The Trump administration is suspending enrollment in Global Entry and other Trusted Traveler Programs for all New York state residents — a response to the state’s recently enacted “Green Light Law,” reports Gregg Re at Fox News. (TSA PreCheck is not impacted.) In a letter to state officials, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf wrote that the law “prohibited state DMVs from sharing criminal records with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).” But the state is pushing back: “Rich Azzopardi, a senior aide to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, told CNN: ‘This is obviously political retaliation by the federal government and we’re going to review our legal options.’”
This action follows the president’s focus on so-called “sanctuary” jurisdictions at Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Law enforcement leaders weighed in on the issue before the speech.

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

JUSTICE DEFUNDED – Christian ministries in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras expect a challenging year after the Trump administration’s cuts to foreign aid, which included funds going towards “Christian nonprofits working on economic development, anti-corruption efforts, and helping children in poverty in the three countries,” reports Bekah McNeel in Christianity Today. Our friends at the Association for a More Just Society (AJS) lost $2 million in federal funding in 2020, forcing them to lay off 42 staff. By the way, “AJS helped Honduras with an anticorruption sweep of the police force that replaced thousands of corrupt officers and set up several judicial accountability programs.”

RESISTING TALENT – The next Trump administration action to repel foreign talent may be a rule limiting the length of stay for international students, writes Stuart Anderson in Forbes. “The vehicle for this new restriction would be a new regulation to establish a ‘maximum period of authorized stay for students.’” In short, the White House is aiming to increase uncertainty for foreign students and put up roadblocks at each stage of their studies in the U.S. — when in fact, we should be seeking to attract and retain foreign talent.

PAPERWORK – With the implementation of the “public charge” rule set to take effect Feb. 24, 12 different immigration forms have been revised, reports Daniel Shoer Roth in the Miami Herald. All applications and petitions postmarked after the 24th must be via these new forms. Changes “include a definition of the term ‘public charge,’ as well as the types of public benefits that are considered in public charge inadmissibility determinations, which block an immigrant’s path to permanent resident status.”

FINGERPRINTS – A new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) directive “allows the agency to collect fingerprints from immigrants 14 and older who are in immigration shelters,” reports Hamed Aleaziz in BuzzFeed News. “The new ICE directive, issued to its juvenile coordinators in January, appears to be the latest Trump administration policy aimed at collecting more personal information about immigrants — including children — who cross the border.”

AS IOWA GOES – Iowa’s politics may dominate the conversation these days, but there’s something else going on in the northwestern part of the state in the quiet city of Storm Lake, reports Griff Jenkins in Fox News. Immigrants now make up half the population of the city, a major demographic shift that’s taken place in recent years — and unemployment is below 2%. And “while Storm Lake isn’t Ellis Island, the opportunity for jobs — especially in one of its two meatpacking plants — has drawn people recently from as far as Micronesia.” As Storm Lake Mayor Mike Porsch said: “If you want to grow in a rural area, you're going to need immigration to support your businesses and the economics in your community.”

DAILY LOGISTICS – ICYMI: Around 40,000 children cross the U.S.-Mexico border every day for school in Texas, California, New Mexico, and Arizona. For most of these students — known as “transfronterizos” – life between the two nations remains fluid, as documented by Sara Naomi Lewkowicz and Nina Strochlic in an excellent feature for the Marshall Project in partnership with National Geographic. “In the past year, students say, a series of migrant caravans from Central America have clogged the already congested crossing points, leading to wait times reminiscent of the months after Sept. 11, 2001, when crossings slowed to a trickle. For seven of the 21 members of the Bowie cheer team who cross the border from Juárez to El Paso every day, this is just a logistical adjustment.”

AMBASSADOR POD – The final episode of our border series for “Only in America” features a conversation with the Mexican Ambassador to the U.S., Martha Bárcena Coqui, about the future of the U.S.-Mexico border, practical solutions to meet border challenges, and more. We covered a lot of ground in this conversation — hope you enjoy.

Thanks for reading,

Ali