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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.
16 subscribers
Nov 4 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
🧵Today a federal judge is looking into horrific conditions inside ICE holding cells in Chicago, which until January were for stays under 12 hours absent exceptional circumstances.

People are now held for days — and ICE uses the threat of longer stays to get deportation orders. Image The excerpts I'm posting are taken from over a dozen sworn declarations submitted in a lawsuit seeking to force ICE to improve conditions. I'll link to the docket at the end of the thread.

One thing comes through clearly in these declarations: the cells are FILTHY. Image
Oct 28 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
🚨HUGE moment. ICE leadership is being purged tonight. The old guard, which prioritized targeted enforcement operations aimed at people with criminal records, is being replaced with Border Patrol and Greg Bovino's "Midway Blitz" style.

Think things are bad now? It'll get worse. The first to report on the purge tonight was @Anna_Giaritelli. ICE's leadership is going to be heavily replaced/augmented with Border Patrol leadership.

These are different agencies with different missions and different tactics. It will be chaotic.
Oct 21 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Hey @DHSGov: if you want me and other nonpartisan experts to trust your numbers, publish the data! The moment you took office you STOPPED publishing monthly data on immigration enforcement.

There hasn't been a single normal ICE arrest data release since inauguration! Image Since I have your attention, here are the datasets you STOPPED publishing:

1. The monthly Immigration Enforcement tables: no update since January: ohss.dhs.gov/topics/immigra…
2. The quarterly ICE arrest data: no update since January. ice.gov/statistics
x.com/DHSgov/status/…
Oct 21 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
🚨This is FALSE. The characterization of this report is MADE UP. The Texas investigation found 2,274 “potential noncitizens” on the voter rolls out of over 18 million (0.01%).

AT NO POINT does the investigation say any of these “potential noncitizens” are “illegal immigrants.” Image This MASSIVE ERROR appears to come from Fox News not realizing that “potential noncitizen” is not a synonym “illegal immigrant.”

Here is the ENTIRE press release from the Texas Secretary of State. Note that AT NO POINT does she say that those flagged are “illegal immigrants.” Image
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Oct 13 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
This makes NO SENSE. A 13-year-old was arrested by local police for unknown reasons, and then turned over to ICE, which is detaining him far away from his mother — who is going through immigration court, has an asylum application on file, and is legally authorized to work. Image Important context from @TriciaOhio that I'm posting in the interest of fairness. I do not automatically trust it given that she has made multiple inaccurate claims in the past (including even yesterday). IF true, it would at least provide an explanation.
Oct 10 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
UPDATE: Judge Perry’s opinion blocking the Texas National Guard deployment in Chicago is out!

She begins with Alexander Hamilton’s rejection of a “preposterous” idea that the Constitution lets a President deploy a State’s militia to a different State for political retribution. Image Judge Perry spends four pages going over the history of the debates around the Constitution as to the proper relationship of the President to a state militia, especially after overthrowing the British, who had maintained standing armies in the colonies against their wishes. Image
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Oct 5 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Stephen Miller has now declared this Trump-appointed judge an insurrectionist.

To emphasize, the judge painstakingly examined all the protest happening in Portland before Trump activated the Guard. She noted that there hadn't been any violence at a protest since mid-July. Image Here's how Judge Immergut summarized the last two and a half months of protests at the ICE facility in Portland; they "generally were limited to fewer than 30 people and were 'largely sedate.'"

Stephen Miller's efforts to claim insurrection in this decision is pure propaganda. Image
Oct 3 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Unanimous First Circuit takes pains to emphasize that this was an incredibly easy case to decide, despite writing a very long opinion knocking down every ridiculous argument the Trump admin made. Image Sorry, you think it’s “activism” to interpret the Constitution in the way that it has been consistently interpreted for the last 125+ years?

Including by the Supreme Court itself, which has in multiple cases said that children of undocumented immigrants are citizens by birth?
Oct 2 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
In this raid, they dragged naked children out of their homes and put them into U-Haul vans. And now they're bragging about it.

U.S. citizens had their doors smashed down and were forced into handcuffs and held outside for hours. Senior citizens held outside, their homes trashed. Image Story here: chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/20…
Oct 2 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is FALSE. The first thing Vance describes is Emergency Medicaid — not a "Biden" program, from 1986, and not eliminated in the OBBBA.

The second is Cuban/Haitian Entrant Assistance from 1980 (also not Biden-era), and was EXCLUDED from the OBBBA Medicaid cuts (see highlight)! Image Provide a single piece of evidence that anything I posted above is wrong. One.

