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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
@ReichlinMelnick
Senior Fellow @immcouncil. Tweeting on immigration policy and data. Formerly immigration lawyer with @IJCorps. Views my own, retweets =/= endorsements.
9 subscribers
Dec 11 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
There are serious factual errors with what @mattyglesias writes here. For example, the deals had nothing to do with "seeking refuge closer to home." That was a lie pushed by the Trump admin. In fact, there deal with Honduras would have let them send Mexicans and Brazilians there. Another thing missed by @mattyglesias is that the 2024 asylum ban crackdown couldn't have been done in early 2021! It required the end of Title 42, diplomatic deals with Mexico, Congressional funding of asylum officers, and more physical infrastructure.
Nov 26 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Not to put too fine a point on it, but anyone who claims that Mexico and Canada can "easily solve" migration and drug smuggling issues is either lying to themselves, lying to you, or just a complete moron. Sorry, but no, this is simply not true. Mexico has been ramping up anti-migrant enforcement at U.S. request for more than a decade and is currently engaged in the largest crackdown on migrants yet, which has had a very significant impact on reducing border crossings into the US.
Oct 8 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Not sure exactly what @whstancil is suggesting but a couple thoughts:

1. Migration is rising globally. The United States is not unique in dealing with this trend, despite many US-centric media takes.
2. A key part of the current problem is Congress's decade-long refusal to act. People are frustrated with migration not only because of the media's myopic and overdramatic views of the issue (remember the morning show filmed at the border wall in March 2021?), but also because policymakers keep suggesting this is an easy problem with an easy solution.
Sep 28 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is wrong. ICE’s non-detained docket includes many people whose cases ended years ago and who can’t be deported due to legal, diplomatic or humanitarian issues.

The number of people on the docket with convictions rose just 15% in 9 years — while the docket itself rose 225%.
Image Here is Tom Homan's testimony to Congress in support of Trump's FY 2018 budget request, noting that in June 2017, there were 177,000 people on ICE's non-detained docket with prior convictions AND final orders.

As I said—many have been here for decades. This isn't some new thing. Furthermore, abolishment of the Priority Enforcement Program and re-establishment of the Secure Communities program, combined with the expansion of the 287(g)2 program, is expected to result in significant increases to interior apprehensions and removals. As of June 3, 2017, there were 968,773 individuals on ICE’s non-detained docket with final orders of removal, of which 177,496 were convicted criminals. In order to safely and securely carry out this mission across the Nation, ERO will require additional deportation officers to handle this increased workload. The FY 2018 Budget supports hi...
Sep 27 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
This report by @BillMelugin_ gets facts wrong and omits essential context: that millions of people on ICE's non-detained dockets have been here for decades.

By FY 2015, already 368,574 people on the docket had convictions. Many can't be deported, often for diplomatic reasons.
Image In the report, Bill repeatedly refers to people on ICE's non-detained docket as "illegal immigrants."

In fact, the non-detained docket contains many people who came here with green cards and then lost their status due to a criminal conviction. Some have been here for decades. Image
Sep 15 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Trump here uses the phrase "remigration." I was unfamiliar with the term, so I googled it.

Wikipedia describes it as a "far-right and Identitarian political concept" largely used to describe the mass deportation of non-white immigrants and their descendants from Europe.
Image Needless to say, the use of such a loaded far-right term suggesting a purge of non-white people in the US far greater than described would itself be newsworthy in a normal world. But given how much else has happened just in the last 24 hours, it's barely even been noticed.
Sep 5 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
That's roughly $1,841 per person. By comparison, a bus ticket to New York costs about $215, while a flight costs about $350.

It would have WAY cheaper to just give migrants money for tickets. Abbott's effort not only made it a political stunt, it lined a contractor's pocket. The overwhelming majority of migrants didn't want to stay in Texas. They wanted to go elsewhere. So if the question was the most efficient way to help them leave the state, the answer would be just buy them tickets and not pay millions to bus them to NYC.
Aug 19 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
It's here! The biggest executive action since DAPA/Extended DACA in 2014 just dropped on the Federal Register in the form of a "Notice of Implementation." Here's a 🧵on the Biden admin's new program for undocumented spouses and stepchildren of US citizens. public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2024-18725.pdf

Screenshot of the first page of the "Notice of Implementation" of the Keeping Families Together program. Before I dive into the fine details, a reminder of why this new program matters.

Even though spouses of US citizens are eligible to apply for green cards, a 1996 law keeps that process out of reach for many undocumented immigrants. Read 👇 for more.
Aug 16 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Wow! Paxton is going after ANOTHER immigrant rights nonprofit. He's arguing that if any nonprofit engages in activities he thinks violate 501(c)(3) status, he can sue to shut it down.

That argument should send shivers through every nonprofit in the state! houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas… Paxton is trying to punish @FIELHouston for social media posts which he argues run afoul of the limits federal law places on 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.

If judges accept that argument (and so far it seems they're not), it would put every nonprofit in the state at risk. Image
Aug 14 • 5 tweets • 4 min read
Not commenting on the election here, just noting that deporting what some estimate at half of all farmworkers in the country is the kind of thing that will cause grocery prices to go UP, not down. The estimate I’m referring to is that half of all farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, currently.

