Biden is on pace to resettle the fewest refugees in the history of the program. But there's also another stunning precedent being set here: he is now the first occupant of the WH to reverse his own "Presidential Determination" on the # of refugees his Admin plans to resettle. 1/ On Feb 12, the Secretary of State notified Congress that the Admin planned to resettle 62.5K refugees for the current fiscal year. That number wasn't a campaign promise or a general aspiration. It reflected an elaborate, inter-agency sign-off from State, HHS, DHS, and NSC. 2/

Tomorrow in Guatemala, a judge named Dina Ochoa faces a vote to be re-elected to the country’s Constitutional Court. Her critics accuse her of being corrupt. This thread includes info relevant to that conversation. It’s also about the US & the rule of law in Central America 1/ On September 9, 2019, then Interior Minister Enrique Degenhart & Dina Ochoa, at the time a magistrate on the Constitutional Court, had a meeting in Washington w Mauricio Claver-Carone, then an official at the WH (& now the controversial head of Inter-American Development Bank) 2/

The Trump policy closing the border to asylum seekers during the pandemic (Title 42) put Biden in a bind from day 1. The policy was adopted in bad faith, w no scientific basis. The Biden Admin acknowledges that, but still faces complex reality at border 1/ nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/… Keeping border partially closed to asylum seekers gives the new Admin breathing room, to restart & stand back up an asylum system that’s been dismantled over past 4 years. But, of course, it also exposes a searing moral (& legal) dilemma: you either believe in asylum or not. 2/

Chad Wolf is stepping down w barely a week left in Trump’s term. For many months Wolf’s been dogged by legal questions (& court judgments) abt how he was serving illegitimately as acting DHS sec’y. How will he be remembered in the post? 1/ He’ll go down as a Trump shill who did the bidding of the White House at the very real cost of inflicting permanent damage on DHS as an institution. His handling of protests this past summer was militant and widely decried by his Republican & Democratic predecessors. 2/

As usual, so much vying for our attention. But tonight two members of Biden team gave the most detailed interview to date abt incoming Admin’s plans for dealing w asylum, Central American migration, & the southern border. It was more a statement of purpose than an action plan. 1/ There are very encouraging signs and, as expected, some lacunae. A few noteworthy details: (1) The advisors said Biden will “expand legal pathways for migration...allowing people to apply for refugee resettlement & temporary worker and employment-based programs” in the region. 2/

Absolute blockbuster report from @aflores w an early look at unpublished DHS IG report. At the peak of the family separation crisis in spring/summer of 2018, DHS officials insisted that there was a right and a wrong way to seek asylum at the border. 1/ buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfo… The "wrong way" was to cross the border *between ports of entry*. Anyone who did this was fair game for prosecution (i.e. separation from children). The "right way" was to ask for asylum at ports of entry. (This formulation isn't accurate or legal, but that's another issue.) 2/

We're at DefCon1 levels of *gross mismanagement* @DHSgov at this point, where each day brings another massive scandal. So many of these scandals are unfolding at once, in real time, that it's worth highlighting the basic chronology of a few of them from past couple of weeks. 1/ (i) "Dept has been using major hotel chains to detain [hundreds of] children & families taken into custody at border, creating a largely unregulated shadow system of detention and swift expulsions." 2/ nytimes.com/2020/08/16/us/…

All through the 80s, the US gov denied asylum applications from Salvadorans & Guatemalans at exorbitantly high rates for political reasons: the US was supporting the regimes that were brutalizing their own people & forcing them to flee. 1/ The political logic was simple & brutal: if the US granted asylum claims, then it would have to acknowledge that the Salvadoran and Guatemalan governments it was propping up (with aid $$, military advisors, etc) were murderous and incorrigible abusers of human rights. 2/

The DHS whistle-blower complaint provides even more evidence of how the dept has simply become a cesspool of Trumpism. There's one set of details concerning Central America that seems worth calling attention to, since it may get overshadowed by all the other scandalous stuff. 1/ "In Dec 2019, Murphy attended a meeting w Cuccinelli & Glawe to discuss intelligence reports regarding conditions in Guatemala, Honduras, & El Salvador. The intelligence reports were designed to help asylum officers render better determinations regarding their legal standards.2/

A question in the form of a thread: I genuinely wonder how Chad Wolf is trying to position himself at this point. He’s become Trump’s first DHS head (acting) to fully embrace (& amplify) every politicized whim & crackpot demand from WH. And to try to identify himself w Trump. 1/

https://twitter.com/dhs_wolf/status/1301874342100430848

All of his predecessors (Kelly, Duke, Nielsen, McAleenan) did truly shocking things in support of the President’s agenda. But each of them tried to style him/herself as an independent actor, struggling to balance a department against an erratic President. 2/

A recurring theme in the convos I’ve been having w former DHS officials is a sense of alarm—not just abt all the lines being crossed in Portland, but also abt how the Admin is sabotaging the dept’s standing by reducing agents to “foot soldiers” for an overly political WH campaign One particular sore spot: While DHS leadership is mugging for the cameras, talking tough on social media, and picking fights with city and state officials, there are about to be massive staff furloughs at the Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) because of budget shortfalls.

