Today Cato published a comprehensive assessment of Trump’s record toward noncitizen criminals. Partly using FOIA data, we find Trump released more criminals, oversaw a major increase in criminal entries, and deprioritized criminal arrests. cato.org/blog/trump-rel… Trump demonizes immigrants as uniquely criminal, even though all the evidence we have from the Census Bureau and other sources, show that they are less likely to commit serious crimes. But was Trump focused on the minority who do commit crimes?

🚨Dealing a devastating blow to those who want to restart expulsions, Border Patrol Chief @USBPChief just reported numbers that confirm a dramatic 70% decline in gotaways, or successful evasions of Border Patrol, since Title 42 ended in May 2023. cato.org/blog/border-pa…
Even when arrests rose back to Title 42 levels, the number of gotaways remained low. This is huge win for the Biden administration which took a massive political risk by ending Title 42. It should stick to its guns and not reverse course now.

Does the US have "open borders"? In my new paper, I provide the 1st-ever look at total green card requests over time. Since 1922, every year, most applicants didn't receive green cards. In 2024, just 3% will receive a green card, down from 99% in 1890. cato.org/briefing-paper…
Applicants are not being denied primarily because they are not qualified, but rather because the numerical caps don’t allow them to receive green cards. The caps haven’t been adjusted since 1990. Since 1996: way more requests, but no more green cards.

🧵OK, Mayorkas's impeachment: 1st 5 charges are Mayorkas not complying with various detention mandates, even though Congress has not funded this mandate and it would be unconstitutional detain everyone without feeding them. Even sleep deprivation conditions are unconstitutional:

They say his enforcement priorities that are mandated by 6 U.S. Code § 202 are illegal and cite a 5th circuit decision from 2022 that was *reversed by the Supreme Court*.

Fareed Zakaria believes Biden can simply say: "You can't come in" and then people wouldn't be able to come in and they'd stop coming. He thinks that it's political insanity for Biden not to play this card. But the card doesn't exist... washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/… Zakaria believes that most people are released **because of an asylum claim.** But this is easily disproven. Title 42 had outright banned asylum for 3 years, but people kept being released because of bottlenecks in the removal process. Now there's an asylum ban. Same thing!

New US Sentencing Commission data show that 89% of convicted fentanyl traffickers in 2022 were U.S. citizens. The new data came out just as members of Congress were frantically whipping the public into a frenzy over the need to ban asylum to stop fentanyl cato.org/blog/us-citize…
The new data are completely compatible with other data showing that 93% of fentanyl seizures occur at legal crossing points, where U.S. citizens are subject to the least scrutiny and have the right to enter whenever they want.

The @CatoInstitute just launched : an interactive online platform to allow Americans to experience the difficulties of obtaining legal permanent residence in the U.S. from an immigrant’s perspective. See if you can win! #greencardgame https://t.co/GdrUNomrVKthegreencardgame.com
Players start abroad and see if they can obtain a green card by answering the same questions & overcoming the same challenges as America's immigrants. If you have the right combination of luck and legal expertise, you might get a green card this century. Then try for citizenship!

Legal immigration is *impossible* for nearly all immigrants wishing to immigrate to the U.S. legally.

You can’t just “get in line.” That’s a fiction perpetuated by those who want to keep immigration illegal.

My latest report explains why. Here’s the summary in 1 pic... 🧵 U.S. immigration law's basic premise is that all immigrants are *guilty* until proven innocent.

Immigration is ILLEGAL unless you prove you fall into a narrow eligible category.

The result is that over 99% of people who want to immigrate legally cannot do so.

🚨Unprecedented Student Visa Denials in 2022: 35% Rejected. In 2022, consular officers denied a record 220,676 student visas. More than 1 in 3 student visa applicants were denied. This is a disaster as student visas are the jumping-off point for most skilled immigrants. The United States is losing hundreds of thousands of talented students and future workers because the State Department claims too many of the students will want to stay permanently in the United States. cato.org/blog/unprecede…

Fentanyl Is Smuggled for U.S. Citizens By U.S. Citizens, Not Asylum Seekers. Facts:
-Fentanyl trafficking is funded by US consumers: ~99% are U.S. citizens.
-US citizens were 86.3% of fentanyl traffickers in 2021, 10 times more than illegal immigrants cato.org/blog/fentanyl-… >90% of fentanyl seizures happen at ports of entry. That U.S. citizens account for most fentanyl trafficking convictions is not surprising since U.S. citizens can easily cross through ports and are subject to less scrutiny than others.

