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Tom Jawetz Profile picture
Tom Jawetz
@TomJawetz
CAP Senior Fellow and independent consultant. Formerly Deputy General Counsel, @DHSgov @HouseJudiciary @aclu @AmeriCorpsNCCC. All views my own. He/Him/His
Sep 8, 2023 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
This piece flags two reasons some in the Biden admin may be reluctant to redesignate Venezuela and Nicaragua for TPS at this time:

1. TPS designations may attract more migrants; and
2. TPS approvals (and work authorizations) would still take many months.

Both are wrong. /1 I've addressed the first concern previously. There's simply no evidence that TPS designations lead to increased future migration and good evidence that they may actually reduce migration pressures. /2
Dec 22, 2020 • 57 tweets • 13 min read
#DACA court argument is just now beginning.

Presiding judge Hanen begins by explaining why he denies counsel’s request to argue the case remotely and instead had counsel fly into TX from NJ and DC.

Playing armchair epidemiologist about COVID, honestly.

/1 Now explaining why he’s not wearing a mask for the indoor court hearing.

Not an auspicious beginning to the argument.
Dec 22, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
We’re increasingly hearing the Biden team talk about their vision for a “fair, humane, and orderly immigration system.”

Earlier this year I wrote briefly about what similar terms—fair, humane, and workable—could mean. /1 nevadacurrent.com/2020/02/20/why… Fair /2
Dec 20, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
6:40 into Descendants 3 and I’ve tried to force my daughter into a conversation about equity, clemency, immigration policy, and integration v. assimilation.

Am I doing it right? OK at 22:36 and the wrongheaded Title 42/“total and complete shutdown” on entries just dropped.
Nov 23, 2020 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Over the past four years, the Trump administration used the Department of Homeland Security to inflict maximum pain on millions of people, dismantling immigration and humanitarian protection policies while degrading and distorting the institution itself. /1 At a time when the country faced genuine threats to the safety of all Americans from a global pandemic to increasingly frequent and destructive extreme weather events caused by climate change, DHS under Trump took its eyes off the ball and failed the American people. /2
Oct 30, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A point about this task force.

For the past three years, NGOs on a court-appointed Steering Committee have moved heaven and earth to locate separated parents.

They did this because the USG after separating these families refused to play a role in helping to reunite them. /1 The creation of a task force—one that lives in the State Department, *not* DHS—must NOT be seen as a usurpation of the work that’s already taking place.

The USG has unclean hands. No credibility. The job off finding parents cannot be theirs. /2
Oct 29, 2020 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Great! After ripping these families apart, the federal government has completely shirked its responsibility for helping to reunite them.

A task force led by State—not DHS—should support efforts by NGOs to identify families and work with foreign leaders to assist in search. /1 Together with that important reform, the USG should parole these families into the US and offer them permanent protection here.

We need to further prevent this from ever happening again and provide restitution to help these children heal from the trauma we inflicted. /2
Oct 28, 2020 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
*Thread*

Great piece by @DLind that serves as both an explainer about the network of policies the Trump admin has adopted to end humanitarian protections along the southern border and a way to ask provocative questions about the future.

A few thoughts. propublica.org/article/trump-… Dara divides the Democratic approach into two camps: those who view #immigration as a national security matter who embrace deterrence and those who view is as a humanitarian issue.

I'd suggest a third approach: immigration as a regulatory matter.
Oct 23, 2020 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Below is my full thread on the debate tonight, but I'm rewatching the family separation exchange right now. A few thoughts. /1 Grateful @kwelkernbc asked Trump first what he would do to reunite all of the families separated due to his policies.

But it's not the US government that can't find the parents of 545 children separated in 2017.

The US government refused to look. It's never looked. /2
Oct 23, 2020 • 18 tweets • 8 min read
#Immigration is not a debate topic.

But immigrants are central to any conversation about Fighting COVID-19, American Families, Race in America, Climate Change, National Security, or Leadership.

@kwelkernbc may not ask, but no answer‘s complete without raising it. #Debates2020 On #COVID19, millions of immigrants are working alongside Americans as essential workers to fight the pandemic.

3-in-4 undocumented workers are in jobs defined as essential by DHS itself. #ImmigrantsAreEssential
Oct 20, 2020 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
🚨 This is the story everyone who tracked Trump’s family separation at the beginning knew was coming but never wanted to see.

