social media because they would think that the jurors
were looking at social media and they wanted to confront
whatever was being made. Jurors are these days tending to
take matters into their own hands, even if they're not
(09:14):
supposed to, and so we'll have to see what they
end up finding about this judge and everything else.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So let's also talk about immigration judges. Eight immigration judges
in New York were recently terminated in one day. A
San Francisco judge was fired in the middle of a
complicated asylum hearing. Overall, about one hundred judges out of
seven hundred have been let go, and many of the
cases involved judges with high rates of asylum approvals or
(09:43):
even backgrounds representing migrants. Is this legal for them to
fire the judges based on that?
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Well, the court so far have been very deferential to
the Department of Justice in terms of their ability to
fire these immigration judges. And in fact, there's been this
case law about if the president and the Attorney General
can't fire someone who's an inferior judge like this, then
that judge isn't constitutionally appointed in the first place. So
(10:14):
it appears in terms of if you were to take
that case law along its logical conclusion, it appears that
the firing of these judges is permitted for pretty much
any reason, unless it's some discriminatory reason or something else
like that. But if it's an ideological thing that that
would be permitted. The problem that it's creating is it's
(10:34):
taking a lot of experience away from the immigration bench.
None of these judges had a one hundred percent approval rate.
Many of them had let's say fifty percent approval rating,
forty percent, sixty percent, which may have been higher than
their other colleagues on the court, but weren't one hundred percent.
And the reason why I bring that up is, well,
(10:55):
those other forty percent that they were deporting on a
particular day now aren't being deported. There's no hearings for
these people, and those people will have hearing scheduled one
year or two years from now, and sure they may
be in front of a new judge that may have
a ninety percent refusal rate or a ninety five percent
refusal rate, but it may still be a year or
(11:16):
two from now. So those are tough sort of choices
that the Trump administration is trying to make about short
term versus long term. But I mean, you look at
their social media advertising and they're saying, please come join
the Immigration Court and be a quote unquote deportation judge,
which is not their job. Their job is to look
(11:38):
for the law and the facts and decide if deportation
is the correct remedy or if giving asylum or cancelation
of removal or something else is the correct remedy. And
so the fact that they're advertising those positions as deportation judges,
I don't know if there's going to be a long
term negative connotation or inference that come from that, where
(12:00):
those decisions that are issued by those judges may not
have any force of law, or if an appellate court
ends up saying that that judge was predisposed to grant
deportation because that's why they were joining the court. So
I don't know why that line of social media advertising
is there, but nevertheless that's clearly what they're trying to do.
(12:20):
There are some members of Congress that are trying to
put in some basic standards for these future hires of
immigration judges, whether it be a number of years of
experience practicing immigration law or a number of years of
experience on the bench or anything else. But we'll have
to wait and see if any of that can actually
get into an appropriations bill. But at the moment, a
(12:43):
lot of these hearings, they're basically being done with judges
that are not necessarily conversed in immigration law, and that
creates its own problems because if they make errors, then
you waste years on appeal, and then the bounces back
and you've accomplished nothing anyway. So all of those things
(13:04):
have to be weighed and considered together.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Coming up next, Why the case against Kilmore Abrigo Garcia
is starting all over again? This is Bloomberg. The Homeland
Security Department has leaned into a recruiting pitch that calls
for candidates to bring down the hammer on criminal illegal
aliens and quote, defend your communities, your culture, your very
way of life. I've been talking to immigration law expertly
(13:29):
on Fresco of Holland and Knight. I saw the numbers
that only about thirty six percent of asylum cases were
successful during Biden's last full year in office. That seems
