Matt Cameron Profile picture
Practicing, teaching, & writing on US #immigrationlaw. Triple Gemini. Chaotic Good.
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Dec 4, 2022 8 tweets 5 min read
Me, a very clever human: write a @alyankovic parody in the form of a 15th century madrigal about the collapse of FTX and the crypto market

*two seconds later*

#OpenAI: alas tis a lamentable day, the visions of riches have become mere wishes, etc A notably less weird Al here but otherwise am I the only one who thinks this is all kind of terrifying
Dec 4, 2022 5 tweets 4 min read
My new favorite @OpenAI prompt is "write a Rage Against the Machine song about"

this bombtrack started as a sketch in my prompt box

#RATM it just... gives you chord changes, if you want, I didn't actually think that would work
Oct 21, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
N. B.: the author of this fascist manifesto is not some Roman statue "Western chauvinist" account with 76 followers. He is the senior editor of the closest thing the American right has to a journal of record.

How do we step back from where we're heading? And I'm sorry but I'm going to have to insist that you read this one. You'll never believe me or that I am quoting this in context otherwise

thefederalist.com/2022/10/20/we-…
Oct 20, 2022 16 tweets 4 min read
Very few people outside the system know this, but you need to:

US asylum law knowingly & intentionally requires the deportation to certain death of people who have been on the wrong side of the criminal legal system.

It's not a design flaw, but the design itself. First: I didn't know her, but this is the only publicly available news re: the murder of Melissa Nunez--and more importantly, her life. She was, among other things, a determined advocate who loved horses and traveling and dreamed of living in Puerto Rico

tiempo.hn/melissa-nunez-…
Oct 19, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
This @ similar questions from the @MarshallProj sheriffs survey linked below get to one of the most fundamental problems holding back progress today: a belief that past (white) immigrants had it harder & had to do more to "earn" a place than today's. It's exactly backward It's only human to want to believe that your ancestors were better and smarter and worked harder than today's immigrants, because that kind of generational progress is such a fundamental part of the golden era American immigrant story. Which is to say the *white* immigrant story
Oct 6, 2022 6 tweets 1 min read
Would you be surprised to learn that a Presidential pardon doesn't prevent someone from being deported for a drug offense? Of course pardons for federal marijuana possession convictions are the right thing to do, but it is largely meaningless for immigration purposes and the real harm has come from the wide range of MJ-related offenses not touched by today's order
Oct 6, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
Florida lawyers: what would you say about a fee agreement which doesn't (1) specify legal services provided (2) give a dollar amount for the fee (3) state if it's a flat fee or retainer (4) explicitly say what atty's hourly rate is (5) keeps all fees after 6 months with no refund I mean I certainly know what the Massachusetts bar do with this, but I was (somewhat) surprised to learn that FL explicitly allows nonrefundable fees so long as they are not "unreasonable"! That's just legalized theft imo
Sep 29, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
"Plaintiff's clearly stated desire to... not [ ] receive $20,000" is the funniest thing I've ever seen in a government filing

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… you know come to think of it, it was probably a bad sign when @PacificLegal had to conduct an extremely difficult nationwide search to find a plaintiff who could claim to be harmed by receiving $20,000 in unconditional debt relief
Sep 19, 2022 19 tweets 9 min read
1/ This @FLVoiceNews story inadvertently confirms that Ron DeSantis either had criminal intent in distributing these flyers or is just criminally stupid.

To the extent that it matters at all, I'm putting the odds of each at 50/50.

Receipts to follow:

flvoicenews.com/desantis-migra… 2/ This story was run in response to @JuddLegum's excellent reporting on mysterious flyers which the Venezuelan migrants flown to Martha's Vineyard last week at FL taxpayer expense were given by a woman making grand promises about what awaited them in MA

popular.info/p/the-smoking-…
Sep 15, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
Weaponizing asylum seekers is gross, but chartering a special flight from TX to an island off the coast of MA for people who were just trying to get to their cousin's place in Minneapolis or whatever is weird *and* gross While they are of course more than welcome here in MA, asylum seekers generally do come here with final destinations and if nothing else spending tens of thousands in TX taxpayer dollars to send them several time zones in another direction from them is criminally wasteful
Sep 7, 2022 6 tweets 3 min read
That moment as a poll watcher when the polls close and you're locked in with democracy

