I only repost this to note that Stephen Miller had only ever been quoted before by an anonymous source as saying refugee admissions should be zero. This is the first (to my knowledge, I may be wrong) public statement saying what we all knew; he wants no refugees at all, none.
And Miller's comments also puts Biden's action today in perspective; when you've pleased Stephen Miller, you've f**ked up.
There remains a lot to like about what the Biden administration is doing on immigration, and I remain in the camp that his administration is overall working to improve the system and fix the damage done by Trump, just slower than I'd like. But today's decision was a mistake.
The Biden administration has a ton of incredible immigration experts working for them who know the system like the back of their hands. I wish that the highest levels of the White House would spend more time listening to them than worrying about optics. We could get so much done!
The right wing often suggests that "fraudulent family units" imply child trafficking. But this CBP press release shows what it normally is.
1) An aunt and her niece. 2) A family friend in whose care a mother placed her child.
Once discovered, the adults and kids were separated.
The first example is a perfect case for how an inflexible approach produces bad outcomes. The aunt and her niece were incentivized to lie about being mother and daughter to avoid separation—which didn't work. And now the niece will go to an ORR shelter at taxpayer expense.
The solution to these kinds of separations, between grandparents and grandchildren or aunts and nieces, is to embed ORR caseworkers within the Border Patrol and have the aunt processed as a sponsor right on the spot so they can be released together.
The DNA tests were a 2019 “innovation” only used on people CBP already suspected of lying about parentage, and produced a low rate of confirmed suspicions (below 20%). And in very few cases was there no relationship; often it was an uncle saying he was a dad, that kind of thing.
The people using the term “fake families often want you to think that it’s some kind of child trafficking thing. But it’s almost never that.
Instead, it’s usually a situation like how my great-grandmother got through Ellis Island as a baby; her aunt pretended she was the mom.
Many/most USians have some ancestral story about how their family got one over the immigration inspectors way back when. Heck, even the Trumps got here that way.
That’s why I just can’t muster much outrage over people doing it now. Is it wrong? Yes. Is it a “big deal”? Eh.
It takes a lot of chutzpah to file a lawsuit in the 9th Circuit arguing that the Biden administration is required by law to resume a program that the 9th Circuit has already ruled is illegal. Let's see how that goes for them.
Also, hahaha good luck on a NEPA challenge on these issues. Brnovich really going for a slap-down here.
I'd be remiss not to note that "immigrants cause environmental harm" is literally the argument that led eugenicist John Tanton to start his network of anti-immigrant groups.
The extent to which @GeneralBrnovich's lawsuit adopts the rhetoric of hate groups like NumbersUSA cannot be understated. "Population control" is at their eugenicist heart, including calls for immigration restrictions on environmental grounds.
The policies the GOP are pointing to either didn't change at all or lifting them had no effect on the border.
- Just 1.19% of people encountered since March 2020 were put into MPP. Zero were subject to an asylum agreement.
- Biden has made no changes to Title 42 practices. None.
The argument that Biden's *policies* have led to more people coming to the border is laughable and those like @ByronYork who make it expose primarily how little they're tracking the actual details of border policy and just regurgitating talking points.
On the other hand, the argument that Biden's *rhetoric,* both pre- and post-election, have caused more people to come is harder to debunk. It may well have. But Biden can't go back in time and unsay things. And the pro-immigrant rhetoric is basically Reaganesque, for god's sake!
It is beyond patronizing to say that it's "cruel" to let people in because being in limbo for five years due to a broken immigration system is somehow worse that being completely blocked and left to the wolves.
"Well, on the one hand, you might starve to death/be killed in your home country. On the other hand, being stuck in limbo for five years is genuinely awful. So let's just turn you away to save you the limbo."
Come. On.
Never forget that Andrew Sullivan, champion of immigration restrictions, committed immigration fraud to get a visa (lied about being gay, which was at the time a ground of inadmissibility) and used his connections to get out of a marijuana charge that threatened his green card.
Single adults continue to be the biggest driver of headlines about "border numbers."
Apprehensions of single adults are going back to the 1990s-2000s, driven by many people crossing repeatedly thanks to Title 42. And like back in the day, almost all get sent back to Mexico.
When it comes to family units, we have seen a distinct increase in families beginning in January. This seems driven both by Mexico's refusal to accept many families that Trump/Biden wanted to expel, as well as a sense that now is the time. It's looking a lot like 2019.