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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
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3 Mar, 5 tweets, 2 min read
Fox News fearmongering in action. Headline: "108 migrants released ... in Texas test positive."

Story: 108 positive tests "since late January," which represent[s] 6.3% of the number of total migrants."

So—a tiny number, and half the state rate of 12.3%!
foxnews.com/us/108-migrant…
Yesterday Governor Abbott ordered the entire state of Texas to be open and eliminated all mask mandates, and Fox News wants you to be afraid that on average 3-4 migrants a day have tested positive for COVID.

In reality, those numbers show that any threat is massively overblown!
Just yesterday, 7,747 people tested positive for COVID in Texas. In one day.

Several thousand families have been released at the border in Texas *since late January.* Just 108 tested positive.

Fox News splashing that 108 number across headlines shows where their priorities are.
Unsurprisingly, the story is spreading across the right-wing media ecosystem now.

The same people who attacked mask mandates and demanded states open up no matter how many people got infected want you to be afraid of 3-4 migrants a day testing positive.

Remember that this fearmongering is not about public health.

At the current rate shown by the story (108 per month), it would take SIX YEARS for enough migrants to test positive at the border to match the number of Texans who tested positive YESTERDAY.

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
19 Feb
I don't really have words to describe the feelings this news has left in me. It's not enough people, it's too slow, there's so much more to be done... but I am overwhelmed with joy that one of the most horrifically cruel policies in a generation is finally coming to an end.
The Trump administration's "clever" move after the disaster of family separation was to outsource the cruelty.

No longer would CBP agents tear children from their parents' arms; they could just toss families to the wolves and let the cartels do their dirty work.
We spent so much effort in 2019 trying to get the nation to share our outrage with what was happening with MPP.

But after family separation and "kids in cages," the externalization of the harm, out of sight of the general public, meant that the horrors never really sunk in.
Read 8 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
18 Feb
We are finally getting the new ICE priorities! My first thought is that they are undoubtedly better than what we had under Obama, but they still leave out a lot of people who have long ties to the community, such as certain individuals with felon records who've served their time.
The new interim enforcement priorities, which will last for 90 days, are harsher than the ones from January 20th:

- Terrorism/espionage
- Recent entrants (after Nov 1)
- Anyone with an "aggravated felony" or ties to certain gangs who ICE determines is a public safety threat.
In order to determine if someone in that last category is a "public safety threat," ICE officers must "consider the extensiveness, seriousness, and recency of any criminal activity, as well as mitigating factors..." such as communities ties, rehabilitation, and family in the US.
Read 9 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
18 Feb
We finally have the U.S. Citizenship Act Bill Text! I'm going to go through some portions of the bill right now and highlight some of the major changes and improvements that it would make to our immigration system.

Thread:
First the Bill makes a series of promises changes to the way we talk about immigrants and immigration law.

Gone would be the term "alien" and in its place is "noncitizen."

Also gone would be the term "alienage," replaced with "noncitizenship."
Now we get to the "earned path to citizenship" for all undocumented immigrants present in the United States on January 1, 2021.

Under this bill, anyone who satisfies the eligibility criteria for a new "lawful prospective immigrant status" can come out of the shadows.
Read 18 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
10 Feb
Interesting poll! But it gets the Census EO wrong.

- Undocumented immigrants have ALWAYS been included in the Census. Biden changed nothing.
- Trump's EO didn't exclude undocumented immigrants from the Census. It excluded them from apportionment calculations for House districts.
This is a continual problem with polling the public on immigration issues. If the pollsters get the basic details wrong, or simply echo the talking points pushed by the politicians who are also getting the details wrong, it makes the poll results incoherent.
A key problem with polling on immigration is that for most Americans, the details of immigration policy are an entirely abstract issue divorced from day-to-day life.

That means what you end up actually polling is not policy, but sentiment as filtered through media consumption.
Read 4 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
9 Feb
I tuned back in to this and got a bizarre digression from Castor into why the "excited utterance" hearsay exception exists, for reasons entirely unclear to anyone except himself.

Now he's talking about how record players work.
Castor's impeachment defense opening argument is just incredibly incoherent. We've gone from brief academic discussions of hearsay rules, to asking whether anyone remembers what a record player is, to a long digression about Everett Dirksen and why US Senators are "gallant."
Now he's... telling Senators how great they are? Just like as a general matter, how he believe Senators are important people and do good thing, and then says that he personally knows both of PA's senators.

"The people you represent are proud of their senators" which, uh....
Read 21 tweets
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
2 Feb
On to the Legal Immigration Executive Order (thanks @DLind for emailing).

It begins by affirming that "Our Nation is enriched socially and economically by the presence of immigrants, and we celebrate with them as they take the important step of becoming United States citizens."
The first portion of the legal immigration executive order calls for the creation of a Task Force of New Americans to be run out of the White House Domestic Policy Council, with will "coordinate the Federal Government's efforts to welcome and support immigrants."
Next, the EO calls for a full review by the AG and the Secretaries of DHS & State Dep't of "existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and any other similar agency actions that may be inconsistent" with the welcoming policy of the Biden administration.
Read 12 tweets

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