It was once said that possession is nine-tenths of the law, an acknowledgement that the possessor of property generally has the advantage in keeping it. This principle has been taken to absurd extremes in some squatter cases, where people invade homes and then demand the right to stay pending long legal challenges. Today, under both our housing and immigration laws, mere occupation often appears to be nine-tenths of our laws.
Obviously, unlawful immigrants are not the same as squatters. Some of these migrants have legitimate asylum and other claims. We have to separate those meritorious cases from the vast majority with no cognizable claims. Yet, our legal system is failing the public by allowing unlawful immigrants with no meritorious claims to game the system for years and then simply vanish into the nation.
In courtrooms across the country, the nation seems trapped in a type of Squatter Syndrome, a macro version of the housing cases. The slowness of the removal process is being used to keep millions in the country indefinitely. It may prove to be President Joe Biden’s most lasting legacy, a de facto residency by simply overwhelming the system by the sheer number of unlawful entries.
For years, residents in some major cities have expressed frustration as officials threw up their hands after their homes were occupied by squatters. Even though the owners could show officers that the squatters are home invaders (including their own family pictures on the walls), they are often told to seek other housing to let the courts sort it out. That can take months or even years and the squatters play out the litigation (often with the help of some public interest groups) – only to move on to another home when they run out of appeals.
There is a sense of the same helplessness in dealing with unlawful immigration. After over eight million unlawful immigrants entered the country under Biden, Democrats are again shrugging and saying that these immigrants must be allowed to remain for years as they raise asylum and other claims that are overwhelmingly rejected.
Most unlawful immigrants immediately seek out border agents after being led across the border by coyotes and gang members. They know that, upon arrest, they would be given “notices to appear” that are years in the future and then released.
They often come across the border with printed instructions on claiming asylum.
It may be the greatest political scam ever pulled on the American people. The polls show that an overwhelming percentage of the public favors the deportation of aliens with criminal records and roughly half support mass deportations of those here unlawfully. According to a new Associated Press-NORC poll, roughly half of the country still approves of Trump’s handling of immigration.
Knowing that the public opposes such unlawful entries, politicians mouth their concerns about open borders while doing nothing to seek any change that might meaningfully increase removals.
For years, the Biden Administration claimed that it could not close the Southern border without immigration reform, including the new pathways to citizenship. Donald Trump then effectively shut down the border in a matter of weeks with the same authority that Biden had for four years. Entries are down a breathtaking 97 percent under Trump.
The record conclusively shows that Biden and the Democrats could have closed the border at any time but chose to keep it open despite daily images of waves of migrants entering the country. These same politicians knew that, once in the country, it would be practically impossible to remove a significant number of these individuals due to a court system that takes years actually to deport an individual. They become de facto resident aliens and Democrats then insist that the length of their time in the country warrants a pathway to citizenship.
After he came into office, Biden fueled this migration by negating the immigration orders of the Trump Administration, including stopping the successful Remain in Mexico policy. (It was later reinstated after legal challenges.) The Administration also resisted every major effort of border states to fill the vacuum left by lax federal enforcement, even cutting state-constructed barriers along the border.
The result was a deluge of unlawful crossings. Some border agents complained that they felt like little more than travel agents asking immigrants where they would like to go on public expense.
Trump was elected to increase deportations and he has sought to use every possible means to do so. He has met opposition at every turn from the Democrats and the courts. I have criticized the Administration in some of these cases. However, Trump is right that we need to create faster and final avenues for removal for the millions who entered during the Biden Administration.
The Congress has sought to expedite removals without such prolonged litigation.
After his inauguration, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Border Security and Immigration Enforcement Improvements” that ordered the increased use of “expedited removals” under a 1996 law. Prior administrations extended this law to include any apprehended person within 100 miles of the land border who cannot prove they were legally admitted to the country or have been present in the country continuously for more than 14 days.
The Trump Administration has expanded that law to anyone who cannot prove continuous presence for two years. Their removals are generally unreviewable by an immigration judge and dramatically limit judicial relief under asylum claims. These removals also come with a five-year ban on reentry or even a lifetime ban if the individual made false claims to immigration officers.
This same expedited process can be used for those who entered the country legally but overstayed their visa or who have been convicted of certain crimes.
Some 44 percent of removals were accomplished under expedited removal designations by circumventing the standard immigration hearing process. President Obama, who was called by critics “the Deporter in Chief,” expanded the use of this process.