I hope lawmakers are taking note of the statements being made right now by Chad Wolf, Ken Cuccinelli, & Joseph Edlow abt today's SCOTUS decision on #DACA. All of them serve in "acting" roles at the top of DHS. (cc @SpeakerPelosi @SenSchumer @RepJayapal @RepEscobar @AOC et al) 1/ All of them are in charge of complying with today's decision, and Edlow, who's effectively running USCIS, is directly in charge of handling #DACA applications. And yet all of them have publicly & dramatically attacked the Court's ruling, suggesting that it may be illegitimate. 2/

One other thing to keep in mind as asylum seekers, immigration lawyers & advocates reel from yesterday's news abt the Trump Admin's new rules to turn asylum law (as enshrined in US statute & international compacts) on its head: Chad Mizelle, acting general counsel for DHS. 1/ He's often described as being "close" to Stephen Miller. It's more than that, really. He was handpicked by Miller as the Department's *top* lawyer precisely because Mizelle, who is all of 7 years out of law school, will do the White House's bidding. 2/

I just spoke to the brilliant @LCortesRomero abt some of the implications of the Administration’s latest immigration announcement: the proposed rule change to gut the few, basic remaining procedural avenues available to people seeking asylum in the US. s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspect… 1/ In addition to laying out how, exactly, this rule change would completely end the ability of an asylum seeker to seek even the most limited protection in the US, Luis also pointed out that there’s a potential consequence for DACA recipients down the line. 2/

Over the last several days, I've been speaking to a number of undocumented workers in NYC who are desperate to keep their jobs, esp during the pandemic, and yet are choosing not to go in because of the curfew. To a person, they all described fears of interacting w the police. 1/ Here's an example: Luis, a father of three from Puebla, has lived in NYC for more than a decade and works at a fish market in Manhattan. He lives in Brooklyn. He works from 9AM to 7:30PM, and takes home about $200 a week. 2/

And right on cue: here’s Mauricio Claver-Carone, from the Trump White House, calling the President of Guatemala “infantile” for expressing concern about how US deportation policy is spreading a virulent pandemic to his country. 1/ prensalibre.com/guatemala/poli… Claver-Carone says, with what passes for a straight face, that the US is the best ally Guatemala has ever had and the best ally Guatemala can ever hope for. Even leaving aside the monstrous historical ignorance of that, it’s a laughable (and offensive) deflection. 2/

With the President coming to El Paso later today, it seems worth reviewing what he and his Administration have meant for El Paso/Juárez to date. 👇1/ First, outstanding bills from last visit: According to Dallas Morning News, Trump Campaign owes more than $500K to El Paso for a February rally he held there. With late charges the current amount is $569,204, including $380,000 owed to the police dept. 2/ dallasnews.com/news/politics/…

.@newyorker is following the developing story about the newly announced agreement between the US and Guatemala. Check back tomorrow/over the weekend for the full story. For now, a few place-holding observations. 1/ @NewYorker The way this agreement has been described by DHS makes clear that it is, at the very least, a "safe third agreement." DHS tries to avoid that term bc the Guatemalans hate it (very bad PR). And the Guatemalan government, which has published the text, doesn't use those words. 2/

For those scoring at home, here's the plot arc of the ICE enforcement operation slated to start this weekend: (i) The President preempts the operation by announcing on Twitter that there will be one, thereby surprising ICE officials & forcing them to scramble. 1/ (ii) hasty preparations are made & ICE officers are annoyed & frustrated that Trump has exposed them. Some voice concerns abt their own safety in carrying out the operation given how Trump has made their plans public. 2/

Why are so many Guatemalans leaving for the U.S.? My @NewYorker series, funded by @pulitzercenter, is abt life in the western highlands, which has been ground zero of the regional exodus. If you're just tuning in to the story at the U.S. border, you're missing most of the plot. The first piece is about climate change and how it is driving mass migration from Central America to the U.S.: newyorker.com/news/dispatch/…

A few pieces of news from my latest. The lesson of family separation debacle wasn't that govt went too far separating families, an Admin official told me. Rather it was that “we need to be smarter if we want to implement something on this scale” again. 1/ newyorker.com/news/daily-com… Since the middle of July, a group of twenty government officials has been gathering each week at the headquarters of Customs and Border Protection to discuss what the Trump Administration should do in the aftermath of the failed zero-tolerance policy. 2/