Austin Kocher, PhD
@ackocher
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I study the immigration enforcement system. Geographer. Prof. in @NewhouseSU at @SyracuseU & Fellow at @Immigration_Lab / @AU_CLALS . Editor at @LawandSpace .
Baltimore, MD
Joined August 2013
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“I’ve never seen anything like this in my more than 20 years in Congress.”
—George Santos
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This man is getting paid to design self-driving cars and put rockets into space, and he can’t get a single thing about immigration even close to factually correct. Undocumented people can’t vote, they don’t vote, and even if they did, many of them would be Republicans.
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There may be no clearer materialization of the idea that globalization facilitates the flow of goods while limiting the flow of people than a (illegal) border wall constructed out of shipping containers.
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I feel strongly that it’s good practice to find something good in everyone, even people you dislike. So when I learned in an interview with
@karaswisher
that
@elonmusk
imposed Oxford comma use on Twitter employees, I finally found something I can honestly say he did right.
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Xenophobes: Why don't illegal immigrants just follow the law?
Me: Why don't you try explaining one single thing about immigration law and let's see if you can get literally anything remotely correct.
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We are really doing everything we can in the Global North not to talk about the fact that rising numbers of migrants and refugees is a consequence of several lifetimes of colonialism, uneven development, and nationalist restrictionism. We have the political memories of goldfish.
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I'm seriously thinking about leaving academia. After being in a non-TT position for nearly 5 years at this level of productivity & on the job market for 2 years now, the clock is running on how much longer I'm willing to do this. I love this work more than anything, but for real.
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Stop what you're doing and read this heartbreaking infuriating, masterfully-researched article by
@TomDreisbach
on the brutal reality of immigrant detention. This is one of the best-cited articles I've ever read, and based on a trove of FOIA docs.
@npr
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I'm thrilled to announce that when I reached back out to the senior fact checker to raise substantive "factual, legal, and historical inaccuracies", the response was simply: "I understand that the author's perspective is controversial." So that's the
@NewYorker
now.
I hate to say this, but this piece is not up to the standards of the
@NewYorker
's generally v. good fact checking. For example, a claim that the Biden admin "exempted" families from Title 42 is pure fiction. It never happened. In reality, MEXICO refused certain family expulsions.
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Controversial opinion: coffee shops don’t open up early enough. If you sell coffee and you don’t open until 8:00 am, you may not understand what coffee is for.
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"Springfield OH is a success story. The arrival of so many new people has reversed population decline and helped the city start a new chapter." 🎉
--> Immigrants are making Ohio great! Let’s talk about that.✅
@immcouncil
@ReichlinMelnick
@mehdirhasan
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The guy ahead of me in line was really rude to all of the service staff so after he paid and walked away, I realized he didn’t finish the tip screen, so I punched in a $10 tip on a $10 order.
#BeTheChange
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I am thrilled to announce that I am transitioning to an exciting & unique new role at Syracuse University where I will significantly expand my immigration research and work w/ the Institute for Democracy, Journalism, & Citizenship and the Center for Global Engagement. 🎉
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The City of Springfield (OH) posted a web page where the community can get basic *factual* information about immigrants in the area. A small but loud minority of people will still try to politicize this, so please share this resource widely.
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@fuckyouiquit
Imagine needing a day off so bad you have to kill your spouse just to get an excused absence.
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Looking for immigration data? 📊
As I've said before, I will post immigration data every morning right here between now and the election. But today I'm doing something a little extra. 👏🏼
Here are 10 immigration data sources you may not have heard about. Let's do this! 🧵
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The container wall along the US-Mexico border in Arizona, which was built at taxpayer's expense of about $100M, is now being removed (for possibly close to another $100M) after standing for barely a few months. I was there two weeks ago and this is what it looked like.
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@MatthewSitman
If this is true, it exactly mirrors how the Trump campaign has worked for years, so frankly, hats off to the Kamala Harris campaign for catching up with the times.
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Anyone interested in immigration data?
I’ll be posting a TON of new government data on immigration enforcement, deportation, asylum, and more over the next weeks that no one has ever seen before.
Please follow here so you get the latest!
