David Bier
@davidjbier.bsky.social
17K followers 160 following 1.1K posts
Cato Institute, Director of Immigration Studies, Cato's Selz Foundation Chair in Immigration Policy, BEER, not buyer. Cato, not CATO
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davidjbier.bsky.social
It is something that ICE/CBP will only disclose to the person or their attorney, which gives the narrative for how it came to identify the person: www.dhs.gov/sites/defaul...
www.dhs.gov
davidjbier.bsky.social
Has anyone seen an I-213 (“Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien”) from one of the racial profiling arrests yet?
davidjbier.bsky.social
You have to understand that there is NO accountability for ICE even in theory. You can't sue an ICE agent. They won't be criminally prosecuted for violating your rights. They won't be fired. THE ONLY WAY TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM ICE IS TO RUN FROM ICE.
davidjbier.bsky.social
Here's another Kavanaugh stop in action. Agent says: "Why are you running?" Admitting that he had no cause to stop and tackle this boy.
davidjbier.bsky.social
Here's another Kavanaugh stop in action. Agent says: "Why are you running?" Admitting that he had no cause to stop and tackle this boy.
davidjbier.bsky.social
I'd love to know specifically when and where this grandstanding occurred regarding Remain in Mexico or the Asylum Cooperative Agreements. There WAS an insane amount of grandstanding about them BY REPUBLICANS. But AFAIK, Biden DHS put out one bureaucratic notice on each.
davidjbier.bsky.social
Come legally, don't come illegally is the right message, but you actually need policy to match the message, which was not the case under Biden. Biden screwed up but not at all like his critics claim.
bsky.app/profile/davi...
davidjbier.bsky.social
Now that Biden is leaving office, I can give a full review of the evidence on the border crisis thanks to some new data. The prevailing narrative is wrong. Biden didn’t cut enforcement. He increased it. Biden Didn’t Cause the Border Crisis: The Definitive Case www.alexnowrasteh.com/p/biden-didn...
Biden Didn't Cause the Border Crisis
Biden increased enforcement, but America's hot labor market beat the crackdown
www.alexnowrasteh.com
davidjbier.bsky.social
If a Democrat gets elected in 2028 thinking "I'm just going to be the humane version of Trump at the border," he will be doing exactly what Biden did. Maybe it won't matter b/c Trump will have destroyed our reputation completely by then but it's not helping that Dem president
davidjbier.bsky.social
Yglesias truly thinks that if Biden's people start believing the GOP's lies about this period, he can help Democrats avoid repeating the failures of the Biden era. But that's completely wrong since Biden himself believed the GOP view since Dec. 2020! In other words...
davidjbier.bsky.social
I spoke with DHS's team on this throughout the relevant period, and they were up late thinking of more and more ways to increase expulsions. It was a nonstop 4-year obsession. The idea that they were "lazy" is just really absurd and inaccurate.
davidjbier.bsky.social
As I show, even where expulsions were 100%, there was still huge increases. It wasn't a lack of enforcement. It was the other factors driving it.
davidjbier.bsky.social
We had the world's hottest labor market in history. We had the fastest recovery in the hemisphere. Our neighbors were coming out of the biggest catastrophe in a century. We had enormous displacement AND the best information climate ever.
davidjbier.bsky.social
It's seriously beyond belief to me that these people think that if Biden had just said: "Do not come. We are not changing anything," then nothing would've changed. First of all, HE DID ACTUALLY SAY THAT. Second, it ignores every other fact about the world....
davidjbier.bsky.social
Yes, Biden did reverse some Trump stuff (Yglesias cites asylum cooperative agreements and remain in Mexico), but they had NO EFFECT on border processing. The idea that the border surge wouldn't have happened if Biden had ignored those dormant policies is ABSURD
davidjbier.bsky.social
Not that I think everyone should read everything I write, but AFAIK, I'm the only person to write a deep data dive into this topic. It's mystifying to still see people say: "Biden was late in concluding that he needed to ban asylum." TITLE 42 was a BAN! alexnowrasteh.com/p/biden-didn...
davidjbier.bsky.social
We see a similar pattern for border arrests of convicted criminals.
davidjbier.bsky.social
The administration blames the asylum system under "expedited removal" processing for the high number of evasions at the border during the Biden years, but I show evasions shot up before Biden took office when expedited removal was suspended.
davidjbier.bsky.social
Contrary to the assertion that ending the asylum ban would increase drug trafficking, there's no relationship between Border Patrol drug seizures and Border Patrol arrests, so even if there's some increase in crossings, it won't affect drug smuggling.
davidjbier.bsky.social
The government says it will have to "resume large-scale releases" if the asylum ban order is ended, but releases had fallen for a year before the order and were at a historically low level already.
davidjbier.bsky.social
The primary reason for the decline in 2024 was the weakening job market for new arrivals, not immigration policy changes:
davidjbier.bsky.social
Second, since unaccompanied children are exempt from the order, we have a perfect experiment to compare the outcomes for populations subject to the order and those not subject. As you can see, unaccompanied arrivals fell just as fast and as far as others. Whatever is driving this it isn't the order
davidjbier.bsky.social
First of all, the decline in border arrests since January was the continuation of a trend, not a break in trend. Trump DOJ is misleading courts by comparing illegal immigration in 2023 to illegal immigration in 2025
davidjbier.bsky.social
Cato filed an amicus brief in RAICES v. Noem, the case challenging Trump's Border Dictator order that purports to suspend all immigration law because it is "ineffective." Our brief describes how the government's arguments are baseless www.cato.org/legal-briefs...
RAICES v. Noem
The government’s assertions are based on either misinterpretations or tortured readings of the data, attempting to find justification for a spurious legal argument in facts that simply are not there.
www.cato.org
Reposted by David Bier
walterolson.bsky.social
"This unfettered authority for immigration and customs enforcement and border patrol to just grab people and detain them and then demand that they prove their right to be here." @davidjbier.bsky.social and @pgeddington.com podcast on the roots of ICE chaos in the streets
Protecting Immigration Enforcement Officers and the Constitution
Featuring David J. Bier and Patrick G. Eddington
www.cato.org
Reposted by David Bier
royalpratt.bsky.social
NEWS: ICE gave a Rogers Park man a $130 ticket for not having his papers on him. They rounded him up last week and eventually let him go, but not without a fine that some critics say is un-American. Trump admin enforcing little-used law
www.chicagotribune.com/2025/10/13/i...
ICE tickets Chicago man with legal residency $130 for not having his papers on him: ‘It’s not fair…I’m a resident’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fined Rueben Antonio Cruz $130 for not having his papers with him.
www.chicagotribune.com