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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick Profile picture
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick
@ReichlinMelnick
Policy Director @immcouncil. Former immigration lawyer at @LegalAidNYC with @IJCorps. Views are my own, retweets =/= endorsements.
Diana Roby Profile picture Belisa Morillo Profile picture Hicham Tiflati هشام تيفلاتي Profile picture Christopher James Profile picture Sam Peak Profile picture 8 subscribed
Apr 5 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Funny they ask this. Here's my effort at jotting down a brief timeline of actions the admin has "done to lower illegal crossings" over the last 3 years. I'm sure I'm missing some things. Some have been successful. Others have been not. But it's wild to claim they haven't tried.

Image
Image To be clear, I’m neither endorsing these actions nor touting them as grand failures. As I’ve said before, Biden’s record on the border is a mixed bag. But the idea the administration has not taken actions it believes will reduce illegal entries is wrong as a matter of fact.
Mar 31 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
He still won’t stop lying about the nature of this program. There are no “gov’s secretive immigrant flights.” There are people who get approved for a government program and have to buy a plane ticket to get here. The “flights” are United, Delta, American, etc… I’ll also note that @BensmanTodd still refuses to acknowledge the major holes in his story that I pointed out multiple times, including his flagrant misrepresentation about what the government said in response to his FOIA.
Mar 19 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Beginning this moment, Texas law enforcement officers can arrest any person in the state they believe crossed illegally. And judges can now order people to walk back into Mexico at threat of 20 years in prison if they don't—even if the person has federal permission to be here. Crucial context: Barrett and Kavanaugh both say they are not making any decision right now because of the weird procedural posture by which it made it to the Court's shadow docket, but say if the 5th Circuit doesn't act ASAP, they may change their minds.
Mar 8 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
🚨HUGE news. Judge Tipton dismisses the multistate lawsuit against the Biden admin's CHNV parole program, finding that the states do not have standing to sue.

That leaves the program alive for now. Texas will no doubt appeal to the 5th Cir.

Decision: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

But before this Court may address the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims, the Constitution requires Plaintiffs to demonstrate that they have standing to bring suit. For the reasons explained below, they have not done so. The Court will first address certain evidentiary issues that have arisen along the way. Here is the key finding that Judge Tipton made: evidence shows that, after the parole programs went into effect, border crossings by people from the four CHNV countries went down (⬇️).

As he reads 5th Circuit law, since the program was a success, there can't be any injury. In sum, when deciding whether a state has been injured for Article III standing purposes, the Fifth Circuit reviews whether the numbers of aliens, and the associated amount expended because of them, increased relative to those same numbers prior to the implementation of the challenged program. In MPP II, the Fifth Circuit declared that the “most important finding” was whether the agency action “increased the number of aliens released . . . into the United States.”16 20 F.4th at 966 (emphasis added). Here, that “most important finding” results in a different outcome, a decrease. And in contr...
Mar 4 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
SB4 even goes beyond federal immigration law by allowing the state to prosecute people with green cards if the person was previously been deported and then allowed to reenter legally by the federal government—prob because the people who wrote the law didn't know that was a thing. Under SB4, any noncitizen who has previously been deported commits a Class A misdemeanor by stepping into Texas—even if they have since legally reentered and obtained permanent legal status. There are no affirmative defenses of lawful presence for the reentry crime. Sec. 51.03. ILLEGAL REENTRY BY CERTAIN ALIENS. (a) A person who is an alien commits an offense if the person enters, attempts to enter, or is at any time found in this state after the person: (1) has been denied admission to or excluded, deported, or removed from the United States; or (2) has departed from the United States while an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal is outstanding.
Feb 29 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
🚨 DOJ wins an injunction blocking Texas from putting SB4 into effect and creating its own deportation system.

The Court emphasizes that states "may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government."

Order here: aclu.org/wp-content/upl…
Several factors warrant an injunction. First, the Supremacy Clause and Supreme Court precedent affirm that states may not exercise immigration enforcement power except as authorized by the federal government. Second, SB 4 conflicts with key provisions of federal immigration law, to the detriment of the United States’ foreign relations and treaty obligations. Third, surges in immigration do not constitute an “invasion” within the meaning of the Constitution, nor is Texas engaging in war by enforcing SB 4. Finally, to allow Texas to permanently supersede federal directives on the basis of an ... DOJ and the other plaintiffs (private orgs + El Paso gov) win on pretty much every argument.

First, the court finds that SB4 violates the Supremacy Clause, because "it is undisputed that the federal government has a dominant and supreme interest in the field of immigration." In short, it is undisputed that the federal government has a dominant and supreme interest in the field of immigration. Texas’s own state courts acknowledge “the matter of entry into the United States” is “wholly preempted by federal law,” Hernandez v. State, 613 S.W.2d 287, 290 (Tex. Crim. App. 1980), as are “matters involving deportation.” Gutierrez v. State, 380 S.W.3d 167, 173, 176 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012). By regulating a sphere dominated by federal interests, SB 4 violates the Supremacy Clause.
Feb 26 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
Just going to point out as always that this is a shameless lie. Biden inherited a complete mess at the border. Border encounters in December 2020 were the highest level for a December since December 1999 and had been rising for months due to Title 42's impact on repeat crossings. Bit of a Tweet from Stephen Miller lying and saying that Joe Biden "inherited the most secure border in history." Just 3 days after Biden took office, the governor of Tamaulipas blocked DHS from expelling some families under Title 42, causing thousands of families to resume crossing.

