Senior Fellow @immcouncil. Tweeting on immigration policy and data. Formerly immigration lawyer with @IJCorps. Views my own, retweets =/= endorsements.

Washington, DC
Joined August 2018
Yes, Trump granted DED in January 2021, and Mayorkas granted TPS six weeks later. And you are just wrong that TPS is only supposed to last until it expires. The law MANDATES that the Secretary review conditions to decide if the conditions still exist, and extend TPS if they do.
Replying to @ReichlinMelnick
Trump didn't grant TPS in 2021. He granted DED, which expired on its terms in 2022. Biden granted TPS for a specific term, and that term has now expired. They are supposed to last until they expire, not until "conditions get better".
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No one is paying his legal fees, he’s being repped free of charge by some of the best lawyers in the country. And he is fighting to be deported to Costa Rica, which promised not to deport him back to El Salvador, yet which the Trump admin now refuses to send him to as punishment.
Replying to @ReichlinMelnick
That’s what happens when you let lawyers make your decisions for you in a case that was mostly political. He claimed persecution in 22 countries. He is either the most persecuted man on the planet or his lawyers tried to get cute and now he is suffering for it. Who paid his legal fees?
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My lies that… “zero releases” is not the same thing as “zero crossings”? That basic bit of logic? You think that’s fake?
Replying to @ReichlinMelnick
82k fake followers, 10k views, ONE comment, this is astroturfed complete fake news, nobody believes your lies cuck boi
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Temporary Protected Status is supposed to last until the extraordinary and temporary condition which led to the original grant is no longer in effect. So tell me: do you think that Maduro has *improved* Venezuela since 2021? Are things better? Explain why you think that.
Replying to @ReichlinMelnick
We should watch how many of the 350,000 immediately leave voluntarily and consider that before we grant TPS to the next group. If temporary isn't temporary, we are really granting permanent status.
Funny how you can’t read the part about Trump himself having determined that they deserved protection. So tell me: which of these conditions, which Trump described in 2021, have been solved in the last four years? Spell out the specific improvements in Venezuela since then.
Replying to @ReichlinMelnick
Funny how a lawyer doesn't understand what "temporary" means.
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The Trump admin proves again and again that they are trying to punish Kilmar Abrego Garcia for having the audacity to make them look bad.
Overnight: The Trump administration asked Judge Paula Xinis to allow officials to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia, saying the government has cleared the final legal hurdle in the deportation process. DOJ says Abrego Garcia failed his interview with a U.S. asylum officer.
McLaughlin would fit right in with some of history’s most well-known propagandists.
The quote in here is unreal.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick retweeted
The quote in here is unreal.
Military exchanges are now selling Trump-branded wine and cider. The relentless @Z_Everson gets the scoop. Again. forbes.com/sites/zacheverson…
Okay I know it’s not the main point here but the guy’s vest prominently says “BORDER PATROL.” That means he’s part of the Border Patrol. Not ICE. Come on. They are different agencies with different histories and practices and operational roles. They have clear uniforms!
Listen to this ICE agent threaten this woman that was recording them for safety purposes! This same agent has done this on numerous occasions and is extremely aggressive with anyone he’s detaining! 😡
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350,000 people, all of whom Donald Trump himself granted protection to in January 2021, are losing status today and will be forced to leave their jobs — and the country, unless they want to risk deportation.
Hundreds of thousands of #Venezuelans, many in South Florida, lose TPS after today miamiherald.com/news/nation-…
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick retweeted
ICE agents draw weapon, break car window while arresting Alamosa man ... Woman says her partner and their infant were stopped at gunpoint in Colorado by ICE with a One-month-old baby was in the car ICE agents surround Alamosa resident Jose Aguilera, one drawing his weapon and the other shattering the car window, as they detain him on an immigration warrant on Sept. 25. Video shot by Maya England Posted Wednesday, October 1, 2025 12:00 am By PRISCILLA WAGGONER, Courier Reporter ALAMOSA — On Thursday at about 3:15 p.m., 33-year-old Jose Aguilera of Alamosa was driving down Sixth Street with Maya England and their one-month-old baby in the car when they noticed three SUVs behind them that seemed to be maneuvering traffic to stay on their tail. “I noticed that the three of them came from different places [on Highway 285] by Family Dollar and started following us down the street,” England told the Valley Courier. “They looked like regular cars – they were different kinds and didn’t have any signs on the sides or lights on top. And they didn’t try to stop us or anything. They were just following us.” As England describes it, at a specific moment, all three SUVs then turned on their sirens at the same time as one SUV swung around and cut off Aguilera’s car while the other two pulled up behind, trapping the vehicle on the street. At this point, Aguilera takes out his phone to call his boss, and England starts recording the incident on her phone. Within seconds, the ICE agent in the front SUV jumps out of his vehicle with his gun drawn, pointing it directly at Aguilera through the windshield as he walks rapidly toward the vehicle. Neither he nor the two agents with him identify themselves as being with ICE or Border Patrol or confirm that he was Jose Aguilera. It should be noted that Aguilera has no criminal record or history of violence. Aguilera rolls down his window several inches and says repeatedly, “Es un errado, gue, un errado.” (“It’s a mistake, dude. A mistake.”) The ICE agent yells at him several times to get out of the car and then, 5 seconds later and while still holding the gun in one hand that he is now pointing directly into the car, takes something out of his pocket that he uses with his other hand to hit the window. At this point, a second ICE agent comes up to the car