One of the reasons immigration is such an intractable issue in the US is because the discourse on it is riddled with misleading / false narratives that lack nuance and extreme positions.

A thread about what I've been thinking about lately as immigration becomes a top 2024 issue: 2/ If you only listen to one side, everyone coming to the U.S. southern border is a bad person, a criminal or someone gaming the system.

If you only listen to the other side, everyone coming to the border is an asylum-seeker fleeing imminent harm.

Both narratives are false.

NEWS — Migrants in Mexico have made over 64.3 million requests to enter the U.S. using a smartphone app that the Biden administration has tried to establish as the main gateway to the American asylum system, internal documents obtained by CBS News show.
cbsnews.com/news/immigrati… Yes, you read that right. Migrants have used the "CBP One" app tens of millions of times to apply for a coveted appointment to be processed by U.S. authorities at an official border crossing.

So far, nearly 450,000 migrants have been allowed into the U.S. under the process.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is demanding that Texas state officials stop blocking Border Patrol agents from a public park in Eagle Pass, threatening legal action and calling the state's move to seize control of the area "clearly unconstitutional."

Full letter:

DHS is giving Texas until the end of the day on Wednesday to say it "will cease and desist its efforts to block Border Patrol’s access in and around the Shelby Park area and remove all barriers to access to the U.S.-Mexico border."

Otherwise, DHS will refer the matter to DOJ.

NEWS — The Biden administration has indicated to Congress that it's open to a new Title 42-like border authority to expel migrants without asylum screenings, as well as an expansion of immigration detention and deportations, to get GOP to back Ukraine aid.
cbsnews.com/news/immigrati… In recent days, the Biden administration has intensified its engagement with lawmakers negotiating a border-Ukraine deal. DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas started engaging with negotiators in the Senate this week.

He's currently on Capitol Hill.

BREAKING — The Biden administration will be offering more than 400,000 Venezuelan migrants in the U.S. legal status and work permits through an expansion of the TPS program following demands from New York and other cities, three sources tell @CBSNews.
cbsnews.com/news/venezuela… The Department of Homeland Security is expanding, or redesignating, the Temporary Protected Status program for Venezuelan migrants, allowing more recent arrivals to apply for the deportation protections and work permits offered by the policy, the sources said.

A thread on our reporting: The Biden administration is planning to replace Title 42 with a policy that is, in many ways, tougher — and I think that has been overlooked.

This rule will disqualify most non-Mexican migrants from asylum if they enter the U.S. without permission. 1/

https://twitter.com/camiloreports/status/1656090114131472384

The regulation will subject migrants to swift, formal deportations to their home country or Mexico, a five year banishment from the U.S. and potential criminal prosecution if they try to re-enter. Title 42 did not impose these immigration or criminal consequences on migrants. 2/

BREAKING — The Biden administration has finalized a sweeping asylum restriction it plans to use to ramp up border deportations of migrants after the Title 42 pandemic-era policy expires on Thursday, according to internal documents obtained by @CBSNews.
cbsnews.com/news/u-s-asylu… The regulation, which is expected to be challenged in federal court, will be a dramatic shift in asylum policy, disqualifying migrants from U.S. protection if they fail to request refugee status in another country, such as Mexico, on their journey to the southern border.

Border Patrol will be launching an operation tomorrow in El Paso to apprehend migrants who evaded law enforcement after crossing the southern border unlawfully, saying migrants taken into custody there may be expelled, detained or placed in deportation proceedings. For context, thousands of migrants have been sleeping on the streets of this Texas border city in recent days amid a spike in migrant crossings in the lead-up to the end of the Title 42 public health restrictions on Thursday.

Twenty Republican-controlled states filed a lawsuit today asking a federal judge in Texas to halt a Biden administration program that allows up to 30,000 migrants from four countries to enter the U.S. legally each month if they have American sponsors.
cbsnews.com/news/immigrati… Announced by Pres. Biden this month as part of a strategy to deter unlawful border crossings, the program allows migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to live and work in the US legally under the parole authority. The states argue it's an illegal expansion of parole.

NEW — President Biden came into office promising to end Trump-era asylum limits and quickly commissioned rules that could expand asylum eligibility.

But 2 years in, the rules have yet to be issued—and his administration is now proposing to limit asylum.
cbsnews.com/news/immigrati… Since President Biden commissioned the asylum eligibility rules in early 2021, administration officials have disagreed over how generous they should be, people with direct knowledge of the debates told CBS News.

Some officials have expressed concern they could fuel migration.

NEW — The first group of migrants allowed to come to the U.S. legally under a private sponsorship process arrived Tuesday, 5 days after President Biden announced it.

