The Biden administration's choice to expand Remain in Mexico to everyone from the Western Hemisphere—including Haitians—makes the program even broader than it ever was under the Trump administration.

Biden didn't just bring back Remain in Mexico. He's made it even worse.
To everyone responding to this saying Biden is just following what the Supreme Court told him to do:

- All the Supreme Court did was turn down a request to stop the lower court injunction.
- The lower court said Biden doesn't need to do the exact same implementation as Trump.
The Biden administration will make some minor changes to improve Remain in Mexico, including allowing the tiny handful of people who manage to get lawyers (5-7%, compared to 60% inside the US) to have more meeting opportunities before hearings.

That... is not much of a help.
Anyway.
Okay, here's the formal guidance on MPP. I'm going to go through it and flag how it's better/worse than the original.

dhs.gov/publication/co…
First, DHS commits to ensuring "timely" hearings for people in MPP. Of course, so did the Trump administration when it rolled out MPP. It promised hearings would be completed within 6 months. That fell apart quickly.

I rate this change as neutral; I don't believe it'll work.
Next, DHS is changing the process exemptions from MPP due to persecution in Mexico.

- CBP officers will now ask people if they fear return (under Trump they weren't allowed to)
- The standard is now "reasonable possibility," not "more likely than not"

This as a positive change.
Next, DHS promises to work with Mexico and international organizations to ensure people have shelters to go to and transportation to and from court hearings.

I rate this change as mostly neutral: there's no way it works in practice. Kidnappers will continue to prey on migrants.
Next, DHS has "solved" the problem of family separation in MPP (with one family member sent to Mexico and the other allowed in or sent to ICE detention) by ... sending everyone back to Mexico.

I rate this change as neutral; solving one problem by creating another.
Next, DHS says that it will basically go back to the Trump administration policy of expelling most migrants under Title 42 and subjecting those who can't be expelled to MPP.

I rate this as neutral; it's not a change.
Next, DHS says that MPP will resume at the exact same locations as under Trump.

Notably, Nuevo Laredo is even MORE dangerous today than it was when MPP started there in 2019.

So despite not being a change, I rate this as worse.
Next, DHS says it will expand MPP to all individuals from the Western Hemisphere.

As I noted upthread, this is actively worse than what the Trump administration did, where originally it was just nationals of Spanish-speaking countries, and then later expanded to Brazilians.
Next, DHS lists new vulnerability for those exempt from MPP. These categories are very similar to what they were under Trump, and CBP routinely violated even the narrow protections in place.

I fully expect CBP to ignore these exemptions this time around too. So neutral.
Next, DHS says that people will get COVID vaccines offered.

Since MPP never before operated under a time when vaccines existed, this is positive, I guess? But also irrelevant; vaccinations are now widely available in Mexico as well.

So I rate this as mostly positive?
Next, DHS explains the new non-refoulment screening standards.

The major positive change is in points 1 & 2 here. It's also one that is going to immediately cause operational headaches for CBP, as nearly everyone will express a fear of returning to Mexico (with good reason!).
DHS further explains that migrants will now able to consult with lawyers before a non-refoulment interview to avoid being put into MPP.

Since less than 5% of migrants will have lawyers at this point, the consultation right is meaningless for majority, good for a small few.
Next, DHS explains its new "access to counsel" protections, which are a tiny fig leaf that does not solve the gaping problem that getting a US lawyer while stuck in Mexico in MPP is nearly impossible.

I rate this as a tiny bit positive, but mostly neutral. See meme upthread.
Finally, DHS says they will "align the number of new MPP enrollments with the number of cases EOIR says it generally can complete within 180 days."

What this means? Expect fewer MPP enrollments in San Diego/El Paso, more in Laredo/Brownsville.

I rate that as negative.
Long story short? The new MPP guidance is mostly the same as the old MPP guidance, better in one specific aspect (non-refoulment interviews) and worse in others (expansion to Haitians and all Western Hemisphere nationals).

This is proof you can't make the inhumane, humane.

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More from @ReichlinMelnick

2 Dec
Read @KennjiKizuka's thread collecting examples of people subject to extreme harm under the Remain in Mexico/MPP program.