pretty low.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, the problem is the large majority of people coming
into the United States under the Biden administration, we're just
trying to articulate on asylum case in order to get
in the country. But they never had the expectation that
they would actually ever have to show up in court
any day and asked for asylum. A lot of these
asylum cases were very weak at the end of the
(14:05):
day because they were either in countries, for instance, if
you were coming from El Salvador, or El Salvador has
actually fixed a lot of its gang violence problems, and
so it's very hard now to get asylum from a
place like El Salvador. Or if you were coming from
countries such as Venezuela. You know, you would theoretically easy. Okay,
(14:25):
you have this maduro and so you might be a
political dissident, but at the end of the day, you
had to prove what were you doing in Venezuela that
was noteworthy and famous that you would actually be persecuted
as opposed to just coming for economic opportunity. So a
lot of Venezuelan cases were being denied and all across
the world. Basically people were getting into the United States
(14:48):
with threshold cases, but when they were actually subject to
scrutiny and evidence, nobody had actually done anything in these
countries that had led them to be persecuted, and so
that's why you saw the numbers so low. It's not
that the adjudications were low because there was an emphasis
(15:08):
on making these cases denied. It's that a lot of
the cases shouldn't have been filed in the first place,
but were filed as a means to remain in the
United States.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So, speaking of immigration, judges, Abrego Garcia, he was willing
to go to Costa Rica. Why wasn't the government willing
to send him here? Why they wanted to send him
to someplace where he didn't want to go.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
This is a very complicated issue because this is why
kill Maar Abrego Garcia is still in the country, which
is there's a lot of machinations going on right now
about what stage in his case. Kill Maar Abrego Garcia
is in, because they just recently found out that they
had never actually ordered him deported, so he never actually
had a deportation order, and so he was deported without
(15:53):
a deportation order, so no one knew what the reason
was for his detention, and so they had to issue
what was called the new protunk removal order, which means
that it was back dated eleven years and now they're
basically starting his whole asylum case again from the beginning
from scratch. And all of this can be circumvented by
(16:15):
the government of the United States sending Abrego Garcia to
Costa Rica, and they just won't do it because they
want to say that if you try to circumvent the
United States laws in some manner contrary to what the
US government wants. Then the US government will make the
determination of where you go. And so they don't want
(16:35):
Kimara Abrego Garcia going to Costa Rica. And this is
one of those cases where I don't really understand it
from the standpoint of if your view is that he's
a threat to the American public, or that he's going
to be a drain of taxpayer resources or something, then
sending him to Costa Rica solves that problem. But nevertheless,
(16:56):
we are where we are now.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
The Trump administration is in increase the number of countries
whose citizens face a full or partial travel ban on
entry to the US from nineteen to thirty nine. And
of the twenty countries facing new travel restrictions, sixteen are
in Africa, and all thirty nine have majority non white populations,
(17:21):
nearly half our Muslim majority countries. I mean, is there
any logical reason?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Well, the reasons that they cite in the proclamation, So
let's go step by step. The reasons that they cite
in the proclamation are ones related to an insufficient vetting
that those countries have where they cannot give us enough
information that we can decide if someone is safe or not.
Plus they cite that each of those countries has high
(17:48):
visa refusal rate. Now there are a couple of Caribbean
countries in there, which is Antiguee, Barbuda and Dominica, where
what they say about those countries is, look, we've been
trying to tell you to knock it off in terms
of selling passports from those countries, because what happened is
people who were banned from other countries would get a
passport from Dominica or from Antigua and they would say, hey, oh,
(18:12):
I'm a member now of that country. I'm not a
passport holder of you know, Syria or Iran or something.