Despite this, Biden kept up Title 42 expulsions for years, eventually expelling people over 2 million times.
As a result of Tamaulipas’ refusal to accept the expulsion of families with young children, when the numbers of families arriving at the border in south Texas began rising in early February the Biden administration was unable to expel the majority under Title 42 and was forced to release thousands of families. Likely as a result, the number of families crossing the border in south Texas rose significantly in spring 2021. By contrast, Mexican immigration officials in Chihuahua (bordering El Paso) permitted CBP to expel families under Title 42, regardless of the age of their children. This d...
Figure 8: Family Units Apprehended by Border Patrol, by Sector, October 2016 to December 2021. The chart shows in 2021, family unit encounters spike quickly in the Rio Grande Valley sector, but not in El Paso, and slowly rise in Del Rio and Yuma.
Feb 23 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
An “expert” from the Heritage Foundation Man asks “what the hell is a Mauritanian.”

Mauritania is a country, Mike. It’s in Africa. You know, that big continent filled with people that scare you for … reasons.

The US was the first nation to recognize its independence in 1960.
Wikipedia: Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. By land area, Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and the 28th-largest in the world, and 90% of its territory is situated in the Sahara. Most of its population of approximately 4.3 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly one-third concentrated in the capital and ... Also, a PS to @MHowellTweets: if you want to keep presenting yourself as an expert on immigration law, you should proooobably do some research into the fact that persecution on account of sexual orientation has been a valid grounds for asylum for 30 years!

You know. The basics. Although there is no statutory definition of what suffices as membership in a PSG, it has frequently been described as a group of persons who share a common, immutable characteristic that the members of the group cannot or should not be required to change.4 In 1994, Attorney General Janet Reno declared as precedent the Matter of Toboso-Alfonso case in which a gay Cuban man was found to be eligible for withholding of removal on the basis of his membership in the PSG of homosexuals.5 This case was pivotal in establishing that a well-founded fear of persecution on the basis of one’s sexual ori...
Feb 23 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
While we need to take the intent seriously, there are some huge barriers to Miller's wet dream.

First off, the Posse Comitatus Act—a criminal law—bars the use of any Armed Forces for domestic law enforcement. Miller even refers to this, but handwaves it away without explanation.
In the event regular Armed Forces are used to assist in securing the border, a number of legal considerations may arise. For example, the use of the military to enforce immigration ... laws at the border could run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, unless an exception applies. The Posse Comitatus Act is a criminal prohibition that provides: Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute t... Second, you can't just "grab" undocumented immigrants and shove them on planes. We have a legal process for determining who can be legally deported and who can't be. And that immigration court process can take 4-5 years.

Miller can't just override that.
Feb 21 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
This is a massive escalation in Texas’s war on the federal government and on people of faith who feel called by God to support the stranger.

Annunciation House has been a vital partner to the Border Patrol over the last decade as well. They’ve helped El Paso immensely. The idea that Annunciation House is encouraging migration is utterly divorced from reality. Border Patrol works with them on a daily basis. The shelter helps ensure that migrants aren’t dumped on the streets and have a place to go when legally released from federal custody.
Feb 16 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
We have the text now and it's a bit of a mess—not a surprise given the timeline.

For example, this provision, which I guess aims to limit releases, would make it illegal for DHS to drive migrants to the hospital or transfer them between detention centers to avoid overcrowding.
SEC. 105. LIMITATION ON USE OF FEDERAL FUNDS TO MOVE ALIENS. No Federal funds may be used to transfer or otherwise move an alien in the custody of the Federal Government from a facility in which such alien was first detained to another location for a purpose other than adjudicating such alien’s status Most of the centrist bipartisan proposal has been taken from prior bills, lightly modified, and slapped into a new package.

That language that defunds DHS driving migrants to the hospital? It's mostly from the House GOP's FY23 DHS appropriations bill.
Feb 10 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The constitutional issue the dissenters conspicuously avoid mentioning is that Article I, Section 10 provides only that states may “wage war” if “actually invaded.”

That’s no generalized right to self defense against migration—and a buoy barrier is obviously not “waging war.” Note how the phrase “engage in war”—the ONLY relevant power that Article I, Section 10 grants states—does not even get a mention in this excerpt.

The dissenters disingenuously describe the text as allowing states “to act.” But that is explicitly NOT what the Constitution says.
That's hard to reconcile with the text of Article I, section 10, which makes clear that a State does not need "the Consent of Congress" to act if it is "actually invaded." U.S. CONST. art. I, § 10, cl. 3. Article I, section 10 establishes, first, a general rule that States ordinarily need Congressional consent to act —and second, an express exception for when States don't. So it defies the plain meaning of Article I, section 10 to say that, as a general matter, a State must have "the Consent of Congress" to act—but if it's "actually invaded," the Stat...
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.
Feb 5 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The misconception that has taken hold on the right is that migrants are “allowed in.”

