COURT ORDER — U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton has indefinitely halted the Biden administration’s 100-day pause on most deportations just as an earlier ruling was set to expire, reports Nomaan Merchant of the Associated Press. Texas had argued that "the moratorium violated federal law and risked imposing additional costs on the state." At the same time, "Tipton’s ruling did not require deportations to resume at their previous pace. Even without a moratorium, immigration agencies have wide latitude in enforcing removals and processing cases." The Biden administration released interim enforcement guidance last week, as the Los Angeles Times reported.       

MCALLEN — City leaders in McAllen, Texas, are working to address an increase in asylum-seekers taking shelter there. Today leaders will speak with federal health officials regarding the release of asylum seekers who are currently waiting in Mexico under the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), reports Berenice Garcia of The Monitor. But the city already is responding to asylum-seekers who were never placed in the MPP program, as McAllen Mayor Jim Darling notes, and the city wants to make sure it is reimbursed for the resources it is devoting. Separately, city officials "are in the process of starting to issue photo identification cards to the migrants who need them" so they can board flights, reports Sandra Sanchez of Border Report. Officials are working to link temporary IDs to Department of Homeland Security documents that allow migrants to travel "with the promise that they will appear at any and all upcoming U.S. immigration hearings in whatever city they are living."  

MAINE COMPACT — Maine business and higher education leaders have launched the Maine Compact on Immigration, a bipartisan effort "to promote immigration policies that will strengthen our economy and communities, attract and retain global talent, and bring new entrepreneurs, businesses, and workers to our nation and state." The 82 signatories have sent the compact to Maine’s congressional delegation to encourage immigration reform, reports Hannah Dineen of News Center MAINE. The need in Maine is real: The state projects that 65,000 workers will retire by 2029 and will require 75,000 new workers in that window in order to thrive. "We wouldn't even get close to 75,000 without the immigrant community," says Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors. This reality is an on-the-ground example of how immigration can stem demographic decline, as we’ve noted recently.       

LIMITED CAPACITY — The Department of Health and Human Services’ child-shelter network, which temporarily houses migrant children, "has reduced its capacity by 40%" amid the pandemic, reports Michelle Hackman of The Wall Street Journal. On Friday, shelters were already 93% full. "The risk, when HHS shelters get full, is that children get backed up in border-patrol stations, where they are housed in stark cells —with just a bench and a toilet — that are designed to hold single adults for a few hours rather than children for days," explains Hackman. Advocates such as Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy and advocacy at Kids in Need of Defense, say emergency shelters may be necessary in the short term: "It’s certainly not ideal. But for now, it’s better than having kids remain in [Border Patrol] custody." Meanwhile, confusion and frustration are rising along the border as the Biden administration tries to untangle "an interlocking web" of border policies it inherited from its predecessor, writes The New York Times’ Zolan Kanno-Youngs.  

ART AT ICE — A new art exhibit in Bakersfield, California, "Voices in the Shadow" will primarily feature art by detainees at the nearby Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center, reports Sam Morgen of Bakersfield News. "There’s a real opportunity to begin to have a different kind of conversation," said organizer and artist Elizabeth Spavento. "When you’re fighting to just have your basic needs met, whether that’s access to fresh food or more than an [hour’s] worth of outside air a day, there are ways to do that more humanely." Organizers want viewers "to ask questions about what it means for an immigrant detention center to be present in their community." 

Thanks for reading,  

Dan