And they were circumventing US law through those passports. So
now they've had to say is if you're not going
to stop selling citizenship by investing in these countries, then
we're going to ban you too. So that those are
the two Caribbean countries that were banned. So they were
(18:34):
not banned for visa overstay or for lack of vetting,
but all the other countries were banned for visa overstate
rates and lack of vetting. But there are countries and
other places in the world that have hired visa overstate
rates and have other vetting issues. And in the end,
what you realize is there are some countries on these
lists that the United States want something from, and they're
(18:57):
using this to try to get those changes in whether
it be that they accept people that the United States
is trying to deport, or that they become third country
places that the United States can deport people, or whether
there's some other diplomatic agreement that they want to reach
with some of these countries. You do see some of
(19:18):
that here, but again most of this is related to
visa overstate rates, lack of vetting, and then again the
idea that the President has that the individuals coming from
these places are not, in his view, on balance, helping
the United States and its interests, as opposed to what
he thinks they're doing, which is harming the United States
(19:40):
and their interests. I would not. The most fascinating thing
of this is that some of the countries that were
banned actually are in the World Cup. Senegal is in
the World Cup, Cope var is in the World Cup,
and I wonder what's going to happen there because all
the visitor visas have been banned. So are those fans
not going to be allowed to visit the World Cup
(20:01):
even if they're very wealthy and you know, prestigious people
in those countries. So they do have an exception for
the athletes obviously and the coaches, but they don't have
any exception for the fans. So I do wonder what's
going to happen with some of those individuals.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
And what about the requirement that tourists from forty two
countries have to submit social media data?
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Well, this is going to end up being rolled out
universally and it's part of Now what the issue is
is this, we have something called the Visa Waiver Program.
It's known as ESTA, but it's really the Visa Waiver Program.
Esta's the name of the database. It's a travel authorization
system that checks people to determine whether they actually need
(20:43):
to go in and actually ask for a visa, or
whether their background is clean enough that they can come in.
And so what's happened is the government is trying to
basically harmonize the current visa application system, which is if
you apply for a visa anywhere around the world, in
any country for any reason, you have to put in
(21:04):
your social media background in order to get a visa.
So now it's trying to say, is even for the
people who are coming from Norway or Sweden or Denmark
or wherever, they're going to have to put in their
social media even though they're not applying for a visa,
just for the electronic authorization to enter the United States.
(21:25):
And they're obviously investing a lot of money on a
lot of these software vetting programs and AI programs to
try to determine if they can find something of note
to reject people. But the more onerous that they start
making these applications, you know, if it ends up being
something that you have to fill out for two hours,
which is essentially if all of the things that they're
(21:46):
proposing to implement, all of the familials schedule and work
schedule and education schedule and social media schedule and everything
else you're supposed to write in there, if all of
that ends up getting implemented, it might take you an
hour or two, depending on if the system is functional
or not. To have to fill out those applications, you
may decide, you know, what, visiting the US isn't worth
(22:08):
it for me anymore. I will go somewhere else. Why
do I need to deal with all of this. Also,
in addition, it's I think useful to note that it's
different to say, if somebody's gonna come here and live here, well,
maybe you want to be careful of what kind of
person you're bringing in. But at the end of the day,
(22:28):
I certainly am critical of countries when I visit them
around the world. I say, look, this thing doesn't make
any sense. What you're doing. This thing makes sense. We
all are, we're human beings. It would be very strange
if someone of wealth or of means or whatever, who
just wants to take a trip and vacation for a
weekend in the US suddenly can't come in because they've
said something that is a normal criticism of the United
(22:52):
States that you wouldn't care about because in the end,
they're not actually posing a danger to the United States.
That's the kind of thing that the very strange. I mean,
our government currently has a policy that says we're very
angry at Europe for patrolling it social media and saying
that people don't have free speech in their social media,
(23:13):
and then at the same time we're potentially doing the
same thing here where if a European criticizes the US,
we won't let them in. And so those are things
I think we need to balance, and we need to
do it the right way because travel is a very
delicate ecosystem, and if people decide they're not going to
travel to the United States, you start seeing things like
you're seeing in Las Vegas, where nobody's showing up and
(23:35):
the unemployment rate is skyrocketing and people don't want to
travel there.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
It's great to have you as always, Leon. That's Leon
Fresco of Honda Night. Coming up next. How strip searches
in schools traumatize kids over minor offenses. This is Bloomberg.