Thank you for years of support.
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ICE's latest data now includes hearing attendance by immigrants in ICE's alternatives to detention program. Not all are tracked yet, but the results so far are indisputable: immigrants attend court. They are not "disappearing" as some have suggested.
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I am once again reminding you that neither “illegal” nor “undocumented” (as nouns) are categories in U.S. immigration law and asking people to simply define what they mean by one of those terms is the easiest way to figure out who actually knows what they are talking about.
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“Donald Trump is an ongoing exhausting wart on the ass of society.”
-
@karaswisher
@PivotPod
As if I need another reason to love Kara Swisher.
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Dissertation adviser: “So do you have a plan?”
Me: “I have the concept of a plan.”
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We are seeing an escalation of rhetoric that describes immigrants as "military-aged males" and describes immigration as an "invasion."
This discourse, let's call it the "geopolitical threat narrative," is not entirely new but is being mobilized in new & dangerous ways.
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Good news! I am joining the Immigration Lab at American University as a Research Fellow. Although there are no changes to my role at TRAC, the Research Fellow position enables exciting new research possibilities for TRAC and the Immigration Lab at AU.
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Migration is a natural part of what it means to live on a planet together as human beings.
If you think migration is a problem, you're the problem.
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The
@uscensusbureau
released incredible new data about Hispanic/Latino population growth in the US:
- 71% of US pop growth is from Hisp. pop.
- growth is due to natural increase (deaths<births)
- Hisp. now one-fifth of US pop (65M out of 336M)
Read more:
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Folks, I realize that the world would make so much more convenient sense from an unhinged MAGA worldview if it were true that massive voter fraud was an issue.
The fact is: massive voter fraud is not a thing. I'm very sorry that reality doesn't align with your hopes and dreams.
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This is a great example of why "polling" people about factual questions is stupid af. Undocumented/illegal immigrants commit crimes at far lower rates than US citizens. Maybe we should poll the public about what color the sky is or what elements make up water. Sheesh.
NATIONAL POLL: 32% say illegal immigrants are more likely than other Americans to commit a violent crime, up from 21% in 2019 and 17% in 2015.
MORE LIKELY by PARTY
REP – 65% (29% in 2015)
IND – 26% (15%)
DEM – 12% (10%)
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You can’t make this up: Harvard is offering a postdoc position in “Political Economy of Law, Technology & Labor” but the fellow will be an independent contractor not even an employee & there are zero benefits. Research should address collective class struggle. Help me understand.
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Trump’s Ugly, Hateful Rants in Michigan Should Be Covered as a Scandal | The New Republic
@gregtsargent
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The reply guys below the scum line of this post are having strokes tonight. You hate to see it. LOL.
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I'm still floored by this response. I have never written a news outlet (one that reached out to me first, btw) to raise concerns about "journalistic perspective". I have, on maybe 3-4 occasions, written to fix gross errors. By comparison, Breitbart fixed an error and apologized.
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The OpenAI board wants Sam Altman back already, putting him in perhaps the best bargaining position of anyone ever.
@karaswisher
called this one on Pivot yesterday.
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When a government deports immigrants to a country it considers too dangerous for its own citizens, it’s a reminder that not all lives are valued equally — and that fact alone is a powerful ethical indictment of deportation, borders, and the territorial state.
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Somewhere between “all immigrants are perfect human beings” and “all immigrants are criminals” is a basic sociological reality that immigrants (like all social groups) commit certain crimes at certain rates, and as far as we can tell, it’s definitely below natural born citizens.
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Re-reading “White Flight” by
@KevinMKruse
, an important book to me in grad school, I am reminded of this important legacy: “The ultimate success of white flight was the way in which it led whites away from the responsibility for the problems they had done much to create.“
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I am on the academic job market this fall, looking at positions in geography, sociology, and public policy. If your department wants an early career scholar with a record of public impact + teaching who does quant/qual research on immigration, tech, & public policy -- it's me!
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Migrants paroled into the country are, by definition, NOT ILLEGAL.
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PSA: sponsorship is not a thing in asylum law, but everything in this country’s immigration policies is made up on the spot, so whatever.