In reality, when a migrant enters unlawfully, the US gov must determine how and if they can deport that person legally—and given current resources, that process means migrants must be released. This misconception has taken hold in part because of a complete refusal to look beyond the US borders.

Virtually every country is dealing with migration as a major issue right now; either people leaving or people arriving. About the only ones who aren’t are a few island nations.
Feb 4 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
In 2009, ICE deported 237,000 people arrested in the interior. Today, there are 11-15 million undocumented immigrants.

At that rate (unmatched since) it would take 42 years to deport everyone. DHS *must* choose who to go after, and who not to. Every admin has done it—even Trump. Image ICE, as it is structured and funded by Congress, cannot arrest and deport everyone. It is literally impossible.

So starting in 2012, the Obama admin (and now the Biden admin) leaned into a “felons, not families” policy—focus limited resources on people with serious records.
Jan 31 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Exactly! We just went through this exact thing 5 years ago. Trump tried, and he lost in court, badly.

The right to seek humanitarian protection has been enshrined in US law for 40 years and repeatedly strengthened by Congress. There’s no magical presidential “no it isn’t” law. The problem is, Congress has never really provided the humanitarian protection system with the resources it needs to operate.

When it created the credible fear process in 1996, Congress arbitrarily presumed the new process could be an assembly line; done in a matter of hours. Such review shall include an opportunity for the alien to be heard and questioned by the immigration judge, either in person or by telephonic or video connection. Review shall be concluded as expeditiously as possible, to the maximum extent practicable within 24 hours, but in no case later than 7 days after the date of the determination under subclause (I).
Jan 30 • 8 tweets • 4 min read
This is 99% a fact-based flier which informs people of what will happen to them, and 1% a line which states (accurately according to literally decades of whistleblower reports and primary sources) that Border Patrol agents may not tell the truth.

I fail to see the outrage? Like, how is ANY of this supposed to be controversial? They are people who are here asking for asylum who crossed in a remote area, and the flier attempts to give them accurate information about what may happen in the next few days.

And that's supposed to be bad? How? Image
Jan 29 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
At no point since the Border Patrol was created in 1924 has the United States been able to reduce crossings to zero. Never. It is impossible. In fact, no nation in human history has ever been able to stop every unlawful border crossing—not even North Korean or East Germany. Also, to be clear, the proposal under discussion does not "allow" even a single unlawful crossing. It apparently creates a trigger for shutting down asylum when unlawful crossings rise above a certain level. It's a higher punishment, not permission!

Jan 27 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Oh god, not this again. What Speaker Johnson refers to in the 2nd paragraph is INA 212(f), the authority for Trump’s travel bans.

It has ZERO application to migration at the border.

You know how we know this? Because Trump did what Johnson is demanding in 2018—to NO EFFECT.

President Trump is using the authority granted to him by the Immigration and Nationality Act to manage and protect the integrity of our immigration system and our national sovereignty. Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act states plainly: “Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on th...
Image On November 9, 2018, Trump invoked INA 212(f) to do the EXACT thing Speaker Johnson demands Biden do in this letter: “suspend the entry of migrants.”

Problem is, alone that did nothing. Entering unlawfully was already unlawful—this just made it doubly so.

Trump White House archive page: Presidential Proclamation Addressing Mass Migration Through the Southern Border of the United States IMMIGRATION Issued on: November 9, 2018
Jan 24 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
This is, to be blunt, hogwash. Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution does not give Texas a right to carry out immigration law. Here's what it says.

Texas is not being "actually invaded" and laying razor wire is not "engaging in war"—which anyone with two brain cells can see.
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. Abbott's theatrical claim to a right to "wage war" by putting up razor wire and prosecuting migrants for misdemeanor trespassing is ridiculous—and a loser in the courts. Multiple states tried to invoke this clause in the 1990s and got laughed out of court.
Jan 22 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
The Biden admin physically removed more migrants from the US than any administration in history.

There were almost 2.5 million Title 42 expulsions under Biden. That's 35 times as many expulsions as people put into Remain in Mexico under Trump.

That's open borders, apparently? It's pretty remarkable how people who claim that Biden has an "open border" policy will pretend as if Title 42 didn't happen; as if there weren't millions of expulsions, as if the Biden admin didn't spend its first two years in office negotiating to expand Title 42 expulsions.
Jan 19 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Here's a fact that most of the people screaming about "Biden's Open Border" either do not know or simply don't want to acknowledge:

Border Patrol apprehensions more than tripled in the last eight months of Trump's presidency, rising from 21,593 in May 2020 to 71,141 in December. When Biden took office, Border Patrol apprehensions had been rising every single month since lockdowns ended. December 2020 saw the highest number of apprehensions for a December since 1999.

Title 42's impact on migration was already clear by then; smugglers loved it.