At least 545 children separated from their parents... permanently.

#FamiliesBelongTogether This is 545 kids out of 1,000 separated during a 2017 pilot program uncovered by @lomikriel.

A pilot program.

And though they kept no records and had separated families permanently they EXPANDED family separation in 2018.

WE NEED TO TAKE AWAY CHILDREN. nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/…
Jul 28, 2020 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
Now that we have DHS's official response to the Supreme Court's #DACA decision, a few things are clear. /1 dhs.gov/sites/default/… The Trump administration remains as fixated as ever on ending DACA AND they remain as terrified as ever at being held responsible for that decision.

The refusal to own the decision to end DACA in 2017 played a big role in the Court's decision to vacate the rescission. /2
Jul 6, 2020 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Two years ago we learned about the death by suicide of Marco Antonio Muñoz, a father whose child was forcibly ripped out of his arms by Border Patrol agents in the early days of Trump's family separation policy.

Last week a court threw out most of his claims for relief. /1 This article paints a clear picture about how judicially-created immunity doctrines and statutory exemptions make it nearly impossible for a person (or their surviving relatives) to get justice. /2 themonitor.com/2020/07/03/jud…
Jul 2, 2020 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
I'd love to see what #appellatetwitter thinks about this:

While qualified immunity is a shield against liability for past unconstitutional conduct, the neutering of Bivens is--on top of that--a license for federal officials to act unconstitutionally in the future. /1 Qualified immunity is terrible because if we say people have certain civil and constitutional rights we must allow them to hold people accountable when those rights are violated. /2
Jul 2, 2019 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
Castro, Booker, and Beto have now each elaborated on their positions with respect to 1325 misdemeanor illegal entry prosecutions.'

Although there are distinctions between those positions, they may largely be without difference. /1 8 USC 1325 makes it a criminal misdemeanor to enter the country without authorization. It's been the law for 90 years but was rarely used until the final years of the George W. Bush administration. /2
Apr 11, 2019 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
We really need to deconstruct what we mean when we say we are dealing with a "humanitarian crisis" along our southwest border.

Almost everyone now uses that phrase at every possible opportunity. So what exactly are they talking about?

Some thoughts. For many people, the humanitarian crisis at the southwest border is literally what they've been seeing along the border:

Kids in cages
Overcrowded USBP cells
Families being jailed
Families being separated
Families sleeping under a bridge
Children dying in our care
Apr 11, 2019 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
I respect a number of the @nytimes reporters that worked on this piece, but it is filled with so many inaccuracies and opinion masquerading as journalism it honestly should be retracted.

Ticking through some lowlights. nytimes.com/2019/04/10/us/… This lede is catchy but misleading. @ReichlinMelnick has done scores of Twitter threads showing that in years past we’ve had more people trying to enter by evading detection and succeeding in doing so.
Jan 26, 2019 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
Building off of @ThePlumLineGS's great piece about the conference committee ahead, a few observations about the dynamics at play. /1 It's been said before, but Trump is now at the weakest point of his presidency. During the shutdown his popularity plummeted--most significantly among Independents--and by caving so transparently he sowed doubt in the minds of the one-third of die hards who stayed with him. /2
Jan 22, 2019 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Here’s another asylum change: an unaccompanied child from the Northern Triangle countries of Central America could be returned against their will without regard to whether they will be persecuted.

Here’s why... /1 Under current law such kids aren’t barred at all from requesting asylum and they are placed in removal proceedings and can request asylum affirmatively. /2
Jan 7, 2019 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
In the days ahead, as the Trump administration ramps up the fearmongering of immigrant children and families even more to justify a possible declaration of national emergency, expect to hear a lot about how immigrants bring infectious diseases to the US.

Don’t believe it. /1 Way back in 2015, as he built his campaign of fear and hate, Trump falsely claimed that “tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border.” /2 theguardian.com/us-news/2015/j…
Jan 4, 2019 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Trump posted a new Game of Thrones-themed meme 5 hours ago, shortly after his "presser" with leaders of the Border Patrol union.

Twitter is having fun noting that the wall comes down in Season 7 of the show, but there's a more important way you should think about this... /1 The Border Patrol union in 2016 opened their podcast called "The Green Line" by playing the oath taken by the Night's Watch in Game of Thrones.

The implication--obviously--is that Border Patrol agents view themselves as akin to the Night's Watch. /2