Miller Mayer immigration attorney Steve Yale-Loehr was quoted by the Associated Press in “Posts Misrepresent Border Encounters With People on Terror Watchlist.” The article discusses misleading claims by House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy and others that almost 100 people on the watchlist recently entered the United States across the border. The article notes that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 98 Border Patrol encounters with non-U.S. citizens on the watchlist who crossed the southwest border between U.S. ports of entry in fiscal year 2022. Every person counted as part of that tally, however, was stopped and detained by CBP, and that figure possibly included people who crossed multiple times. “To say that 98 terrorists made it into the U.S. is an exaggeration. These 98 were all caught,” Steve said. Read the article by clicking here.
Steve was quoted by FactCheck.org in “Misleading Attack About Democrats and Criminal Immigrants.” The article discusses an ad from a conservative group, Citizens for Sanity, that misleadingly claims that “every Senate Democrat voted against deporting criminal illegal immigrants.” Steve noted that the Trump administration considered anyone who broke an immigration law to be deportable. On the heels of President Trump’s policy changes, the article notes, the number of such interior arrests rose 30% in fiscal year 2017 and rose again the following year before falling a bit in fiscal 2019, according to the Pew Research Center. But even at its peak, the number was still “far lower than during President Barack Obama’s first term in office.” Steve also pointed out that a rise in people put into immigration proceedings does not mean they were immediately deported, because such cases can take years to adjudicate. Read the article by clicking here.