Sitting down to work for the first day of the Biden presidency is a surreal feeling.

So much happened yesterday. I'm going to collect my threads here on yesterday's big immigration news.

First, we got key details of Biden's big immigration bill.

1/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1351904335798673412
Once Biden had officially taken office, we got the first major action. As part of a standard transition process, the Biden White House froze all regulations which Trump had been trying to finalize at the last hour. I did a thread on what we escaped.

2/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352012094753943556
Last night we started getting more changes. One of the first was an order telling CBP to stop putting people into the so-called "Migrant Protection Protocols," a cruel program that's left thousands in a dangerous limbo. But there's still more to do!

3/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352058234467659778
After that, we began getting the text of immigration executive orders. The first one put onto the White House's website was the order ending the Muslim Ban/Africa Ban and ordering the State Department to come up with a plan for reconsidering denials.

4/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352062977541812226
The next immigration executive order put on the White House's website revoked a Trump executive order from January 26, 2017 which made all undocumented immigrants a priority for deportation and directed a DHS-wide review of immigration enforcement.

5/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352075782164783104
The third immigration executive order released last night revoked Trump's illegal and unconstitutional executive order calling on the Census to exclude undocumented immigrants from the apportionment of House districts.

6/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352079376574263297
The fourth immigration executive order released last night ordered the DHS Secretary and the AG to take steps to "protect and fortify" DACA, which is needed to protect the program should a federal judge in Texas strike it down in the next few weeks.

7/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352086451652059138
The fifth immigration executive order released last night (which I accidentally called the final one) extended "Deferred Enforced Departure" for thousands of Liberians whose status had expired just days earlier under Trump.

8/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352086953760616449
The sixth and final immigration executive order signed and released last night ordered a halt to all construction on the border wall within 7 days, followed by a review of all construction contracts and the creation of a plan to redirect wall funds.

9/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352089397492142081
After all the executive orders, we thought that would be it for the night. But just after 10:30 we finally got the long-promised 100-day deportation moratorium, which is set to go into effect on Friday. I broke it down in this thread.

10/11 https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1352098063503011844
In total, there were 9 major immigration actions taken yesterday. While some of them will have no immediate effect, they were all a powerful first step towards undoing the damage done by Trump.

We still expect more executive orders next Friday, January 29th. So stay tuned!

/fin
You can follow @ReichlinMelnick.
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