School should be a place where children feel safe. So
you may find it surprising, perhaps even shocking, that public
(24:01):
schools are strip searching children as young as five for
allegations like pocketing a few dollars in change or carrying
a vapepen. Studies have found that strip searches can cause
long term psychological harm in children. The American Bar Association
says that strip searching a minor is almost never appropriate
(24:23):
and can result in long term negative consequences such as anxiety, depression,
and phobias. Bloomberg Law investigation found that across the country,
children and teenagers say their being strip searched at school
by administrators and staff, often for vatepens and minor offenses.
(24:43):
At least forty federal civil rights lawsuits since twenty seventeen
claimed children were strip searched at school. Joining me is
Bloomberg Law Senior reporter Emily Siegel, who was part of
the Bloomberg investigation. Emily tell us about Kristin Yeckley and
hert year old daughter. Sure So, we.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Interviewed Kristin Yekli. She lives in Indiana and her daughter
was in trouble at school for possessing a vape. She
got a call from the principal telling them that her
daughter was in trouble. She was pretty surprised by it
because her daughter doesn't really get into trouble that often.
And when her daughter got home, she said that she
(25:23):
had been searched, strip searched by a nurse in order
to see if she had the vape honor, which she
did not have. So Kristin was very upset, obviously by
what happened, and she filed a lawsuit. So what we
found after that is that you know, she wasn't really
alone in this circumstances. Is something that's happened all over
the country.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
And most of the time it's not weapons that they're
looking for.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
We reviewed federal lawsuits for this, and in some of
them they don't say what they were searching for. But
we only found four instances where they were searching for
a weapon, and they never found one. In those instances.
Most of the searches were for things like vapes or
drugs or even stolen money. And we also had many
(26:08):
instances where they were searching for signs of abuse on
the children as well.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
And when we're talking about strip searches, some of the
descriptions of what went on, it's just hard to believe
that people who are entrusted with children's care would subject
them to these outrageous searches, sometimes in front of members
of the opposite sex.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Yeah, we found many instances, I think it was fifteen
where they were searched by someone or in the presence
of someone of the opposite gender. We created sort of
our definition of strip searching, which was removal of clothing
that would expose parts of the body that are not
normally exposed. But we did have instances where children were
required to remove all of their clothing, including their underwear,
(26:52):
or were searched and had to remove most of their clothing.
There were just a variety of different circumstances.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Hio and Missouri lawsuits claim that school nurses perform vaginal
exams on a five year old and an elementary school
or they were searching for signs of abuse. Are there
different rules when they're searching for signs of abuse?
Speaker 1 (27:14):
There is one state that does allow strip searching if
it's for searching for abuse, but we spoke to experts
and that's not typically what you're supposed to do. School
employees are mandatory reporters, so if they see any signs
of abuse, they are supposed to report it to child
protective services. They don't need to do an investigation themselves.
(27:35):
And for a child that might be going through some
sort of abuse, it could be on top of that
traumatizing to be strip searched. So it's not always the
recommended approach for a school employee to be doing that.
They don't need to be doing that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
And in your article you talk about the long term
effects of a strip search on a thirteen year old
girl named Stephanie, her mother, said that she watched her
daughter from being a happy, singing fairy child to one
who threw up most days before going to school. Tell
us what Stephanie said about the effects even today, years later.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
She basically said that for her at that young age,
being forced to undress in front of her male principle,
I think was a big part of the trauma. It
was that made her very self conscious. She felt sort
of grossed down and disgusted with herself having to do that.
This is a male teacher that she had to do
this in front of she was young, and then after that,
you know, there was a lot of anxiety around being
(28:32):
around him in school as well.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Kids are so traumatized they don't even go back to school.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
Sometimes not all, but sometimes. I mean, I think it
depends on the circumstance. But we did find that in
some of the cases they ended up transferring, and according
to studies some that have been done, that also is
a common thing. They'll drop out or they will transfer
as a result of the search. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
The American Bar Association stance is that strip searching a
mind is almost never appropriate. So the Supreme Court has
ruled about when schools can conduct searches of students.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
So the Fourth Amendment says, you know, just in general,
that you can't conduct unreasonable search and seizure. That was
tested in twice in the Supreme Court. The first time
was not regarding a strip search. It was in nineteen
eighty five, I believe. Basically it also ruled that there
are times when it is reasonable to search a student.
