Ok. since this is becoming a thing. Thread: Immigration reporters- please be careful saying that people being sent back to CentAm right now are being "deported." 1/

Right now, CBP is claiming authority under the CDC order (Title 42 authority) to turn back, or "expel" migrants and return them to Mexico or their own countries. This is not a formal deportation under immigration law (title 8) 2/

It does not carry any immigration consequence as a formal deportation would (5 year bar to reentry, for example). And, it appears CBP is not tracking them in the immigration systems as "apprehensions." 3/

So, when CBP releases data for March on "apprehensions" or ICE on "deportations" these individuals are not likely to be included. However, they are not being formally reported anywhere else, either. 4/

So any analysis of the trends along the US-Mexico border cannot really take into account the March numbers or any month during which the CDC order is being implemented for people encountered at the border. 5/

For a while, the term "apprehension" has not been strictly appropriate to describe CBP's encounters with migrants who willingly turn themselves in to seek asylum. It is even more inappropriate now, when they are not actually being "apprehended" in the immigration legal sense./Fin