To be granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, a child must have a juvenile court order finding that they have been abandoned, abused, or neglected by a parent and that it is not in the child’s best interests to return to their country of nationality.
Again, the idea of hundreds of thousands of missing migrant kids is MADE UP.
This whole thing came from a @DHSOIG report that said that from 2019 to 2023 (half Trump, half Biden), ICE failed to start removal proceedings for 291,000 unaccompanied kids — not that they were "lost."
Florida is a prime testing ground for the experiment of mass deportation and its impact on the economy.
At least a couple hundred thousand people in the state lost work authorization and tens of thousand have been rounded up and deported. That likely played a role in the below.
We generally think of the Trump administration’s “mass deportation” policy in terms of racial profiling, mass arrests, and egregious uses of force.
This new Board of Immigration Appeals case demonstrates how banal a mass deportation policy can look. https://t.co/DMHRFBGlLJ /1
One of the most APPALLING acts by the Trump admin yet. They claim that unbeknownst to everyone, in 1980 Congress ordered the government to put every legally present refugee in chains on the one year anniversary of their arrival in the US.
Here's what that looks like in practice.
Seeking asylum is legal under US & international law.
Stephen Miller is not a lawyer. His analysis below is not rooted in the rule of law but rather in his xenophobic fantasies & white supremacy.
And while he may hold power momentarily, let us all see him for the fool he is.
Yale Law Grad JD Vance gets just about everything wrong here:
(1) Immigration judges are not ALJs.
(2) They don’t issue warrants.
(3) ICE “administrative warrants” are signed by ICE officers, not judges.
(4) They do not authorize home entry. Only a judicial warrant does.
Just heard from credible sources ICE has booked 200 hotel rooms in Kissimmee, Osceola. There’s a lot of enforcement happening there and also around Lakeland. Please be cautious if you are in those areas.
Last April, I left @USCIS heartbroken by how career civil servants were treated — and honestly terrified for what that meant for America’s legal immigration system. What I saw inside wasn’t normal — and I couldn’t unsee it.
NEW: The Trump-Vance White House has falsely accused an ally of Pope Leo — Sister Norma Pimentel — of illegal activity tied to migrant aid, and cut off all federal funding to Catholic Charities in south Texas.
Church leaders say it’s a targeted, political reprisal against Pope Leo and the Catholic Church. https://t.co/tnS95BxZvr
Oddly fitting, in a depressing way:
The building that many were calling Miami's Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island last week will now be fronted by a building honoring an administration that insists "the era of mass migration is over."
Another obituary for the American century.
BREAKING: Saying that the Trump administration’s explanation for its Labor Day weekend effort to send children to Guatemala “crumbled like a house of cards” upon examination, Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, grants provisional class certification and a preliminary injunction.
JUST IN: Judge Timothy Kelly blocks the Trump administration from expelling Guatemalan children who don’t have deportation orders.
Kelly, a Trump appointee, said the administration’s argument that it was trying to reunite the kids with family “crumbled like a house of cards.”
A week after the U.S. attempted to remove about 80 Guatemalan children in the middle of the night, advocates began hearing they were preparing to do the same this weekend with Honduran children and preemptively sued to block it.
Story ✍️ Leah Willingham
https://t.co/Kmg7QYoLZk
Stephen Miller tweeted that "a Democrat judge is refusing to let" 609 Guatemalan children "reunify with their parents."
Guatemala's general counsel's office (PGN) could find almost no parents who wanted this outcome.
To the contrary, Reuters reports: https://t.co/iuNzIwlkLe
Really important Exclusive: Guatemalan document undercuts U.S. claims on child deportations - https://t.co/myL4dakvbo via @emilytgreen @tedhesson and Kristina Cooke, the triumvirate of the amazing @ReutersWorld immigration coverage
🚨WOW. Further evidence that the Trump admin lied repeatedly (to the public and a judge) when it tried to deport 600 children to Guatemala in the dead of night.
They claimed that every parent had requested reunification. The Guatemalan government confirms that was false.
Immigration attorney here 👋 who has represented hundreds of unaccompanied immigrant kids in past 15+ years:
Stephen Miller is lying. There is a legal process to quickly reunify kids who wish to return to home country w/ their families.
That’s not what happened last night.
Stephen Miller is a liar. Here is a sworn declaration from one of the children saying that their mother is dead and that they left because they suffered abuse and neglect at the hands of their family, including their surviving father. The child wants to stay and seek protection.
This is devoid of factual or legal relevance. Lawyers for the children say some were fleeing abusive situations, and say the deportation effort was undertaken abruptly overnight and without legally required notice or protections to ensure safety. Whether their parents are in Guatemala + whether admin complied with law are distinct questions for court to resolve. https://t.co/wnzKTOpsdx