I need everyone screaming about "open borders" to take a long, long look at this chart.
The actual number of people processed under normal immigration law (and not rapidly expelled back to Mexico) under Biden in 2021 never even hit half the number of people as in 2019.
For those curious about where this figure comes from, check out our fact sheet on Rising Border Encounters in 2021, which gives you the deep context most coverage is missing. There's a new update with May border data included and analyzed coming soon! americanimmigrationcouncil.org/rising-border-…
The vast majority of people who are encountered by the Border Patrol continue to be expelled back to Mexico, while the number of people processed under normal immigration law (which could mean deportation, prosecution, or access to the asylum process) remains flat since March.
You often hear those screaming about "open borders" claiming that we're seeing more families coming to the border than ever under Biden.
This is also not true. Not only are families at less than half of 2019 levels, but tens of thousands got expelled, making numbers even lower.
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This fictional chart from Ron Johnson strikes again. As I've explained repeatedly, this chart is MASSIVELY wrong, leaving out hundreds of thousands of apprehensions that occurred before Biden took office.
Here's the corrected version, showing the rising trend since last spring.
This now makes multiple members of Congress who are using a chart which @thehill has already debunked weeks ago thanks to my analysis. On Thursday, Rep. VanDrew also showed this chart—which, again, is *severely* misleading—at a DHS budget hearing.
The Johnson/VanDrew/Boebert chart is doing well on right-wing media because it plays into this fiction that before Joe Biden took office, the border was somehow perfectly secured and no one was coming.
As I pointed out yesterday, that's a total fiction.
!! AG Garland just vacated Matter of A-B- I & II and Matter of L-E-A-, taking the first major step towards restoring asylum law to what it was before Sessions and Barr took over.
This is a huge day not just for restoring the rule of law in asylum adjudications, but also for Ms. A-B- herself, who has now been fighting her case for over six years. Same goes for L-E-A-. We can never forget these are individual peoples' cases.
Importantly, A.G. Garland does not set any new asylum law through his decisions in A-B- and L-E-A-'s cases.
Instead, he just vacated the decisions in favor of future rulemaking that they've suggested will come in the fall, requiring judges to go back to the pre-Trump precedent.
Smugglers lie to people. They said Trump was allowing all families to enter. They say Biden promised not to deport anyone who comes now. All lies. It's what they do.
So the idea that we can't ever help immigrants because if we did smugglers might lie about it is profoundly dumb.
Let's be serious. When Congress is debating amnesty, smugglers say "Now's your best chance."
When Congress is debating border restrictions, smugglers say "Now's your best chance."
It doesn't matter who's in the White House or not, smugglers will say "Now's your best chance."
If someone tells you that Biden is to blame for smugglers selling "now" as the time to come to the border, remind them that the highest number of families ever to come to the border happened in 2019 under Donald F*cking Trump just months after family separation!
Oh man now I've gone down the rabbit hole of this incident and a genuine thank you to the reporter for embedding all the relevant documents in this article.
Great news! 🎊 The Biden administration just said it will review pending U visa applications to determine if they are "bona fide," which makes the applicant eligible for deferred action and a work permit.
The current U visa process is so broken that an applicant has to wait from 4-6 years just to have USCIS determine if their application is bona fide, then wait another 15 years for a visa.
Today's policy change eliminates that first delay. Only Congress can fix the second.
Right now USCIS is processing applications for U Visas that were filed on June 30, 2016—nearly FIVE YEARS delay from the time the application was filed until the point that an applicant can get any benefit.
The new policy change will fix this absurd outcome.
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.