FOIA Reveals EOIR’s Morning Briefings Packed With Propaganda and Worse.

by | Apr 5, 2019 | Immigration | 2 comments

Immigration text on typewriter

September 2018, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) began circulating a publication called the EOIR Morning Briefing. Although not quite daily, these reports summarize selected news stories under the guise of a routine agency update. But a closer look raises serious concerns.

These briefings don’t just aggregate immigration-related news—they often feature politically slanted and overtly biased content. Multiple editions include links to opinion pieces from outlets like Breitbart News, a site notorious for publishing racially inflammatory content.

One October 2018 briefing, for example, included an op-ed from Kris Kobach, falsely claiming that immigrants have no right to seek asylum in the U.S.: 

Kobach, a former Bush administration official and failed Kansas gubernatorial candidate, has a long history of promoting anti-immigrant rhetoric and aligning with extremist groups. His legal claim directly contradicts federal law, which allows any noncitizen to apply for asylum. 

The overall tone of these briefings feels less like internal news and more like state-sponsored propaganda. Instead of offering balanced coverage, EOIR appears to be curating stories that support a specific political agenda—one that undermines the legal rights of immigrants.

Also noteworthy: these reports seem to be compiled by an outside contractor called TechMIS. I’ve submitted a FOIA request to uncover the contract terms and any related invoices.

You can read the briefings here:

More updates to come as we receive additional documents.

2 Comments

  1. David Bloom on August 23, 2019 at 11:42 PM

    I found myself googling around and the contractor was not difficult to identify: a Booz Allen “partner” at https://www.techmis.com/ and their main business (though they prefer billing themselves in cybersecurity) seems to be putting out these news aggregations for government agencies on the basis of their “better-than-Google” powerful algorithms which sounds a little like a con job. Website claims

    “TechMIS currently provides News Briefing Services to Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State; Kirstjen Nielsen, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security; Alexander Acosta, Secretary, Department of Labor (DOL); Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD); Ronald Vitiello, Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; James McHenry, Director, U.S. Executive Office for Immigration Review; and several other high-profile customers. Our products directly serve over 300,000 U.S. government employees daily.” I’d love to know if they provide the same kind of garbage to DHS and ICE.

    There’s another client list here https://govtribe.com/vendors/technology-management-innovative-solutions-llc-techmis-3l8x7

    Reply

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