This is the Cato Daily podcast for Saturday, April 1st,

2023. I'm Caleb Brown. Does a federal law that criminalizes

inducing illegal immigration constitute an unconstitutional

infringement on your free speech rights. Specifically if you were to

encourage a friend who is an illegal immigrant to stay in the country. Is that a

federal crime? The Supreme Court probed that

question this week Cato's Tommy Berry discusses the case. As a matter of law

is there a well explored literature on what it means legally to encourage someone to do

something illegal? It's a good question and sadly a lawyer will say well it depends if you're talking to a normal person or to a criminal lawyer

because a big part of the dispute in this case is what how are we to read this language like a normal everyday person reading a dictionary or as a term of art and criminal law

So in the history of criminal law and this is the federal government's strongest argument,

really the only argument they have, they say oh this is a term of art encouraging or inducing

it's it's basically like aiding and abetting.

But if you look at the dictionary,

encourage and induce goes far beyond

say giving someone the means, giving someone the gun

to help them commit the murder or something like that.

Encouraging can simply say, I hope you stay in the country.

I'd like to spend more time with you. Inducing can simply say, hey, you should be aware if you stay here,

you'll get better medical care than if you go somewhere else.

And when people only have a statute to go by and they're deciding should I or should I not take

this act, will I be exposed to potential liability, they're more likely to simply look at a dictionary and try to decipher what these words mean.

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