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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
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18 Nov, 5 tweets, 2 min read
In 2016, Chad Mizelle, a 29-year-old first-year associate volunteered for the Trump campaign. Four years later:

- He’s DHS Acting General Counsel
- His wife is a federal judge
- One law school friend and groomsman is Deputy General Counsel at DHS. Another has a DOJ job.
Here’s some more background on the groomsman I highlighted. Ian Brekke was named Deputy General Counsel at DHS with three years of experience as a law firm associate. At the time, Mizelle was at the White House where he was a close ally to Stephen Miller.
Here's an article written in February when Mizelle was named the Acting General Counsel (technically the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the General Counsel).

He graduated law school in 2013, clerked, then joined a law firm in 2015. lawandcrime.com/high-profile/t…
Just learned I got my timeline off slightly in the second tweet, after looking at his LinkedIn. Mizelle had already left the White House and joined DHS before his friend got the Deputy General Counsel job. Meaning he would have had even more opportunity to influence the hiring.
Jumping back into this thread to say that I've now had a chance to do some further investigation into the friend with the DOJ position, and confirmed they have a civil service job requiring competitive hiring. As a result I withdraw any implication that might have been out there.

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
18 Nov
New! DHS is proposing to expand its decades-long attempt to create a biometric entry/exit data system for international travelers.

The regulation would end the current pilot programs and allow CBP to collect biometrics at any point of departure.

Read: public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-24707.pdf
Notably, DHS has been working to implement a biometric entry/exit system since Congress told them to do it in 1996.

The biometric entry portion of the system was implemented in 2006. They've been struggling for years to get the biometric exit part done.

fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/I…
Although the concept of a biometric entry/exit system is not new to the Trump administration, the civil liberties issues remain serious.

For example, a CBP pilot program of facial recognition systems for biometric exit checks led to a major data breach. nextgov.com/cybersecurity/…
Read 6 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
17 Nov
🚨 New! The Trump administration's proposal to strip work permits from people that have been ordered removed but cannot be legally deported is out.

The explicit and stated purpose of the rule is to make those peoples' lives harder so they'll self-deport. public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2020-25473.pdf
Many people are ordered deported by an immigration judge but cannot BE deported. This is usually because their country of nationality will not take them.

For decades, these people have been able to get work permits, since they're not going anywhere. Now DHS wants to end that.
The proposal could affect tens of thousands of people who currently have these work permits, many of whom have lived in the United States for decades, working legally and paying taxes.

Every year, USCIS approves 20,000-30,000 of these work permit applications (inc. renewals).
Read 12 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
17 Nov
Further update in USCIS's push to inject even more "discretion" into immigration benefit adjudications.

While these benefits have always *technically* required discretion, this administration has moved to codify and expand it in ways that will lead to more denials.
Today's update to the @USCIS Policy Manual adopts the Trump administration's general attitude that legal immigrants are only here on forbearance, with a status that can be taken away any time. Check out the new "Purpose" section.

Old New
The old language is still there, it's just now buried after the brand new section on "rights and responsibilities" of people on green cards, in which point number one notes that the status can be taken away—which is true, of course. But the choice of emphasis here is notable.
Read 7 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
16 Nov
Over the next hour I'll be watching a (sadly not public) congressional briefing featuring @RepJasonCrow on the important role of congressional offices in overseeing immigration detention. We're proud @immcouncil to join with other orgs to help facilitate this kind of briefing.
Representative Crow is talking about the ways he came to become the first member of Congress to have his office conduct weekly oversight visits of the Aurura Detention Center. "My job was to do oversight and accountability of federal facilities." cpr.org/2019/07/09/rep…
Rep. Crow says he was met in the lobby of the ICE detention center and refused entry three times, when he tried to conduct oversight. "Needless to say, that was the wrong response."

He then helped work to pass a law requiring ICE to allow Congressional oversight.
Read 11 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
13 Nov
The new citizenship test reported on by @priscialva is now officially public. Citizenship applicants will now have to answer 12 of 20 questions right, up from 6 of 10.

This will inevitably lengthen the interview process and lead to fewer interviews a day.
As @priscialva reported, the new test shifts many questions towards broader principles.

For example, "What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution?" has been replaced with "What does the Bill of Rights protect?"

Old New
Some questions have been explicitly made harder. For example, "Name one branch or part of the government" has been replaced with "Name the three branches of government."

Notably, Senator-Elect Tuberville got this wrong yesterday

Old New
Read 27 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
12 Nov
The Border Patrol already makes these numbers public once a year. It's not like these are any secret.

What they want to do is throw around numbers which are historically low, but because people don't have any context, they'll freak out about it. It's propaganda.
In 2006, the Border Patrol recorded 1,071,972 apprehensions and 615,000 “got aways.”

In 2019 they recorded 851,508 apprehensions and just 140,000 “got aways”—a 77% drop since 2006.

We haven't seen FY20 numbers yet.
Importantly, we might expect an increase in reported "got aways" this year from the Border Patrol not because of more *people,* but because of more *data.*

The Border Patrol Chief wrote earlier this year that improved reporting of incidents will itself lead to an increase.
Read 4 tweets

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