It’s amazing how the words “we can’t afford that” get stuck in a kid’s brain. I think most of us heard that to one degree or another growing up, but it meant vastly different things for all of us - and we all took different meanings than what our parents intended in a lot of cases, too, I think.

I never realized how little we actually had financially until I was older. We lived in a super poor neighborhood but were well off comparably. We owned the house and my parents are both artists, so everything was very tastefully decorated and arranged. My dad had a great job with the state so we always ate well and…

“I have never seen so many more sore losers as there are today.”

“Unlawful presence” is A:) not a crime, B) is a term of art specifically referring to bars on reentering the United States and is not some kind of general ground for being deported, and C) is therefore something that, under the Immigration and Nationality Act, does not have a single legal effect until such time as an…

It will be chaotic and awful.

I understand the GOP is bigoted. I understand these policies are bigoted - notice how Trump isn’t talking about kicking out canadians or australians overstaying their visas. What I don’t understand is how this is coming from the party of fiscal conservatism. This and the wall. And the military spending. And being free…

Very low. The IRS data is protected extremely well by firewalls that prevent the government from going through it on fishing expeditions.

45% of all undocumented immigrants entered here legally on visas and then overstayed those visas. They have not committed any crime. As the Supreme Court has made very clear, “As a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States.”

So, what, specifically, makes me come across like a prick in this comment? Is it the clearly barely-concealed rage about actions I think are cruel, inhumane, and un-American?

If you’re white, you’re fine. If you’re an immigrant, well, you may be in bad shape. If you’re undocumented? Get a lawyer now and talk over your options immediately, right now, ASAP, instantly, JUST DO IT #shia.

Right? Imagine the horror a parent goes through when they hear that they son or daughter they left back in Honduras is being threatened with murder, torture, or rape if they don’t leave immediately. And that parent thinks “I need to get my child out of the situation immediately, and that means bringing them here to me…

Well, it’s immigration law and that’s my area of expertise, so, you know, I try.

The Constitution, likely. There’s a very good argument that due process wouldn’t allow for a single immigration official to be both judge and prosecutor and order the deportation of someone who’s been here for one year and 364 days (ER is statutorily limited to within two years of entry). That’s why, in the past, ER…

There definitely isn’t enough budget to do it. Interestingly, some of the only changes from the leaked memos we got over the weekend and the ones released today are a couple of lines adding in weasel words about the budget. So, in the part about hiring 10,000 new ICE agents, they added “subject to the availability of…

First question: just how fucked are we?

Bullshit. We all cared. The immigrant rights community fought for years to fix the abuses of the expedited removal system. We lobbied Congress, we wrote reports highlighting the abuses, we brought complaints to the Interamerican Court of Human Rights, we filed lawsuits, and we fought like hell even when expedited…

How are they going to hire 10,000 more ICE agents when there is s federal hiring freeze? How shall we pay for these “deportation centers” (camps)?

Maybe. Mexico really needs to stick up for themselves on this one. Trump cannot do this without the active cooperation of the Mexican government.