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It's painful to watch public debates about immigration due to the amount of pure lack of empirical understanding about how the system works. 85% of tweets today are like listening to college freshmen get high and debate string theory. Like, bruh, you ain't qualified.
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Everyone I know in the immigration world that I’ve talked to in the past several weeks is actively preparing for a second Trump presidency. As far as I can tell, it would be complete chaos and total devastation for the immigration system.
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Every January 1st I think about those many incredible immigrants in the US who share a birthday today, not because they know for sure that they were born on this day, but bc a lack of paperwork about their birth, USCIS assigns them a birthday of Jan 1. Happy Birthday, friends. 🎉
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Asylum is a “loophole” to the immigration system?
Okay then: Miranda rights are a loophole to police powers, right to an attorney is a loophole to court procedures, all rights are “loopholes” incl. the 1st Am. right to free speech and freedom of the press that the NYT relies on.
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@MassaVianaLaw
Yup. It’s almost like reply guys don’t actually know what they’re talking about. It’s not really that controversial or surprising to people who work in this field. 🤷🏼♂️
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It’s crucial to recognize the unprecedented level of onslaught attack that asylum is under right now. A worrying number of people in our govt, elected & unelected, believe that the US should close the door to asylum seekers and even pull out of the Refugee Convention entirely.
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Immigration courts don't have enough judges, but they also don't have enough *attorneys*. Increase in new cases has led to a massive decline in representation rates from 65% to just 30%. Even ICE doesn't have enough attorneys to cover all the case.
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Containerization, in its current impactful iteration, exploded after World War II, dramatically changing the economic geography of the planet. Standardizing the shipping unit size and building a global transportation network of these boxes was essential to globalization.
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(Immigration) law is too important to be left to (immigration) lawyers, which is why it’s so important to read beyond the technical legal and policy analysis. There are a lot of us — geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, etc. — who try to contribute more critical work, too.
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Remarkable observation: Venezuelans have passed Mexicans as the nationality with the MOST pending cases in immigration court – now approaching 500,000. There were barely 1,500 total Venezuelans with court cases as recently as 2017.
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Are you looking for immigration data?
@TRACReports
is a great place to start, but because we are a research institute at a university and our website is more technical than most, it can be confusing to first-timers.
Here's what we have and how to find it! 🧵.
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“The Metaverse is just some giant incel panic room that no one is going to.” 😂
-
@profgalloway
@PivotPod
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I’d be thrilled to learn how many Democrats who are tweeting “no human being is illegal” were ready to sign off on a bill a week ago that would have gutted the asylum system. Real Q, bc it’s just always easier to tweet a thing than do something meaningful. (Yep went there.)
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Know what is a thing? The exploitation of working people by both parties. The expansion of government surveillance and electronic monitoring. Unrelenting military violence. Lack of educational opportunities (see this thread for evidence LOL). Maybe work on real issues.
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Today marks my last day at
@TRACReports
. I have learned so much in the past 5 yrs of fast-paced data-driven immigration research. Much of what I learned came from you: reporters, fellow researchers, experts, and the keenly interested. Thank you! 🙏+ Stay tuned! Much more to come.
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I’d like to point out that the government now expects poor refugees to do everything through their smartphone, from applying for asylum screenings at the border to being tracked while facing deportation, but that same government literally does not have a working email system. 🤦🏼♂️
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The fact that this border bill, which includes a Republican wish list of enforcement measures and increased funding, can be described by so many on the right as "amnesty" illustrates how totally unhinged this discussion has become. It's just completely off-the-wall bonkers.
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I'm so excited to share that my affiliation with the Department of Geography in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University is now official!
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@kenklippenstein
From a purely public relations perspective, I think it’s difficult going into the election with one candidate who can’t say ballot box and another candidate who is pumping his fist after getting shot at at the campaign rally. It’s just the optics.
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Twitter is often viewed as a hostile space for discussing immigration.
It doesn't have to be.
The immigration scholars & experts are here bc they want to engage in good-faith conversation.
Ask honest Qs. Be curious. You have unprecedented access. Don't waste it.