Aside from his selectively quoting the Founders & ignoring their actual policies, is Nate suggesting that Jefferson was actually right here? That 18th and 19th century immigrants to the U.S. did not assimilate and corrupted American liberty? B/c he wasn't

https://twitter.com/njhochman/status/1552832255906746369

The Founders' actual policies were as close to open borders as you can get, and Nate can't get around that by appealing to occasional misgivings. He can't ignore they wrote the Constitution to give immigrants the chance not just to vote but to become senators & congressman

US Foreign‐​Born Share Ranks Low & Is Falling Among Wealthy Countries. Despite the "extra credit" that comes from having a large illegal population, the U.S. foreign-born share is at the 26th percentile among wealthy countries, down from the 43rd in 2000 cato.org/blog/us-foreig… For recent growth, the U.S. is 6th from the bottom among the wealthiest countries. The median increase per capita was nearly three times greater than it was in the U.S. from 2015-2020.

I've heard consulates reject workers for reasons not in regs, such as paying agents to find employers, having no experience, supposedly filing for an immigration (rather than employment) purpose, making a 12-month commitment, doubting "intent" to work

https://twitter.com/David_J_Bier/status/1532013324124274688

Of course, they also deny for reasons that are in regs. It's easy to see where consular officers could get confused when they are trying to enforce other agencies' rules, and there's no correction mechanism because you can't appeal an IV denial.

The U.S. Department of State is denying an astounding 61% of employer-sponsored immigrant visa applicants because it claims to have found a problem with their job offers, even though those offers have already been reviewed and approved both by DOL and DHS. cato.org/blog/consulate… This is not a new issue. The State Department dramatically ramped up denials for employer-sponsored immigrants in the 1990s. It has never publicly explained why, and no one has reported on the phenomenon before.

State Dept. official explains that the department is not prioritizing cap subject cases, even though they face a deadline at the end of the year at which point the numbers will be lost (to the category for FB or forever for EB-DV) I don't understand how he can just say "Oh well, we won't make it, sometimes that happens." You have the ability to do whatever you want. Waive the interviews. Do remote interviews. Whatever. It's ridiculous to think you can't do 50K DV cases...

USCIS has 262,000 EB green cards to issue for this year. It approved just 27,485 adjustments in the 1st quarter of FY2021. That'd be 109,000 for the year, with consulates, say 110. Even if USCIS doubles its approval rate, it won't come close to using them all. Absolute disaster. It's especially bad because, unlike FB unused numbers, EB unused numbers get flushed at the end of the year. There's no rollover, and so no one will benefit. The Biden admin will just have reduced green cards permanently unless it reconsiders its position on recapturing them.

I'm so glad that @RebeccaBeitsch did this story. There's not enough coverage or pressure on the State Department to change its visa processing policies that are hindering the economic recovery and punishing legal immigrants.

https://twitter.com/curtisatlaw/status/1396997373205745666

The situation grows worse each month: "There were more than 500,000 immigrant visa applicants ready for interviews at the end of April, with 22,000 scheduled for this month. That’s roughly a third of the average of 60,000 visa appointments pre-pandemic." thehill.com/policy/nationa…

What's your least favorite most annoying #I485 question? This one is truly nuts uscis.gov/sites/default/… Why are there so many questions about things that appear to me to be unrelated to someone's eligibility for adjustment of status? Why are you asking about activities and conduct that aren't related to your eligibility for a visa?

Unbelievable! USCIS delayed the #H2B rule for 55 days past employer's start dates. Then tells them all that their labor certifications are "out of date" if the start date was more than 45 days ago, forcing them to redo the whole process. Wonder why we've got illegal immigration? I'm certain that #H2B employers will do this, but it is absolutely ridiculous and unfair to employers that are trying to follow the law. They met all the requirements. They did everything right, and now USCIS says they have to redo it b/c the agency messed up. Unbelievable.

In addition to our previously published regulatory reform ideas, Cato's comment included three additional proposals for USCIS on H visas. First, USCIS increase the H-2 status limit to 6 years. The 3-year limit is not supported in the statute cato.org/blog/uscis-sho… 6 years would harmonize with H-1B. More importantly, the 3-year limit reduces the number of available H-2 workers (particularly for H-2B), while also decreasing the bargaining power for all H-2 workers who have reached the 3-year limit since employers know they can't change jobs

He says there is no labor shortage b/c all companies need to do to get workers is raise wages. But then he says that companies are raising wages and concludes by giving several reasons why "shortages" are happening anyway nytimes.com/2021/05/20/bri… In the technical sense, of course, the fact that McDonalds can't find workers at whatever wage isn't a "shortage." But the idea that it'll ever make financial sense for McDonalds to pay $25/hour to take burger orders is absurd.