The Trump Administration is also using the administrative removal process of anyone who is not a permanent resident who has been convicted of aggravated felonies. Such offenses actually go beyond such felonies as murder, sexual assault, and firearms offenses. They can include nonviolent misdemeanors as failure to appear in court, burglary, and document fraud.
The benefit of this process is that it does not matter how long the individual has been in the country. Only permanent residents under this system have the right to go before an immigration judge. However, there are still appeals allowed under the system. That is why more immigration judges are needed.
The Administration is also using a process called reinstatement of removal, which applies to anyone who has illegally reentered the United States. Many of these repeat offenders immediately claim asylum. While they are not entitled to an immigration hearing, they can appeal the reinstatement.
The public deserves a better system that can handle a crisis of millions of unlawful immigrants to avoid more expedited reviews and removals. Otherwise, we become a type of squatter nation where our inefficient legal system is being used to make a mockery of our laws.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage
The squatter syndrome is just a symptom of the grand malaise that has descended on our nation. There is no longer a moral consensus in our nation. Nothing should be surprising anymore since post-modernism (moral relativism, self-referentialism, cynicism) is the default for the West
Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply condemns Trump’s attacks on judges
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/01/ketanji-brown-jackson-sharply-condemns-trumps-attacks-on-judges-00323010
No mention in the Politico hit piece of Democrats inciting violence, hurling threats and stalking the SCOTUS Justices and their children at their schools these past several years.
OTOH, KBJ can’t define the word woman so it’s not like she is intelligent nor honest, which is why Buydem nominated this morally bankrupt person
“Ketanji Brown Jackson sharply condemns Trump’s attacks on judges”
____________________________________________________________________________
I strongly condemn affirmative action bearing on the Supreme Court of the United States of America or anywhere else in this once-free nation.
It is immutably impossible that an African—”so-called”—American was the best candidate in a general pool of Americans.
Without a shred of doubt, a qualified candidate for the Supreme Court would firmly grasp that a woman is a human being, or homo sapiens sapiens, with the crucial differentiation of having the capacity to bear children.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was ensconced by the communist “dictatorship of the proletariat (hired help),” which is not dissimilar to the Deep Deep State “Swamp.”
She’s not all there upstairs. Leave her alone. She knows her mother is a woman. She knows she’s a woman. Guess that’s about it.
Brown is free to attack Trump – but it is counter productive.
Frankly it is playing right into his hands.
The courts have lost respect – not because Trump has maligned them, but because they have behaved badly and politically.
The US supreme court told Boasberg – he did not have jurisdiction.
So why is he still hearing a case ?
Why isn’t the apelate courts sanctioning him ?
The courts do not get to create their own jurisdiction.
They do not get to create their own law
the do not get to create their own constitution.
I have repeatedly told those here that have cliamed the US Supreme Court is the final authority on the US constitution that they are wrong.
The people are ALWAYS. Read the declaration of independence – when govenrment becomes abusive of it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
We hope that can be done peacefully,
Regardless, if we want to change govenrment badly enough – we will change government.
The left is trying to change government – and that is fine.
But they are constantly taking shortcuts – cheating.
That is NOT fine.
That is NOT the rule of law.
The message of Jackson should be to the lower courts.
It should be – Get back in your lane.
Follow the law and the constitution.
If you do not SCOTUS will fix it.
If SCOTUS does not – congress or the president will.
Regardless respect – including respect for judges is something that must be EARNED.
Lawless behavior or defending lawless behavior does not earn respect it destroy;s it.
The US Central Intelligence Agency has created a video ad campaign to try to convince Chinese nationals to spy on their country on behalf of the United States.
When I saw this headline I thought it has to be from The Onion.
There is no way that it could be real.
BUT IT IS REAL !!!!
The CIA is actually putting out video ads on social media trying to recruit Chinese citizens to spy on their own country on behalf of the US.
Who do you think will respond to these ads ?????
Obviously they are going to get a huge response from operatives of the Chinese Ministry of State Security, the Chinese intelligence agency.
The CIA is basically inviting the Chinese to install double agents in their operations.
They might as well just turn over the day to day running of the CIA to the Chinese.
The stupidity and completely amateurish operation of the Trump administration is beyond belief.
Ratcliffe has been out there touting this great idea to get back at the Chinese.
The videos are “aimed at recruiting Chinese officials to steal secrets,” Ratcliffe said in a statement to The Associated Press. He said China “is intent on dominating the world economically, militarily, and technologically.”
“Our agency must continue responding to this threat with urgency, creativity, and grit, and these videos are just one of the ways we are doing this,” Ratcliffe said.
Anyone with more than 2 brain cells to rub together would realize how astoundingly stupid this is.