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U.S. citizens actually top the list of fentanyl smugglers caught at the border, according to Homeland Security officials, who spoke to U.S. representatives in a subcommittee hearing last July on who is bringing fentanyl across the border.
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I’m stunned. 🤯 In less than 72 hours, my new article CBP One has moved to the top of the most visited articles in the journal in which it was published.
See what all the fuss is about here:
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Interested in immigration data? John Oliver's lucid and well-researched take-down of the "migrant crime wave" narrative is a masterclass in social science communication. Punchline? Migrants ≠ crime.
Watch the video for yourself:
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There is a significant shift in border enforcement numbers happening right now. There may be many reasons for this, but we cannot ignore the fact that Mexico and other countries play a role in border enforcement, too.
May is typically a month when migrant crossings at the U.S. border spike. But the remarkable lull this year continues.
Border Patrol recorded ~3,000 apprehensions yesterday, compared to an average of 4,300 in April and 8,000 in December, per internal data obtained by CBS News.
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Greg makes the point:
"Trump and Vance know exactly what they’re doing. ... They constantly rhapsodize about places like Springfield... Yet they are almost pathologically unconcerned with the real-world harms their demagoguery is visiting on the people who live there."
Yep✅
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After years (decades!) of TRAC's homepage looking the same, we are finally rolling out an updated look with dynamic content, links to latest data and reports, and mobile-ready design. Your first peak is on the right below (old/current view on left). Watch for roll-out this week!
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Weird how “I like that he always speaks his mind” always means “he’s constantly offensive and abusive toward others” but never seems to mean “he’s always giving people the nicest compliments and lots of positive reinforcement.” What a cynical & limiting view of thinking this is.
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"We're mad that the illegals are coming in legally" is a great way to say that it was never about legality in the first place.
Former DHS agent tells me: NGOs are putting illegals on buses from Mexico to Texas and releasing them inside the USA as “legal migrants” and DHS is HELPING THEM DO IT.
The US government is completely lawless under the Biden regime.
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"Between 2012 and 2018, compared with their U.S.-born neighbors, undocumented immigrants in Texas were less than half as likely to be arrested for violent crimes or drug offenses and less than a quarter as likely to be arrested for property crimes."
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If you’re on social media, “you’re doing data entry for billionaires.” She doesn’t say we shouldn’t use social media, but I thought this was a catchy (and true) illustration of the real economic relationship we have with these platforms.
—
@AudieCornish
with
@karaswisher
On Friday’s episode,
@AudieCornish
co-hosts with
@KaraSwisher
. Reply here with your listener questions!
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3,700,000 immigrants have pending deportation cases. Here’s what we know:
- 550,000 live in FL
- largest groups from Mexico & Venezuela (~500k each)
- 2.6 M (70%) have no attorney
- ~ 1 M are < 18 yrs old
- > 150 languages spoken
Explore the data here:
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Dear NYT Reporters: *This* is what a flood looks like. Stop confusing this with migrants with natural disasters and referring to arriving migrants as a "flood." It's dehumanizing towards migrants and disrespects people whose lives are threatened or lost by real flooding.
Huge storm and flooding in NYC today. This is 4th Ave and Carroll St in Brooklyn, which is near Gowanus Canal, a superfund site.
Reminder: Do not go in the flood waters, it contains pathogens and is a threat to human health.
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I’m starting to wonder if people do not actually understand how the immigration system works.
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Are you studying immigration in graduate school or law school? I'm always eager to connect students to the incredible immigration data we have here at TRAC, so if this is you, please reach out any time and let me know how we can help. You are the future!
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New Report! "Two-Thirds of Court Asylum Applicants Found Legally Entitled to Remain."
Out of 1M+ asylum cases decided by immigration judges over the past decade, 685,956 were legally entitled to remain in the United States due to asylum or other relief.
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Data shows that immigrants keep America running. Immigrants are just 14% of the population but:
- pay $580B in taxes/year
- are 16% of nurses and 28% of health aides
- are 25% of ag workers
- are 25% of construction workers
- are 20% of entrepreneurs
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We often talk about how immigration is a way for people to seek a better life, but not enough about how immigrants make all our lives better. Raise your hand if your life is *better* thanks to immigrants. 🙋♂️🌎🌍🌏
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If there's one thing I've learned in my lifetime it's that no one is ever held accountable for anything anywhere anytime.
