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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.
11 subscribers
Mar 26 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: @MotherJones reports that one of the men renditioned to El Salvador is Neri Alvarado, who was working in Dallas as a baker. An ICE agent told him they were questioning all men with tattoos.

Neri has an AUTISM AWARENESS TATTOO in honor of his 15-year-old brother with autism. Image
Image An ICE agent told Neri Alvarado "We're finding and questioning everyone who has tattoos, and that's why he was arrested.

Stunningly, after Neri explained his autism tattoos' meanings, THE ICE AGENT SAID HE WAS CLEAN. And yet he stayed detained — then got sent to El Salvador! Still, Alvarado was detained by ICE outside his apartment in early February and brought in for questioning, Juan Enrique Hernández, the owner of two Venezuelan bakeries in the Dallas area and Alvarado’s boss, told Mother Jones. One day later, Hernández went to see him in detention and asked him to explain what had happened. Alvarado told Hernández that an ICE agent had asked him if he knew why he had been picked up; Alvarado said that he did not. “Well, you’re here because of your tattoos,” the ICE agent replied, according to Hernández. “We’re finding and questioning everyone who has tattoo...
Mar 25 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: @MiamiHerald reveals that one of the people imprisoned in El Salvador HAD LEGAL REFUGEE STATUS. He entered the country legally in January and was detained because of his tattoos, EVEN THOUGH he had passed a full background check.

Without warning, he was sent to El Salvador. On Jan. 8, after they were finally granted the coveted refugee status, E.M., 29, and his girlfriend, Daniela Palma, 30, finally arrived in the United States, flying into Houston. Upon arrival, an immigration officer asked the young man the question that changed his life in moments. “Do you have any tattoos?” He had already been asked that by U.S. authorities in Colombia as part of an extensive background check, and he now gave the same answer Here is the story. The man, now imprisoned in El Salvador, was detained in January at the Houston airport because the CBP officer thought his tattoos made him part of Tren de Aragua — even though he had disclosed them to DHS and passed a background check.
miamiherald.com/news/local/imm…
Mar 24 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: The ACLU has filed a sworn declaration from a Venezuelan woman who ICE sought to turn over to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, who says she heard ICE officials on the plane talking about the court order which had been issued telling them to turn the plane around. Image
Image Link to the declaration here. Like many of the other people:

- She had a pending asylum hearing
- ICE agents lied and told her she was being sent to Venezuela
- She was never given any opportunity to present evidence that she was falsely accused. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Mar 20 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
NEW! Sworn declarations filed last night confirm the Trump admin sent INNOCENT people to rot in prison El Salvador, including a professional soccer player tortured by the Maduro regime who entered this country LEGALLY to seek asylum and has NO CRIMINAL RECORD in either country. Image
Image A link to the declaration is here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
Mar 18 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
The men sent to do hard labor in a Salvadoran prison with no due process include:

- A tattoo artist seeking asylum who entered legally.
- A teen who got a tattoo in Dallas because he thought it looked cool.
- A 26-year-old whose tattoos his wife says are unrelated to a gang. Image
Image
Image Another man sent to Bukele’s prison with no due process is a barber whose family insists has no gang ties.

Remember; these people were given no warning they were going to be sent to El Salvador and no right to contest the government’s claim they were members of Tren de Aragua.
Mar 17 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Once again, to emphasize here, these people have received NO DUE PROCESS. No judge has ever ruled that they are a member of a gang and the Trump admin denied them any opportunity to challenge the determination. It's highly likely multiple people sent there are totally innocent. To emphasize for those unaware: due process under the Constitution applies to all "persons" in the United States. Not only citizens.

ALL people in the United States have a right to due process.

Image
Mar 11 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
INA 237(a)(4)(C) authorizes the Secretary of State to personally declare any noncitizen "deportable" solely by asserting that the person's presence in the US. "would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences."

No claim of lawbreaking is required in any way! To be clear, that's exactly what the law says. I'm directly citing it. It's a Cold War-era law which was originally intended to target accused communists.