Today the Biden administration restarts MPP under court order, and apparently with "few changes."

So many people are going to be hurt.
Read Lucia's story's here. It is not for the faint of heart.

We @immcouncil submitted it to Congress in 2019 to show how bad Remain in Mexico was. Today the Biden administration restarts it under court order. So many will be hurt. americanimmigrationcouncil.org/sites/default/…

Listen to the words of a woman put into Remain in Mexico and kidnapped with her husband.

The cartels tortured her husband as they tried to get a ransom. She heard him scream repeatedly and saw him bloodied and hurt.

She didn't know if he was still alive.
Read 24 tweets
2 Dec
Biden will restart the Remain in Mexico ("Migrant Protection Protocols") program today under court order—with few changes. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

Under Remain in Mexico, families were forced to run a gauntlet of kidnappers just to get to the court door.
The "Migrant Protection Protocols" were a human rights disaster wrapped up in an Orwellian name.

@humanrights1st documented over 1,500 publicly reported cases of attacks on migrants in MPP.

Even the Border Patrol admitted the "protections" were fake.
Texas and Louisiana falsely claimed that Biden ending MPP set off a border surge. But in reality, MPP had been effectively suspended by the Trump administration months before Biden took office!

There is no evidence that ending MPP caused more people to come to the border. Zero.
Read 4 tweets
1 Dec
Let's set the record straight. Only if a migrant is expelled back to Mexico—which occurs to the majority—do they not get tested.

If a migrant is released or sent to ICE detention, they get tested, sometimes by the feds and sometimes by local organizations or health departments.
By using phrases like "by the federal government" and "no mass testing," fearmongers like @BillFOXLA are trying to falsely make people believe that there's a threat from COVID due to migrants.

But the evidence is crystal clear; no such threat exists. washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/…
If a migrant tests positive, then in the vast majority of cases local organizations/governments arrange for a place for the person to quarantine, such as a hotel, or in the case of McAllen, a park where they've stood up a tent with temporary housing.

Read 4 tweets
1 Dec
This is literally made up. The annual report on unauthorized immigrants was published in April and can be found at this website here: dhs.gov/immigration-st…

And, I'll point out, the Trump administration actually failed to publish the annual updates in 2019 and 2020!
Since all it takes is a single Google search and a couple of clicks to find the April 2021 estimate of the undocumented population, why did @Lancegooden get this so badly wrong?

Because of an awful @FreeBeacon headline about a totally different report.
Sorry, brief correction: the estimate of the undocumented population was last published in January 2021, and only put onto DHS's website in April. Before that, DHS had last published the report in December 2018.

The next one is due in 2022.

dhs.gov/sites/default/…
Read 4 tweets
1 Dec
I missed this earlier today! 🚨 One day after the February ICE priorities expired, the en banc 5th Circuit takes up the stay of Tipton's injunction, and vacates the panel decision.

I think that means the injunction is back in place—but completely moot?
ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/2…
Since the injunction is moot, what does this mean? Well, Texas is now attempting to block Mayorkas's new ICE priority memo, which went into effect yesterday.

Today's action by the 5th Circuit makes it far easier for Judge Tipton to issue a new injunction.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
On November 19th, the states of Texas and Louisiana filed the reply brief for a motion to block the Mayorkas priorities from going into effect.

That means if Tipton is planning to block the new priorities, a decision could come any day. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Read 5 tweets
30 Nov
Let's fact-check his claim that the temporary closure of some checkpoints this year changed fentanyl smuggling methods. We'll do that by looking at FY 2020, which began and ended under Trump.

Lo and behold—exactly the same as FY 2021. It's coming in cars and trucks, not on foot. Image
As the Trump admin acknowledged, the overwhelming majority of hard drugs are smuggled in vehicles through ports of entry, because just 2% of passenger vehicles and 15% of commercial traffic gets searched.

There is no evidence this has changed under Biden.
Let's fact-check another way. He claims the temporary closure of some Border Patrol checkpoints in March & September (reassigning agents to migrant processing) helped fentanyl smugglers.

If he's right, seizures should go down post-closure.

They didn't.
Image
Read 6 tweets

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