I really hope every Biden national security official realizes just how tarred they will be for their entire career based on what they are enabling in Israel. They will never live it down, not because it's a moral wrong, but because it's a strategic disaster for America.
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When agencies don’t process immigration paperwork, migrants can sue. This is a good way for migrants to get results (hat tip to Lily!) BUT it’s also adds cost to gov and client. Wouldn’t it be better if USCIS simply adjudicated in a timely manner? (Yes.)
Green card delivered to my client who sued USCIS for unreasonable delay after waiting three years! The agency ignored his inquiries, but as soon as we filed the
#mandamus
lawsuit, they set an interview. The officer approved his case on the spot. Better late than never!
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This Is Where New Migrants Are Going When They Reach the US
Data collected during border crossings and from immigration courts reveals the recent surge has more than a few nuances.
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Consider the fact that House Republicans are impeaching the DHS Secretary for failing to enforce immigration laws while also refusing to fund the agency’s ability to enforce immigration laws. This is a manufactured crisis that has lost touch with finding actual solutions.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is considering downsizing its detention capacity and releasing thousands of migrants from its custody due to a budget shortfall that Congress has so far refused to address.
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Donald Trump: "Literally millions of these immigrants are told to get out of our country and if you come back, we'll kill you."
Get those CAT claims in, folks! Trump's words, not mine.
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Quick show of hands: how many of you ACADEMICS have used FOIA requests in your research in any way?
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I’m starting to realize that “abolish the nation-state system” is not typically the answer people are looking for when they find out what I do for a living and ask me about practical solutions to solve the “migration crisis.”
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Asylum cases are the modern day equivalent of witch trials.
900 AD: "if she floats, she's lying about being a witch & if she drowns, she was telling the truth"
2024 AD: "if he lives, he's lying about facing persecution & if he's deported and killed, he was telling the truth"
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“Mexico will not accept, under any circumstances, repatriations by the State of Texas.”
Mexico’s 🔥response to SB4 is short but a must read:
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I am once again asking NGOs: If you produce a report of some kind, please **include a publication year on it**. I don't understand how or why this is such a problem, but it is.
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Borders are scars in the otherwise breathtakingly beautiful landscape.
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Here's more information:
Former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's shipping container wall coming down today almost as fast as it went up. Coronado National Forest, Arizona.
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When I see people reacting online with animosity towards migrants, I often think of the research of Karen Neff, who showed the critical role of self-compassion for developing compassion towards others. Our broken systems beat people down and set them up to take it out on others.
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🚨 ICE told TRAC they CANNOT FIND records on 377,000+ immigrants in its alternatives to detention (ATD) program. This is the 2nd time in 2 weeks that ICE has been unable to find records, & comes 1 month after ICE admits to misleading the public about ATD.
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The Supreme Court decided Chy Lung v. Freeman on this day in 1876.
California had been enacting its own immigration and border controls, mostly against Chinese migrants.
In Chy Lung, however, the SC ruled that only Congress, *not states*, has the power to regulate immigration.
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@ajbauer
"I went to a comedy show and the first act was great, it was just a normal white guy doing jokes about crushing b!tches, then a Marxist got up on stage and starting having sex reassignment surgery right in front of us, so we all left. Jesus take the wheel."
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The latest mass shooting at a bank with armed guards is the clearest evidence yet that guns are not enough, more Americans need sniper training, demolitions experience, and combat pilot certification. If teachers can’t fly an F-16 they don’t deserve to be in the classroom. 🇺🇸
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Growing dissatisfaction with the US government's processing of immigration paperwork is leading to a spike in the number of federal immigration lawsuits, especially mandamus lawsuits. We estimate ~10,000 immigration lawsuits by the end of FY -- a record.
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Every act of migration, no matter how seemingly simple and isolated, is one hue in a kaleidoscope of global economic, social, and political processes, and no serious conversation about migration is possible without embracing this daunting but essential fact.
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