Ten migrants have arrived and 600 have been authorized to come, unpublished data show.
cbsnews.com/news/migrants-… The U.S. has also received thousands of applications from those hoping to sponsor migrants under the program, which will allow up to 30,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with American-based financial sponsors to fly into the U.S. each month.

U.S. border officials began allowing asylum-seekers to use a free mobile app to request an opportunity to be processed at an official port of entry, as part of a strategy President Biden hopes will dissuade migrants from entering the U.S. unlawfully.
cbsnews.com/news/asylum-se… Migrants who hope to be processed at a port of entry will need to prove they have a vulnerability to merit an exemption to the Title 42 policy.

The vulnerabilities include a physical or mental illness, a disability, pregnancy and the lack of safe housing or shelter in Mexico.

BREAKING — U.S. Judge Emmet Sullivan voids the Title 42 order that has allowed U.S. border officials to quickly expel migrants, finding it "arbitrary and capricious in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act" This is a major ruling with huge implications. It prevents the U.S. from expelling any migrant under Title 42, a public health authority first invoked by the Trump administration.

Judge Sullivan refused to suspend the ruling pending an appeal. More to come ... @CBSNews

A congressional investigation into medical abuse allegations that garnered national attention found that some immigrant women held by ICE at a Georgia detention center likely underwent "unnecessary" invasive gynecological procedures.
cbsnews.com/news/women-det… Tuesday's report released by Sen. @ossoff said investigators did not corroborate "allegations of mass hysterectomies." But investigators said they did find "serious issues" regarding medical procedures and policies at the Georgia facility and the conduct of Doctor Mahendra Amin.

NEW — The U.S. is rejecting over 90% of Afghans who were not evacuated last year and who are now seeking to enter the country on humanitarian grounds, government data show.

They include family members of translators who helped the U.S. fight the Taliban.
cbsnews.com/news/afghan-re… Zaker Hussain told the US his brother was at risk of being harmed by the Taliban because of his own work at the Afghan presidential palace, his membership in the long-persecuted Hazara group and Hussain's role as a translator for the US Marines.

But his application was denied.

BREAKING — U.S. Judge Robert Summerhays grants a preliminary injunction to block the Biden administration from ending the mass expulsions of migrants under the Title 42 pandemic-era rule.

The CDC had planned to stop authorizing Title 42 on Monday, May 23. Here's the 47-page ruling by Judge Summerhays, an appointee of former President Donald Trump:
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

EXCLUSIVE — 12,212 migrant children reentered U.S. border custody as unaccompanied minors over a 12-month span after being expelled, typically with their parents, under the Title 42 pandemic policy, unpublished DHS statistics obtained by CBS News show.
cbsnews.com/news/immigrati… The statistic, obtained via FOIA, provides a glimpse into one of Title 42's unintended consequences: migrant parents opting to "self-separate" from their children to allow them to enter the U.S. as unaccompanied minors, who have not been subject to the expulsions since late 2020.

Exclusive — The U.S. has vaccinated more than 20,000 migrants in U.S. border custody since launching a massive COVID-19 vaccination campaign in late March.

CBS News got an inside look into the process at a Border Patrol facility in Texas. W/ @NicoleSganga cbsnews.com/news/immigrati… Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, the chief medical officer at DHS, said as many as 1,000 migrants are being vaccinated every day at 24 processing facilities across the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a medical initiative he called “historic.”

EXCLUSIVE — 10,000 Ukrainians have been processed by US border officials in the past 2 months, a growing and unprecedented number fueled by thousands of Ukrainians flying to Mexico to seek entry along the US border, per internal DHS data obtained by CBS.
cbsnews.com/news/immigrati… Between February 1 and April 6, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported encountering 9,926 Ukrainians who lacked legal documentation needed to enter the country, the unpublished agency statistics show.

On April 6 alone, 767 Ukrainian migrants were processed by CBP.

New — A 17-year-old Ukrainian girl remains in U.S. custody after being denied immediate entry into the country by authorities along the southern border, where a growing number of Ukrainians are seeking to enter the U.S., her caregivers tell CBS News.
cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-g… Unable to return to war-torn Ukraine, Yelyzaveta, 17, traveled to the San Ysidro U.S. port of entry Wednesday with Alina Dolinenko, 21, a fellow missionary trainee from Ukraine. They hoped to live with a sponsor in Maryland.

Dolinenko was allowed in. But Yelyzaveta was not.

The Biden administration is directing ICE to stop holding immigrants at an Alabama county jail and limit its use of three other detention facilities, citing inadequate conditions, according to an agency notice obtained by @CBSNews.
cbsnews.com/news/ice-deten… In a January interview, DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas called detention reform one of his 2022 priorities.

Asked about Pres. Biden's promise to end for-profit detention, he told me, "Number one, detention reform is a priority of mine, and two, the president fulfills his promises"