https://twitter.com/hewholoveswords/status/1072895634888364032
I know some of you shitheads think I'm a Trump stooge (looking at you, sys, among others), but I actually focus my pro bono practice on these exact issues. I've reviewed most, if not all of the relevant filings in federal district court in this area, and I can attest that there is indeed some insidious crap going on as a result of policy changes the past 1.5 years.
This particular issue is the result of an agreement reached between ICE (responsible for detaining adult immigrants) and HHS/ORR (responsible for the "care" and placement of immigrant minors) earlier this year to share information. Until this year, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (the agency delegated with responsibility for handling minors), pursuant to a consent decree in effect for decades and several federal laws, had required background checks for any adults who sought to "sponsor" immigrant children and thus take custody of them pending resolution of immigration cases. This year, in addition to the new information sharing arrangement, ORR changed their policies to require fingerprinting and background checks for all adults in the same household as the "sponsor." By the way, the "sponsor" is almost always a parent or family member. Once detected, ICE/DHS/HHS/ORR has expansive and dubious authority to take people into custody based on nothing more than speculative gang affiliations. No due process, just a discretionary hunch. At that point, good luck ever leaving detention.
When you come from areas of countries where gangs exercise more authority than the supposed local governments, ever-y-body has "gang affiliations," as a matter of bare survival. Total BS. But courts are starting to push back, and I'm fairly confident this move by the Executive will result in substantial pushback from the Judiciary. It already has in several important cases, and there are several massive class actions pending that could hamstring the administrative agencies responsible for implementing these policies, at least until a change in leadership occurs.