and, using a baton, smashes the car window, sending a spray of shattered glass into the car interior while England screams, “We have a baby! We have a baby!” Aguilera, who England says is trying to clear the glass that is falling everywhere, is also saying, “Mi niño, mi niño! My baby, bro!” This was just 30 seconds after they had been pulled over. “There was glass was everywhere,” England says. “I covered my baby with my body – I was so scared he was going to be hurt because glass was landing on him, too. I was screaming that there was a baby. But they didn’t care. They didn’t care.” With the window now smashed and hanging from the frame, the ICE agent starts yelling, “Open the door, open the [expletive] door.” England says Aguilera, who can be seen with pieces of glass in his hair and on the back of his jacket, sweeps away the glass and seems to struggle getting the door to open as the ICE agent is pulling on the other side. Aguilera is eventually successful. With his hands in clear view and saying, “Okay, okay, okay,” he gets out of the car where he’s immediately put in handcuffs. At no time did Aguilera, who stands over six feet tall and weighs 200 pounds, show any signs of resisting. As he was standing head down while being handcuffed, England is heard asking repeatedly, “Can you tell me why you’re detaining him?” Eventually, one of the ICE agents says, “Immigration warrant.” She can then be heard asking – again, repeatedly – to see the signed warrant. Eventually, the same ICE agent says, “It’s at the office. You can come see it there.” England has yet to see the warrant. When she has gone to the office as directed, the door has been locked. Aguilera was held at the ICE Field Office in Alamosa for several hours before being transported to an ICE facility in Aurora. England has spoken to him multiple times since being detained, including a conversation where he described what the environment is like. The lights go off at ten o’clock at night and come on at six o’clock in the morning. He is in a small cell with three other men with the [toilet] positioned between the bunks. He’s told her the food is not good with just a small box of cereal and a carton of milk for breakfast and a bologna sandwich for lunch. They get soap and shampoo to shower, which Aguilera says is the best part because the showers, which are partitioned off, allow him a few moments of privacy. But, she says, he’s sounding more and more depressed. “He misses us – he really misses the baby – and we don’t know what’s going to happen next.” They have a lawyer willing to work with them but he needs to be paid a retainer first. Jose Aguilera has been gainfully employed as a carpenter since coming to Alamosa six years ago and has no history with local law enforcement other than two minor traffic infractions, which he paid immediately. England describes their lifestyle as “very quiet. We’re homebodies, and he’s a hard worker,” she says. “He just finished building a house and he got hurt when he fell off a ladder and a board slid down and made a huge cut on his forehead. He had to get 22 stitches and, as soon as he was done at the hospital, he went back to work. He works hard - every day. And he can do anything.” England admits that Aguilera can look intimidating because he’s so tall. "And he kind of has a serious face but...it's just serious. That's all. You ask him for help and, no matter what it is or no matter who you are or if you're black or white or Mexican, he’ll help you. He’d give somebody the shirt off his back.” England, who was born in the U.S., is not naïve. One of her family members – someone who has lived in Alamosa and been gainfully employed for thirty years – was arrested by ICE several months ago, and they have yet to find out where he is. She knows this is a possibility for others in her life. She also knows that she may soon find herself a single parent with a one-month-old to support. When asked what she thinks she’ll do if that’s the case, she just shakes her head. She doesn’t know. “We work hard. We’re good people. We don’t cause trouble. We just want to build a life for our families. Why is that such a bad thing?” The Valley Courier attempted multiple times to reach the local field office for Immigration and Customs Enforcement for comment but there was no answer and no way to leave a message.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick retweeted
"A man ran to the Broadview ICE facility today searching for his wife of five years. They were following the legal process, showing up for her court case, when ICE took her to another room and disappeared her. He tracked her phone to Broadview where the signal cut off. Police told him to just look up her name online. He sat in a parking lot weeping, confused, with no answers." 🥹😭👇
This is completely false. There were not zero border crossings in October. There were sub-10,000 Border Patrol apprehensions, which is indeed quite low, but Rep Ogles appears to have mixed that there were zero *releases* with the idea that there were zero *crossings.*
Democrats shut down governments. Republicans shut down the border. 0 crossings for October, thank you @Sec_Noem.
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Apparently the White House social media team can’t even read their own graphics.
6 months in a row of ZERO illegal border crossings. 🇺🇸 ALL WE NEEDED WAS A NEW PRESIDENT.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick retweeted
Gov Pritzker says federal immigration agents stopped an IDOT worker on Busse Hwy in Park Ridge. "Three ICE agents wearing masks questioned the employee regarding his immigration status, whether he had traveled to New York, and was he aware of the Mayor-elect in New York City. Then they left."
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick retweeted
BREAKING: Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson issues an administrative stay in the SNAP benefits case, for the First Circuit to issue its ruling on the stay request (“with dispatch”). Her administrative stay ends 48 hours after that ruling is issued (or upon further order).
NEW: Trump admin goes to SCOTUS to try and stop order that it pay full SNAP benefits this month. DOJ asks the justices for an order by 9:30 p.m. Friday—as USDA was in the midst of its process for making full payments under a court order to finish Friday. lawdork.com/p/trump-admin-go…
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick retweeted
'IT'S A WAR, MAN': Deputy AG Todd Blanche goes off at Federalist Society confab , trashing 'rogue activist judges' and rejecting claims that Trump & allies are weaponizing DOJ politico.com/news/2025/11/07…