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.

This week: 459/day
2 weeks ago: 496/day
3 weeks ago: 533/day
4 weeks ago: 488/day

Not the direction needed.
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.
Long story short: this is the graph that should be worrying the Biden administration, despite their recent victory laps in front of Congress.

On most days, we are still seeing an overall reduction in kids in custody, which is good. But that trendline is worrying.

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

11 Jun
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.

reginfo.gov/public/do/eAge… Image
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.

Here is a link to the full agenda. reginfo.gov/public/do/eAge…
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. Image
Read 24 tweets
1 Jun
MPP was created by policy memo and now it’s been formally revoked by policy memo.
Here is a link to the formal memorandum terminating MPP that Secretary Mayorkas signed today.

It's a 7-page memo—significantly longer than the memo creating MPP. That's likely designed to insulate it from legal challenges.

dhs.gov/sites/default/…
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." As an initial matter, my re...
Read 7 tweets
28 May
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.

There are currently no Legal Orientation Program contracts in 7 out of 10 of the cities chosen for the Biden administration's new rocket docket.

So while it is laudable to talk about expanding access to legal orientation, the cart is before the horse.
Read 5 tweets
27 May
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." Thus, we deem it unreasonable and fundamentally unfair to ex
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. Petitioner feared that the gang would murder him if he were
Read 8 tweets
26 May
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).

appropriations.house.gov/events/hearing…
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.

You can read the full written testimony here. docs.house.gov/meetings/AP/AP…
Read 11 tweets
25 May
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.
Read 4 tweets

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