Ratcliffe is an incompetent idiot, and a clear and present danger to the United States.
This guy is responsible for the security of this nation’s secrets, and he is completely incapable of realizing the implications of this insane idea.
Who will respond? Mitch McConnell and his wife?
How long have been employed by the Agency? (Wink, wink, nod, nod)
Obviously the CIA hasn’t taken that into account, right? Hahahahahahahahaha!
ATS – why do you presume the purpose of the video is to recruit chinese spies ?
Have you ever considered that maybe the purpose is to get a paranoid foreign country to beleive there are US paid spies everywhere ?
Turley– “We become a type of squatter nation where our inefficient legal system is being used to make a mockery of our laws.”
ONE CORRECTION: Replace “INEFFICIENT” with “CORRUPT” and you will have it just right.
Yes, each day Americans wake up to the disappointment of the day. Whether it’s stolen garden supplies or a defeat in court it’s just the soup du jour.
It becomes a way of life, disappointment does until there’s no reaction anymore. Disappointment becomes an expectation.
A Democrat who ran for Congress, Carl Sprayberry, 32, who ran for Georgia’s District 139, and called for the assassination of Donald Trump, was arrested by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for child sexual predation and human trafficking. Shocking.
/s
The list is long of those arrested. Dennis McIntrye is on the list albeit by using a sock puppet name
“Operation Lights Out” Targets Online Sexual Predators, Leads to 19 Arrests including Human Trafficking Charges
https://gbi.georgia.gov/press-releases/2025-04-30/operation-lights-out-targets-online-sexual-predators-leads-19-arrests
I have been saying this and now it is become starkly obvious:
“All of this leads to the Supreme Court, and if Chief Justice John Roberts would like to preserve some semblance of Article III, I’d suggest he act sooner rather than later. If these lower court judges continue their rampage, the administration is going to start ignoring their orders, and once that happens, the cat can never be put back in the bag.”
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2025/05/03/absurdity-continues-as-judge-declares-its-unconstitutional-for-trump-to-pull-security-clearances-n2188641
Roberts, Destroyer of Article III
“I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
– Patrick Henry
Democrats are striving to give you the latter choice.
Indeed!
Squatters – Living Proof, the Democrats had no plan for all the Aliens their NGO wagon trains were bringing into the Country.
The Biden Admin so destroyed the U.S. economy that now we have our own Citizens competing with the Aliens for Housing to squat in.
That’s the thick of it. America has become a Homeless Ghetto and it’s getting worse. These times are The Grapes of Wrath.
So if you’re living out of your Car, and reading this from a Laptop at a Local Coffee Shop because it offers a free Internet WiFi connection.
Your not alone and you have the sympathy of others whom are “Cornered” into the same situation. Washington D.C. is F’d Up but it’s not going to do anything immediately or soon because it busy spending Billions on the War Machine* and not the Domestic causes and investments that need the appropriations to get people back into an economically viable & livable situation.
* Trump Proposes $1 Trillion Defense Budget for 2026 – May 2, 2025 | By Greg Hadley
https://www.airandspaceforces.com/trump-proposes-1-trillion-defense-budget-2026/
AMERICA “This is what happens when you’re Not Economically Viable”
The democrat “plan” for flooding America with illegal-aliens was to gain more seats in the House. At no point did it matter to them, how much human suffering, theft, drug-running, kidnapping, rape, or murder took place as a result. The democrat party has EXPANDED their creation of ghettos and slums, and all with the use of taxpayer dollars. We should be building prisons for the leftist politicians that made this horror possible.
No, it’s for sport. Watching America scramble and slaughtered.
Keep your good name in heaven.
Sure there was is a plan. Throw you out of yours and live in it . Durr
“We have to separate those meritorious cases from the vast majority with no cognizable claims.”
– Professor Turley
_____________________
Now, we have finally arrived at the heart of the problem.
One, one hundred, or perhaps one thousand, but not 20 million.
“Asylum” is a grand fraud perpetrated against America by those, led by Barack Hussein Obama, who hate America and want to import more Democrat voters.
The fact that these millions of people have been allowed and permitted through 3,000 miles and multiple governmental borders and checkpoints indicates there is no valid claim to asylum.
Any government desirous of doing these people harm had sufficient opportunity.
They did nothing; they let them pass.
The proof is in the pudding.
These people may say that their countries are poor and they don’t like living in them, but they cannot claim an existential need for “asylum” in America.