The free speech problems are very significant, and the law may well be unconstitutional.
Feb 3 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Mexico commits to another large deployment of its National Guard to the northern border, claiming they will focus on preventing fentanyl trafficking, and Trump calls off the tariffs for now.

Of course, since most fentanyl is smuggled by US citizens, this won't stop much at all. The deployment of Mexican National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2019 under Trump had zero impact on fentanyl smuggling before, because it's not migrants who are smuggling fentanyl in the overwhelming majority of cases. Fentanyl traffic continued to rise each year.
Jan 26 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Colombia has accepted hundreds of deportation flights in the past years. It rejected two flights using military planes, but agreed to continue taking flights using normal ICE planes.

In response, the Trump administration has done the equivalent of punching them in the face. All repatriations are governed by bilateral agreements. Every country has an absolute right to set the terms by which they take deportations from another country.

And if you don’t know why military planes might be an issue, pick up a book on 20th century Latin American history.
Jan 24 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
When speaking to experts in Latin America, I've been told that the use of military planes by the United States could be seen as an insult. And now it seems they were right; Mexico's president just refused to take a deportation flight from the US for the first time in years. Mexico refuses to accept a U.S. deportation flight The Mexican government has criticized President Donald Trump's unilateral immigration actions, and the landing would have required Mexico's assistance. nbcnews.com/politics/immig…
Jan 24 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
🚨NEW! The Trump administration has invoked a decades-old, never-before-invoked, legal authority that permits them to authorize willing state and local enforcement officers to carry out "any of the powers, privileges, or duties" of an immigration officer (ICE or Border Patrol). Accordingly, pursuant to the authorities under the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101, et sec., including the implementing regulations identified above, I find "that there exist circumstances involving the administration ofthe immigration laws ofthe United States that endanger the lives, property, safety, or welfare of the residents" of all 50 States. I further find that an actual or imminent mass influx of aliens is arriving at the southern border of the United States and presents urgent circumstances requiring an immediate federal response. I therefore request the ... The memo invokes an obscure law Congress enacted decades ago authorizing DHS (then INS) to declare a "mass influx" and deputize local law enforcement as full immigration officers.

DHS must enter into written agreements and oversee any deputized LEOs.
dhs.gov/sites/default/…
Jan 21 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
This guy just got a full and unconditional pardon from Donald Trump. USA Man Who Dragged Officer Into Jan. 6 Mob Gets More Than 7 Years October 27, 2022 10:13 PM By Associated Press This guy just got a full and unconditional pardon from Donald Trump. Press Release Maryland Man Sentenced to Prison for Assaulting Law Enforcement During Jan. 6 Capitol Breach Friday, December 13, 2024
Jan 16 • 27 tweets • 7 min read
I can quibble with the timeline on some of these (e.g. "restart wall construction" will take months to put into action given the state of contractual issues) but I agree that the majority of this will be attempted. The most immediate EO impact will be cuts to legal immigration. Actually this is a great opportunity to do a thread on some of the things to look out for on in the first week. I'm going to mirror @David_J_Bier's thread here and go over some thoughts about each. Sorry David for spamming your mentions.

Let's start with CHNV parole.
Jan 16 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
NEW—Senator Britt has been sharing a document defending the Laken Riley Act with other senators raising concerns.

The problem is, the document makes a number of significant errors. We obtained a copy and marked it up, explaining where her office got the facts and law wrong.

1/5 Image Senator Britt's office says the Laken Riley Act just makes minor changes to current law. That is false. Immigration law has never mandated detention for arrests which didn't lead to criminal charges, or which even resulted in acquittals! That transforms how the law operates.

2/5 Image
Jan 9 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
If they actually put Title 42 into effect, expect border crossings to spike dramatically soon after he takes office. The policy was a huge winner for smugglers. Here's what happened with border crossings when Stephen Miller got the CDC to implement Title 42: after the April 2020 lockdown, border crossings rose every single month for a year.

By November 2020, smugglers were telling Reuters they loved the policy.
Image
Dec 11, 2024 • 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, 2024 • 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, 2024 • 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, 2024 • 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, 2024 • 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, 2024 • 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.