Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
Sep 15, 2020 4 tweets 2 min read Read on X
After a lot of thought, I deleted this tweet. My intent in posting it was to emphasize that the allegations reveal the routine cruelty and horrors caused by ICE's utter failure to care for the health of people it locks up in private prisons—but do not reveal systematic eugenics.
Whistleblowers have been coming forward for years to reveal that people have died of preventable deaths inside ICE detention centers. We know medical services given to people in detention are routinely insufficient. Yesterday's allegations supported that. tyt.com/stories/4vZLCH…
I firmly believe that yesterday's allegations should be taken in context with the detailed reporting and activism around the appalling and horrific conditions in detention centers around the country, not just for women, but for everyone that suffers while locked in a cage.
But because my original tweet couldn't express that all in 240 characters, my point was lost and I gave the false impression to many that I was trying to downplay the allegations or shift blame away from ICE or the problems inherent in the system at large. It was not my intent.

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

May 8
I wouldn’t believe it because it’s not true.

First, people who come via the CHNV program are not “illegal.” They have broken no laws and are here with official U.S. permission.

Second, the benefits described come from the 1980 Cuban/Haitian Entrant Act. Not a Biden program.
You can have valid, good faith disagreements about the legality of the CHNV Program, but even if the program is eventually found to be unlawful by a court of law, that would not make those who arrived under the program “illegal.”
For example, if the DACA program is eventually struck down for final time, it would not mean that those who received work authorization under the program had been illegally working for over a decade or had somehow violated other laws while they had the status.
Read 4 tweets
Apr 5
Funny they ask this. Here's my effort at jotting down a brief timeline of actions the admin has "done to lower illegal crossings" over the last 3 years. I'm sure I'm missing some things. Some have been successful. Others have been not. But it's wild to claim they haven't tried.

Image
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To be clear, I’m neither endorsing these actions nor touting them as grand failures. As I’ve said before, Biden’s record on the border is a mixed bag. But the idea the administration has not taken actions it believes will reduce illegal entries is wrong as a matter of fact.
Take the CHNV deal the Biden admin made in January 2023; Mexico let the US expel more non-Mexicans migrants back across the border in exchange for the US starting a new parole program.

There are serious concerns about both parts. But unlawful crossings are demonstrably down.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 31
He still won’t stop lying about the nature of this program. There are no “gov’s secretive immigrant flights.” There are people who get approved for a government program and have to buy a plane ticket to get here. The “flights” are United, Delta, American, etc…
I’ll also note that @BensmanTodd still refuses to acknowledge the major holes in his story that I pointed out multiple times, including his flagrant misrepresentation about what the government said in response to his FOIA.
@BensmanTodd Bensman’s falsehood-ridden post about the FOIA lawsuit is directly responsible for fueling a massive misinformation campaign about the CHNV parole program, a campaign which has seen US senators spreading wild falsehoods like the existence of “secret charter flights.
Read 5 tweets
Mar 19
Beginning this moment, Texas law enforcement officers can arrest any person in the state they believe crossed illegally. And judges can now order people to walk back into Mexico at threat of 20 years in prison if they don't—even if the person has federal permission to be here.
Crucial context: Barrett and Kavanaugh both say they are not making any decision right now because of the weird procedural posture by which it made it to the Court's shadow docket, but say if the 5th Circuit doesn't act ASAP, they may change their minds.
SO what does this mean? Well, this means SB4 is in effect—for now. But the case is likely going back to the Supreme Court on an emergency poster within the next month, either because the 5th Circuit rules officially on the stay motion, or because they wait too long and don't.
Read 12 tweets
Mar 8
🚨HUGE news. Judge Tipton dismisses the multistate lawsuit against the Biden admin's CHNV parole program, finding that the states do not have standing to sue.

That leaves the program alive for now. Texas will no doubt appeal to the 5th Cir.

Decision: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

But before this Court may address the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims, the Constitution requires Plaintiffs to demonstrate that they have standing to bring suit. For the reasons explained below, they have not done so. The Court will first address certain evidentiary issues that have arisen along the way.
Here is the key finding that Judge Tipton made: evidence shows that, after the parole programs went into effect, border crossings by people from the four CHNV countries went down (⬇️).

As he reads 5th Circuit law, since the program was a success, there can't be any injury. In sum, when deciding whether a state has been injured for Article III standing purposes, the Fifth Circuit reviews whether the numbers of aliens, and the associated amount expended because of them, increased relative to those same numbers prior to the implementation of the challenged program. In MPP II, the Fifth Circuit declared that the “most important finding” was whether the agency action “increased the number of aliens released . . . into the United States.”16 20 F.4th at 966 (emphasis added). Here, that “most important finding” results in a different outcome, a decrease. And in contr...
The CHNV parole program represented Biden's big shift to a "carrot and stick" approach.

Mexico lets the US send 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans back across the border each month. In exchange, the US agrees to take 30,000 people a month through parole. Image
Read 10 tweets
Mar 4
SB4 even goes beyond federal immigration law by allowing the state to prosecute people with green cards if the person was previously been deported and then allowed to reenter legally by the federal government—prob because the people who wrote the law didn't know that was a thing.
Under SB4, any noncitizen who has previously been deported commits a Class A misdemeanor by stepping into Texas—even if they have since legally reentered and obtained permanent legal status. There are no affirmative defenses of lawful presence for the reentry crime. Sec. 51.03.  ILLEGAL REENTRY BY CERTAIN ALIENS. (a) A person who is an alien commits an offense if the person enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in this state after the person: (1)  has been denied admission to or excluded, deported, or removed from the United States; or (2)  has departed from the United States while an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal is outstanding.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are thousands of people living in Texas with green cards or other forms of legal immigration status who, at one point in their life, had been deported. If SB4 goes into effect, every one of them risks arrest.
Read 4 tweets

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