“Asylum” is not an immigration concern; “Asylum” is a policy to effect this warning: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
“Asylum” is an attempt to exponentially increase anti-American liberal voters and to destroy America from within by the author, Barack Hussein Obama.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? If it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
– Abraham Lincoln, Lyceum Address, 1838
Asylum , the word is the problem. What kind of asylum? Political, economic, insane, criminal, social? Can you give me a definition asylum…
Merriam-Webster
asylum
noun
asy·lum ə-ˈsī-ləm
1: an inviolable place of refuge and protection giving shelter to criminals and debtors : sanctuary
2: a place of retreat and security : shelter
3a: the protection or security afforded by an asylum : refuge
3b: protection from arrest and extradition given especially to political refugees by a nation or by an embassy or other agency enjoying freedom from what is required by law for most people
4 somewhat old-fashioned : an institution providing care and protection to needy individuals (such as the infirm or destitute) and especially the mentally ill
4. Yeah, 4.
I feel sorry for Texas. (No I am not a Texan.)
Not only has it had to fight four years of fighting with the Biden administration over illegal border crossings, (remember the red floating buoys to try and stop crossings, and Mayorkas falsely accusing agents on horseback of “whipping” illegal crossers?) but it is one of the top three states listed for illegal squatters.
“A 2024 survey by the National Rental Home Council (NRHC) found that Dallas was one the cities with the highest number of homes taken over by squatters,” https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/07/03/squatters-rights-leave-homeowners-forgotten/70364321007/
On top of that, Texas has endured the incredible cost of food, shelter, and health expenses for illegal immigrants. Notice the words “in one month” at
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/texas-hospitals-hit-with-122-million-bill-for-illegal-immigrants-care-in-single-month/ar-AA1DUCk3?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=e883060123ee480b91e47ea8535c7ff0&ei=76
Finally, Texas and Florida both have had to deal with heavy incidence of illegal squatting, Why those states, I ask?
Wouldn’t you think it’s because people tend to gravitate towards communities that share characteristics with those they have left behind?
Thank you, Lin. As a lifelong Texan, I can attest to enduring what you have mentioned plus illegal drunk drivers going the wrong way on freeways and taking out entire families they collide with (numerous times), illegals helping themselves by force to any woman they desire (numerous times), and various criminal gang activities too numerous to list. It’s been like Clash of Civilizations on steroids here for many years now. I’m not a big fan of my state leaders, but I will be forever indebted to Gov. Abbott for bussing them to sanctuary cities/areas like NYC and forcing the rest of the country to see up close and personal the havoc and heartache reeked by an unchecked and unassimilated invasion. We’ve definitely been there, done that and are unfortunately still doing it.
well-written comment.
Jonathan
This is really very simple.
8 USC 1325 demands one of 2 or both, and a third action, with respect to someone entering this country between ports of entry. Fine and/or imprisonment and deportation.
There is NO EXCEPTION for asylum seekers.
That IS the due process for illegal border crossers.
Gee steve, you should become a trump advisor.
Jonathan
Here is our problem.
When Democrats get power, they bring out the tanks and roll everything in site.
When they are out of power, they circle the wagons and fight.
When Republicans are out of power, they stand around and whine and talk about what they WOULD do.
When Republicans are in power, they do NOTHING.
Why is there still a filibuster?
Sorry Steven, Donald Trump is shaken up bigly. We have a Republican who has reduced illegal immigration to a trickle, stopped the cheating of America by China and the United Nations, and has exposed the millions of dollars of tax payer money sent to Africa to fight a venereal disease. Your statement may have been true in the past but your argument no longer holds water. Please be more informed.
Steven’s argument may not be “water tight,” but he is correct when it comes to Congress.
When I mentioned the filibuster, I would have thought that would be clue enough that I was speaking of Congress.
But Thinkitthrough has proven many times that his chosen name is antithetical to who he is.
Maybe he can now tell us what CONGRESS has accomplished.
The condemnation or taking of the land is to be done in accordance with the constitutional provisions. An owner of a private property should be given just compensation for the property taken. Did the mortgage payments stop when the squatters moved in? In effect when the government refuses to remove the squatters it is a taking of a citizens property assisted by the government without just compensation. Marxism at its finest. Bernie Sanders and AOC are not outliers but rather a feature.
While in the FLETC (Federal Law Enf. Training Center) in 2008, the attorney/law instructor informed us “It ain’t over ’til the immigrant wins!”. It was meant as a quip and she was being both truthful and factitious. I have since retired and having put HUNDREDS of immigrants in removal (deportation) proceedings, NOT A ONE was ever deported. And I retired before the Biden tsunami. God help us if there isn’t substantive change in immigration law.
