Mayorkas highlights three main reasons to terminate MPP.
First, he notes that MPP "does not adequately or sustainably enhance border management in such a way as to justify the program's extensive operational burdens and other shortfalls."
Next, Mayorkas notes that the Trump administration's alleged reason for creating MPP ("quickly adjudicat[ing] legitimate asylum claims and clear asylum backlogs") didn't work and "came with certain significant drawbacks that are cause for concern." Backlogs also didn't go down.
Mayorkas also observes that one of the alleged rationales for MPP was "reduc[ing] burdens on border security personnel and resources," but the exact opposite happened.
He also says that over 25%(!) of all people subject to MPP crossed the border again after being put into MPP.
The memorandum then spends nearly over a page going over other things that Mayorkas considered in detail before deciding to terminate MPP.
This entire section is designed to shield against the kinds of lawsuits that Trump lost repeatedly by NOT doing this kind of thing.
The Biden DHS is clearly making sure they dot every i and cross every t before moving forward with major policy changes, because they know that Ken Paxton and Stephen Miller are ready to sue them over everything.
Thankfully, the Trump DHS wasn't even remotely this competent.
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This week was not a great one for the Biden administration's goal of emptying out the "emergency influx shelters" for migrant children. We began the week with 16,037 children in HHS custody and ended the week with 16,035 children in HHS custody, a complete wash.
The Biden administration's progress in discharging children from HHS custody continues to be worryingly inconsistent. Here are daily averages over the past four weeks.
Making matters worse, at the same time as discharges at HHS are slowing, the number of unaccompanied children arriving at the border has begun to creep back up after falling from late March through mid-May. This week saw the highest daily average since late April.
The Uniform Regulatory Agenda is out and we now have our first OFFICIAL confirmation that the Biden administration is planning to issue its first big asylum rule through an "interim final rule," without going through notice and comment.
I'm going to do a thread on all of the immigration-related new regulations and proposals included in the Spring 2021 Uniform Regulatory Agenda, which previews an administration's plans to create new regulations.
Continuing on the theme of asylum, here is the Biden administration's preview of a *separate* asylum rule, that would go through notice and comment rulemaking, to follow the February 2 executive order that called on DHS and DOJ to strengthen asylum protections by regulation.
Both the Obama administration and the Trump administration created "rocket dockets" for families. They didn't work. Now the Biden administration is going for a third try.
The last seven years have proven that rushed justice is no justice at all. This is the wrong way forward.
It is unacceptable to move forward with a new rocket docket while asylum seekers are still subject to the harsh anti-asylum precedent put in place by AGs Sessions and Barr.
The priority must be restoring due process FIRST. Not as an afterthought.
A fantastic 4th Circuit decision finding that immigration judges must affirmatively develop the record, which includes suggesting particular social groups for those without lawyers.
Judge Wynn calls the government's objections "preposterous" and "utterly divorced from reality."
Judge Wynn telling truths! "We deem it unreasonable and fundamentally unfair to expect pro se asylum seekers...to even understand what a particular social group is, let alone fully appreciate which facts may be relevant to their claims and articulate a legally cognizable group."
This case concerns a person recruited into MS-13 at age 16, who fled El Salvador within months of joining because he realized the mistake he'd made.
His first attempt to leave ended in a beating and death threats—not idle ones, as they brutally murdered his cousin for leaving.
Less than 10 minutes into the DHS appropriations hearing with @AliMayorkas and we already got Ranking Member Fleischmann referring to CBP as "CPB" and incorrectly saying that border apprehensions are "at a record high" (they are not).
Ranking Member Fleischmann also cites Nick Miroff's Washington Post article from yesterday that pushed a false narrative that ICE isn't doing anything anymore, despite the fact that ICE has arrested 13,000 people since February 13.
Secretary Mayorkas is now giving his opening statement, which is mostly summarizing the Biden skinny budget.
As we documented in our report on immigration enforcement, Trump never got what he wanted and ICE didn't even reach half of the level of Obama's first term.
Also, that "functionally abolished" line is ridiculous propaganda. From 2/13 to 5/8 ICE arrested at least 12,438 people.
The idea that ICE officers are sitting around twiddling their thumbs is absurd.
Yes, numbers are down since Biden took office. But thousands are still being booked into detention after an ICE arrest and detentions from the border are skyrocketing.
Correction that this should say "12,388." A brain to finger mistake. That is only the count of people "booked in" to detention so it would not count anyone who is served with a Notice to Appear without an arrest, or who is released before detention.