Am I lying that Emergency Medicaid (1986) and Cuban/Haitian Entrant Assistance (1980) are not "Biden-era"? Am I making it up that the OBBBA doesn't eliminate either?
Oct 2 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
🚨A dangerous moment for America. If the normal police ever pulled something like this — pulling every single person out of an apartment building and handcuffing them to run checks — they would be sued into oblivion. It's beyond unconstitutional. Yet DHS is laughing about it! 🚨What @DHSGov pulled in Chicago on Tuesday is insanely unconstitutional. They raided an apartment building, smashed down every door and dragged entire families into the street, and detained everyone for hours ("Kavanaugh stops").

One U.S. citizen was held for FIVE HOURS. Image
Oct 1 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
That is an outright lie. You can read the text for yourself; the Medicaid section starts on page 55. There is nothing in there AT ALL about “free healthcare” for undocumented immigrants. Vance is just making that up COMPLETELY.

Link in the next post, since Musk suppresses link. Image appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/…
Sep 30 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
WOW. Remember this May video of a US citizen wrestled to the ground by ICE agents and detained for an hour despite having a valid REAL ID? It gets worse. Two weeks later, ICE did it AGAIN — handcuffed him and detained him for 20 minutes despite his REAL ID.

Now @IJ is suing. The new @IJ lawsuit contains an appalling story of how ICE agents entered a construction site with no warrant — seemingly just because they spotted Latino workers.

Multiple people with legal status marched away from work and held by ICE for 20-30 minutes. Image
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Sep 30 • 25 tweets • 11 min read
I gasped when I saw the front page of this decision; Judge Young includes a postcard sent to him asking "Trump has pardons and tanks ... what do you have?"

He responds "Alone, I have nothing but my sense of duty. Together, We the People ... have our magnificent Constitution." Image Judge Young: "This case ... squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally 'yes, they do.' 'No law' means 'no law.'" Image
Sep 29 • 23 tweets • 11 min read
NEW: @reuters uncovers that the Trump admin is prosecuting the LOWEST number of drug trafficking cases in decades.

Why? Because the Trump admin has diverted so many law enforcement resources AWAY from drugs to going after migrants instead! Image Story here: reuters.com/legal/governme…
Sep 27 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
This is UNACCEPTABLE. A Border Patrol agent was caught on camera saying that when people in his custody would ask for a doctor, he'd refuse to get them medical help — in part because he views migrants as "animals." It says something that this agent was perfectly happy to openly brag to local police about breaking Border Patrol rules and dehumanizing the people in his custody — refusing to give people a phone or refer them to a doctor when they're sick. It's a sign of a culture of impunity.
Sep 23 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
So far Trump has fired nearly 150 immigration judges, and the purges continue. At the start of his term in office, there were 735 judges. There are now below 580.

The goal is to purge those who believe in due process and replace them with "temporary" judges who won't push back. In some courts, over 75% of the immigration judges have been fired since Trump took office. That this will cause more delay for some cases is no problem for this admin—with more and more people locked in detention, it lets ICE pressure them into giving up.
Sep 19 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
NEW: I got a copy of the H-1B proclamation. It's a 212(f) travel ban proclamation banning the entry into the US of H-1B visa holders who haven't paid the United States $100,000.

It appears to go into effect IMMEDIATELY, despite the US having no system to accept such payments. Image Now it's up on the White House website. whitehouse.gov/presidential-a…
Sep 8 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
🚨The Supreme Court today gives Trump a license to engage in racial profiling, with Justice Kavanaugh writing in concurrence to expressly endorse ICE and Border Patrol targeting any Latinos they observe in Los Angeles speaking Spanish and then demanding their papers. Image
Image Justice Sotomayor is utterly scathing: "We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent." Image
Sep 5 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
🚨NEW: Reversing *generations* of practice, the Board of Immigration Appeals gives ICE exactly what it demanded, ruling that any undocumented immigrant who entered illegally is categorically ineligible to ask a judge for bond — expanding mandatory detention by millions of people. Image The new decision comes after the Trump admin announced in July that it would take the legal position that a 1996 law barred release on bond anyone who crossed illegally — despite no admin having EVER made that claim before. Now the BIA greenlights that completely novel argument.
Sep 3 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
🚨 The Trump admin is moving to de-legalize more than a quarter of a million Venezuelans who have been here for at LEAST four years.

The vast majority entered before Biden took office (often on tourist visas) and were previously granted deportation protections by Trump himself. Trump is now moving to strip protections and deport the same people that he himself granted deportation protections to in his last week in office in 2021.

Trump’s order said protecting noncriminal Venezuelans from being sent back to Maduro was a matter of U.S. national interest. Image
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