The problem stems from the Biden reversal of the remain in Mexico policy. Had that policy remained in place with potential asylum seekers knowing that their claim needed to be verified BEFORE entry and dispersal into the U.S. the flood would have been a trickle.
The left continues to tell you that they want to tax the rich. The truth of the matter is that they want to tax the average American to pay for the support of the illegal immigrants. Under Biden the federal government took your money that you worked hard for right out of your pocket and paid for the housing of illegal immigrants in luxury hotels in New York City. The money doesn’t come out of thin air it comes from you and important services such as policing and fire fighting get less funding. The predictable outcome can be demonstrated by the empty fire hydrants during the Los Angeles fires. Eight million low skilled workers arrived in American cities. Because of their lack of education and inability to speak the language they are not employable so the only alternative is that they be supported by you. From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs is alive and well in the lexicon of the American left.
Squatters, illegal aliens, sexual orientation. Does the progressive political Left have a common vision that ties all three together? Squatters are an individual attack on the property right to exclude others. Illegal entry is an individual attack on national border sovereignty. Sexual identity or orientation for a nonadult – gender affirming care, if you will, is a direct attack on the family unit, in that strangers displace parents as decision makers while the child goes through the puberty hormone storm. In all three areas it is a change in the locus of decision making from what it has always been to what the Left demands. Maybe we remember Lilly Tomlin from Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In: “l wonder what the people who gave us the leisure suit plan to do with our leisure time”.
Prof. Turley uses the term “possession is 9/10th of the law”. This phrase is mysterious to lawyers and non-lawyers alike. This phrase seems to have literary, not judicial, sources. Originally,, the phrase was “possession is nine points in the law” or “eleven points in the law”. https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/36390/where-does-the-phrase-possession-is-nine-points-nine-tenths-of-the-law-c In actual administration of the law, it is meaningless. Sometimes possession is important (open possession of land over a certain period) and sometimes it is meaningless (possession of stolen personal property). But saying that “possession is 9/10th of the law” is meaningless.
President Biden’s four-year open border was the largest Democratic Voter Drive in American history, facilitated by asylum fraud on a massive scale. Interesting that the Democrats are screaming “due process” now. Thank you, Jonathan, for an excellent article. Greg
How do you explain that after 4 years of this vote drive the side thinking they were being benefitted lost?
Because the benefit isnt immediate, dum dum.
And, they pissed off the other side.
Voter drive? No, they think it’s justice. They’ve never understood anything about the US except they were a debit and not a credit. That’s the reason they call it–> social justice. It’s easy to see the debit now?
#. The American citizenry have become prisoners in their domiciles while criminals possess the streets. This is what happened in El Salvador until Bukele cleaned it up.
Mayor Adams gave the illegals enough rope to hang themselves. They tore up hotels and broke the law throwing out food demanding better.
It’s a combination of lawless groups and includes the homeless and drug addicts. When combined it’s a churning ball of deadly crime.
In biology it’s called–> what survives , survives. People are being butchered. Maybe you’ll take notice when they’re served up.
We’re on the brink of WWIII and while the courts play games DJT is attempting to secure the hatches. Do you want abrego garcia as your neighbor when WWIII begins? Do you want open borders when WWIII begins.
Declare national security emergency and all bets are off. The DOD has newly moved 170 miles of southern border from the dept of the interior to the DOD. It’s now military land.
Best wishes
The Professor probably didn’t intend this to be the take away from his article, but clearly the judiciary is abusing our Constitution.
Clearly the judiciary is abusing you.
Clearly you were abused by an uncle.
“[R]esidents in some major cities have expressed frustration as officials threw up their hands after their homes were occupied by squatters. Even though the owners could show officers that the squatters are home invaders (including their own family pictures on the walls), they are often told to seek other housing to let the courts sort it out.” (JT)
Let me get this straight: Breaking and entering (B&E) is a crime. But B&E with the intent to stay — not a crime.
So breaking into a bank and stealing money from the vault — a crime. Breaking into the bank and pitching a tent in the vault — not a crime.
Breaking into a sporting goods store to ransack its supplies — a crime. Breaking in to play with your “guests” a never-ending game of frisbee golf — not a crime.
This would be comical if it weren’t for the fact that it “can take months or even years” for the property owner to receive justice.
OT
Feliciano v. DOT… why did it turn on “during” and not “called into service” ? I’m a civilian and can be called into jury service and get differential pay. I’m ready all the time so I get 6 dollars per day everyday ?