Families in Africa are worrying about the effects of President Trump’s expanded travel ban, Ayenat Mersie and Libby George report for Reuters. As we noted yesterday, the ban — which restricts visas for immigrants from Eritrea, Nigeria, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Tanzania and Sudan — has already threatened economic relations between the U.S. and Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy.

Families could be separated. Awet, a refugee from Eritrea who has been in the U.S. since 2009, has been trying to bring his family — including four children — to the country for the past year. Now, he worries it may not be possible: “Trump’s new law for us, it’s very hurtful … At least let the children in … those who want to come to be with their mother or father.”

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

“CASCADIA INNOVATION” – An immigration crackdown at the U.S.-Canada border could hurt our relations with Canada — especially when it comes to trade and travel, argues Edward Alden, professor of U.S.-Canada Economic Relations at Western Washington University and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, in an op-ed for the Vancouver Sun. Residents of both countries are being pulled aside for extensive background checks when entering the U.S., and the move could hurt the economies of both countries. “State and provincial officials have talked grandly about the development of a ‘Cascadia Innovation Corridor’ that would strengthen innovation and economic growth across the Pacific Northwest,” writes Alden. “But that dream rests on seamless travel across the border between [British Columbia] and Washington State. Instead, thanks to increasingly aggressive border enforcement, the region is heading in the opposite direction.”

ASYLUM ALTERNATIVES – With fewer clients eligible for asylum thanks to the Trump administration’s policies, more immigration lawyers are relying on alternative options like protection under the Convention Against Torture and withholding of removal, report Mallory Falk and Elizabeth Trovall for a KERA News and Houston Public Media collaboration. The Convention Against Torture comes from a U.N. treaty designed to protect people from being returned to countries where they could be tortured, while withholding of removal protects migrants from being returned to countries where they could be threatened based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or social affiliation. These protections — both of which have a higher standard of proof than asylum claims — “aren’t as robust as asylum,” and “don’t provide a path to citizenship or extend to other family members,” Trovall and Falk write. And thanks to a December Board of Immigration Appeals decision, Convention Against Torture is now even harder to prove.

NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED – “[The Executive Office of Immigration Review] recently swore in 28 new immigration judges, and 11 of them had no immigration law experience,” writes Nolan Rappaport, an immigration law expert who has worked with the House Judiciary Committee, in an opinion piece for The Hill. As the backlog of immigration cases has grown, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) has been turning to inexperienced lawyers to tackle the crisis. A judge’s inexperience “can impact people’s lives in major ways,” Rappaport writes, and “may explain why asylum judges vary so widely from judge-to-judge.”

CORONAVIRUS PANIC – Panic over coronavirus has tapped into global anxieties about immigration, writes Marie McCullough for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Though the virus’ mortality rate is well below 1% — and none of the 11 cases in the U.S. have been near the Philadelphia area — the city is running out of face masks. “It’s the fear of pandemics that’s truly devastating … Many governments, companies, and airlines have restricted travel and trade with China – even though the [World Health Organization] says that it’s unnecessary.” In an opinion piece for The Guardian, an East Asian student at the University of Manchester said their ethnicity “made me feel like I was part of a threatening and diseased mass.”

IOWA DISPATCH – Ahead of last night’s (never-ending) Iowa caucuses, Andrea Tudhope, a reporter for KCUR, visited Denison, Iowa — a rural town where about 30% of residents are immigrants — to hear voters’ thoughts on immigration, and found that acceptance of immigrants continues to grow in the community. “They have money to spend like everybody else,” said Brett Gehlsen, who owns a clothing store. “They’re no different than you and me. They need groceries, they need clothes, they need gas for their vehicles, they need to buy cars. … And if they’re willing to come in and support my business, that’s great.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali