Thread by @ReichlinMelnick

!! Incredible FOIA victory from @DMRS_ElPaso, obtaining key operational documents from MPP’s early rollout, including this memo from Chad Wolf—then acting head of Office of Strategy—concluding that MPP wouldn’t have any singular effect on migration flows. dmrs-ep.org/dmrs-vs-ice-fo…

There’s also this memo from May 2019, previously reported on but never released publicly, where the decision is made to create tent courts along the border and where EOIR admits backlogs are massively growing and resolving all MPP cases timely would require 1/3 of all judges.

Here are talking points for a meeting attended by every major immigration person at DHS.

“MPP is a priority for this Administration, and we must do everything in our power to implement and expand it.”

ZERO mention of concerns about dangers in Mexico for people subject to MPP.

This document shows that ICE itself was drafting research and likely policies on legal access for attorneys, witnesses, and media at the tent courts. The prosecutors were setting the rules for whether they’d let in the public. Kangaroo courts!

! Who’s this mystery person?

High-level ICE attorney writes email, saying they believe attorneys will need to meet with clients before a hearing at a tent court.

Mystery person responds, SHOCKED, having never imagined that could possibly be required. Can’t they just a phone?

Anyway, these documents are mostly stunning in what they lack—any humanity.

Warning signs are going off inside the memo that details are fuzzy and plans are slapdash, and they’re plowing forward without a care in the world, heedless of the toll of human misery they’re exacting.