Temporary agricultural work visas are nice, but they don’t come even close to filling the demand for labor on US farms/ranches/meatpacking plants.
Aug 11 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Let's do a brief fact-checking 🧵 of this section on immigration. I'll start with 4 specific, provably false claims Senator Vance makes about VP Harris' record and the role she played in the Biden admin, each marked below. My count excludes claims which could arguably be opinion.
Image First, Senator Vance claims VP Harris is "our border czar." As I've been arguing for years, this is simply false. Jon Karl himself pushes back on this, but I want to emphasize again that the role Biden assigned her was a diplomatic role, not a border role.
Jul 25 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Since some people are still confused about this issue:

Border policy is about what happens AT the U.S.-Mexico border—once migrants who left their homes get here.

Root causes policy is about what happens in migrants' home countries—hoping to convince people not to leave home. Image Yes, of course one of the main goals of root causes work is to reduce migration TO the U.S.-Mexico border through improving conditions in peoples' home countries.

But that work does not involve making any decisions about how migrants who DO come to the border are treated.
Jul 22 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Once again, Harris was never appointed "border czar!" Biden tasked her with leading the administration's diplomatic "root causes" strategies in Central America—NOT his admin's border policy.

The "border czar" title was invented by the press, which didn't get the difference.

Image
Image The policy work involved with “root causes” strategy is about changing conditions in OTHER countries such that people don’t feel compelled to leave home and travel thousands of miles away in an effort to cross the border.

It’s long-term work that might take years to pay off.
Jul 10 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
There are extraordinarily few documented cases of any undocumented immigrants voting in federal elections. And noncitizen voting itself is so rare it's been measured at .0001%. Even extensive audits by GOP states have failed to produce any evidence that it's a real problem.
Our nationwide study of noncitizen or fraudulent voting in 2016 from the perspective of local election officials found: In the jurisdictions we studied, very few noncitizens voted in the 2016 election. Across 42 jurisdictions, election officials who oversaw the tabulation of 23.5 million votes in the 2016 general election referred only an estimated 30 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting for further investigation or prosecution. In other words, improper noncitizen votes accounted for 0.0001 percent of the 2016 votes in those jurisdictions. Forty of the jurisdictions — all but two of th... There is not a single documented case in American history of unlawful noncitizen voting changing the results of an election. Not one.
Jun 29 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
While in theory it might be true that judges have more expertise in interpreting statutes than agencies, in practice (especially in very technical fields) this is often wrong.

I say that as someone who has watched many recent judges butcher the INA and botch the total basics. It’s not like the agencies get it right all the time either (they often don’t), but there are many judges who are simply bad at understanding technical fields where the precedent is weird, old, and often oddly contradictory due to generations of agglomerated statutory fiddling.
Jun 28 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I cannot express enough how much the entire basis of the administrative state has just been thrown into the air. This is a huge power grab by the judicial branch, which will now exercise a level of control over the executive branch that is utterly unprecedented in the modern era. Crucially, the impact of the death of Chevron on immigration is... mixed. Deportation is a purely administrative law regime, and so ending judicial deference to the administrative state will actually help immigrants in some circumstances. But we won't know the impact for years.
Jun 18 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Worth repeating: there is not a single person who will benefit from this program who could become a US citizen before the 2024 election.

And given current processing times, it's pretty unlikely anyone who will benefit could become a US citizen before the 2028 election either. Here's the QUICKEST path to citizenship for beneficiaries of this program.

- I-130 + I-485, wait an average 11.2 months
- Wait 2.75 years
- File I-751, wait an average 25.3 months
- File N-400, wait an average 5.2 months

That's 6.2 years, presuming zero other delays (unlikely).
Jun 18 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This tweet gives the false impression that the Biden admin is creating a new path to permanent status. This population is ALREADY eligible for a green card. What Biden's doing is helping eliminate a barrier which stops them from being able to take advantage of that eligibility. Totally agree it’s a big deal! But it’s important to explain why, accurately. IMHO, it’s not that these people weren’t able to “get in line”—unlike for most people there actually IS a line. It’s just that getting in the line means risking a decade of separation. This fixes that.
Jun 17 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Setting aside that there aren't 20 million undocumented immigrants (actual number is 12-15 million, depending on if you count new arrivals facing removal proceedings in the number), it's pretty dark to say the US should seize and redistribute millions of peoples' homes. If you seriously think that this is a common thing that millions of undocumented immigrants are doing, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn I own that I'd be happy to sell you for a low, low price! Send your Venmo over now.

Jun 7 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I'm not commenting on the endorsement—but FYI this is completely ahistorical.

Legal immigration fell every single year under the Trump administration, and in his last 18 months he issued multiple bans that, if not blocked in court, would have cut legal immigration by easily 1/3.
Image The Trump administration was so anti-legal-immigration they adopted Kafkaesque policies like the "no blank spaces" policy, where if you didn't hand write "N/A" in every single box on a form (no matter how irrelevant) they'd reject it automatically. washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-t…
May 28 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Where this was taken, I believe, is at a gate in the border wall south of Yuma, AZ. It’s a place where asylum seekers walk across the dry Colorado River bed into the U.S. and line up to be processed.

No one is smuggling fentanyl there. They each get searched by Border Patrol! The overwhelming majority of fentanyl is smuggled in cars and trucks through official ports of entry, most often by US citizens who face the least scrutiny at entry.

To the extent fentanyl is smuggled across the border between ports of entry, it’s a small fraction of the flow.