Author: Aaron Reichlin-Melnick

Chaos Continues at DHS as Trump Purges More of His Senior Immigration Team

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned from her position on Monday. She was reportedly forced from office after President Trump grew frustrated with the government’s inability to stop asylum seekers from arriving at the southern border. Her departure marked an extraordinary week in which most DHS leadership faced the chopping block. These […]

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Trump Threatens to Close the Border After Cutting Aid to Central American Countries

President Trump has threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border—again. As families continued to arrive at the border in March—typically the busiest month for border crossings—Trump declared he would close the border and cut off aid to three Central American countries for not stopping people from coming to the United States. This marks at least the […]

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Making Sense of the Rising Number of Families Arriving at the Border

Over the past few months, a new trend has emerged at the U.S.-Mexico border: more families are crossing and presenting themselves to U.S. officials to ask for asylum. But even though the number of people crossing the border are still at historically low levels, the Trump administration alleges it is overwhelmed by the arrival of […]

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Calls to Reform ‘Irredeemably Dysfunctional’ Immigration Court System Grow Louder

In an exhaustive report  on the immigration court system, the American Bar Association (ABA) called on Congress to make sweeping changes in order to fix a system “on the brink of collapse.” According to the ABA, the immigration courts—which currently face backlogs of over 855,000 cases—are so “irredeemably dysfunctional” that the only solution is for […]

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After Shutdown Loss, Trump Doubles Down on Immigration in His New Budget

After weeks of tense negotiations, Congress averted a second government shutdown last month by reaching a bipartisan agreement on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 budget—a budget which gave President Trump very little of his border demands. Undeterred, the president made a budget request for the next fiscal year on Monday. He called for $8.6 billion […]

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