And then in two thousand and nine a school strip
(29:32):
searching case came to the Supreme Court, and that was
when a young girl was strip searched at school because
she had prescription ibewprofen on her, And they basically ended
up ruling that the search of her was not reasonable.
But they also ruled that the teachers involved were entitled
to qualified immunity. So that is sort of a rule
(29:54):
that's often applied to you know, police officers that protects
them from liability in these like civil case situation.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
As I mentioned before, some of the circumstances are so egregious.
I mean, you say strip search, but then what follows
is so egregious? Are these cases often settled?
Speaker 1 (30:12):
So in the ones that we could see, because you know,
settlements are not always revealed in the court docket we
found I think around eleven cases had settled. Some could
have settled, but it wasn't clear from the docket, and
we couldn't confirm that some of the cases they sided
with the defendants. There were those as well, so it's
kind of a mixed bag. These are harder cases to
(30:35):
work up because there's not necessarily a physical injury, so
I think that does make it more difficult. And there
is some case law on this, and these were just
in federal court. We haven't looked at state court or
anything like that, so it's possible there are more cases
like this.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
Some states have laws that limit strip searching or prevent it.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
I think we had about ten states that have laws
that prohibit strip searching or or limit them. So in
Wisconstant school employees cannot do strip searches, but law enforcement
are able to of miners. In another state it was
allowed that they could strip search for signs of abuse,
But in a lot of states there's no acknowledgment of this.
(31:16):
Many states have search and feisure policies looking into when
a student locker can be searched, when their backpack can
be searched, but they don't really address strip searches directly.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Are there any groups that are you know, working to
try to stop these strip searches.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
We had about six cases in Indiana, so we talked
to some state senators and state representatives there who get
express interest in introducing some sort of law. We have
reached out to other states as well, but we haven't
heard anything yet. But there are groups that the American
Bar Associations put together their own recommended policy on stript
searches of miners and their hope was that that would
(31:55):
be adopted in state law as well, and that hasn't
happened yet, but we did highlight some of the work
that they did and how they came to that policy.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
From your reporting, thirteen of the cases involved students with disabilities.
Were the facts similar in those? Are there reasons why
they're targeting students with disabilities?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
They were all sort of similar circumstances. We just found
some instances where students had you know, had some sort
of disability and so it was just another layer to
what was going on. There might have been more confusion
for the student as well. A couple of the students
had autism or they were you know, had some sort
of unspecified disabilities as well. So it was something that
(32:36):
we noticed as we were going through it, and it
was hard to figure out why that was. But there
were a fair number of cases that have that.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Are they searching their lockers first and you know, basics
before they actually do the strip search.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Sometimes they are. That's sort of what we spoke about
with lawyer from the Juvenile Law Center, is that they
should be taking other steps first to sort of talk
to the student figure out what's going on. Also depends
on the severity and seriousness of what they're searching for.
In many of the instances we looked at, there or
were not calling to parents ahead of time to let
(33:11):
them know that they were going to be searching the student.
In a couple of instances, the student would ask to
call their parent and they were denied the ability to
do that. So there are some steps that probably could
have been in place where they were doing other sort
of working their way up to strip searches, but it's
sort of hard to say from a lawsuits. Sometimes they
searched the locker first and didn't find anything, and then
(33:33):
they would conduct the scriptures.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
The results you found are really shocking, as I said before,
and it's so important to expose what's going on so
perhaps other children won't have to suffer through these strip searches.
Thanks so much, Emily. That's Bloomberg Law Senior Reporter Emily Siegel,
and that's it for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show.
Remember you can always get the latest legal news on
(33:56):
our Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple
pod podcast, Spotify, and at www dot bloomberg dot com
slash podcast Slash Law, And remember to tune into The
Bloomberg Law Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time.
I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg
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