Thread by @matt_cam

Not that anyone asked me, but here's how the #immigration system should deal w/#covid19:

--suspend all #immigrationcourt
--suspend all #USCIS interviews
--automatically extend all ICE check-in 6 months
--release all ICE detainees

None of this is worth the risk. None of it.

This is maybe the only upside to having #immigrationcourts not be Constitutional judicial bodies under Article III: they're optional. They are not such an essential part of government that they need to remain operational during a pandemic.

They're just not.

Call me alarmist, but there's no precaution too extreme for what New England is facing right now and we all should have started cutting non-essential public exposure weeks ago. Better now than waiting another day.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

For context: failure to appear in #immigrationcourt = an automatic order of deportation. Anyone w/#covid19 symptoms should easily meet the "exceptional circumstance" standard sufficient to reopen later, but most will go to court anyway given these stakes. They shouldn't have to.

Same btw for the Massachusetts trial court system, which I hear is badly lagging in its response. Any of these situations where people have to appear or face serious consequences need to be rethought NOW

But of course being Americans, we're not going to take this seriously until the symptoms are all around us in the next week or two--far past the point where we can realistically do anything to pretend to contain it.