#bospoli #mapoli I live two blocks from W1P1's polls and have been coming here every election to get a photo of the count after the polls close because I am a sick freak
Sep 4, 2022 6 tweets 3 min read
ME (last month): the new generation of post-Walsh #bospoli leaders and activists have finally broken machine politics as we knew them and made an uncompromising commitment to moral clarity, honesty, and character

ME (today): Honestly this one's on me for ever even beginning to believe that could be true, but here we are
Sep 3, 2022 4 tweets 1 min read
"Progressive prosecutors" are rearranging deck chairs on the Death Star. They are trying to captain a battleship through a narrow sewer.

I'm done with ticky-tack memo-based reform. Tell me how you'll use your office to the furthest possible extent for liberation.

#bospoli Questions for all "progressive prosecutors": what will justice look like in 10 years after the changes you want to set in motion? 20? What legislation do you support or are you proposing to fundamentally reimagine--and ideally end--your job as you know it?
Sep 1, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
I've worked w/100+ sexual assault survivors in the past 17 years, mostly in asylum cases. I've seen what both not being able to tell anyone & not being believed when they do does to ppl--& the work it takes to heal--& I've just about lost my mind in the past 48 hrs. Wtf #bospoli? Summary of allegations against Sufolk DA candidate Ricardo A Am I the asshole here for actually believing every word of this? Honestly it's days like these that I'm just as happy that I don't depend on state or local courts/electeds/politics for my livelihood. What a sorry fiasco this all is
Aug 31, 2022 8 tweets 3 min read
I believe her, and it matters. She matters. That's it, and that's all.

The responses (and absence of responses) to this tomorrow will define #bospoli + #mapoli for years to come

#SuffolkDA @kennycooks This isn't about teams or sides or supporting any candidate over another. I fundamentally don't even support the role of DA as it currently stands in our system, so I honestly hardly care which of the two candidates with nearly identical policies wins. But I do care about this.
Jul 30, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
Excerpt from a legal filing by an Oathkeeper accused of keep well you see your honor, one man's "death list" is another man's "doodle pad"
Jul 27, 2022 15 tweets 5 min read
WHERE WERE YOU when you heard that the former president who'd already taken a dry run at a coup spent an hour publicly explaining exactly what kind of dictator he would be + how he would do it which the media covered as a "policy" speech?

I was on my annual summer vacation on Block Island, RI. This was both the best and worst possible time to start to process what I'd just heard this man say
Jul 16, 2022 4 tweets 2 min read
The fact that it would take me upwards of 10 minutes on a whiteboard to prove the basic context you'd need to fully understand my subsequent 10 minute rant goes a long way in itself to explain how "unspeakably inhumane" has become the default setting for US immigration policy In short: this provision already permanently separates families over nothing. This interpretation will separate many more families in the largest federal circuit over nothing.
Jun 30, 2022 6 tweets 3 min read
in an unexpected burst of good news at the merciful end of the worst term in modern #SCOTUS history, the court has agreed that the #RemaininMexico program was properly terminated by the Biden administration

#MPP still reading, but on its face this outcome is a tremendous relief for all of us involved in this work and a definitive statement to the next R administration that they can't outsource our asylum processing to other countries
Jun 29, 2022 8 tweets 4 min read
THIS IS THE FUTURE THAT CONSERVATIVES WANT

The Christian Republic of Texas. The Catholic State of Missouri. The Evangelical Commonwealth of Virginia.

This is it. This is where it's all been going, and at this pace they could have it by the end of the next #SCOTUS term. Image Before 2016, America First Legal would have been considered an extremist fringe movement. Today, it is a leading voice of "conservative" legal "thought" led by 2 of the Trump admin's worst.

It's like seeing a Bond villain publish his plans in a press release Image
Jun 23, 2022 7 tweets 3 min read
Refreshing #SCOTUS site while waiting on a hearing in #Dorchester hoping to vacate the decades-old case which resulted in my client's deportation eager to learn which of our rights the elder gods deign fit to preserve. Thurgood Marshall is on the wall, + he doesn't look happy I continue to believe they'll hold Dobbs until the very end--as they always do for the big ones--but literally on the edge of my seat for the #MPP decision