In 2018, roughly 25.4 million people were refugees or in refugee-like situations — the highest number since World War II, Dany Bahar and Meagan Dooley write in a Brookings Institution report. “The growing frequency of natural disasters and environmental degradation brought on by climate change will likely increase the number of displaced persons in the coming years, creating a new class of migrants currently unprotected under international law. Moreover, the world’s poor are increasingly concentrated in fragile and conflict-affected states—by some estimates 80 percent by 2030—which will likely further blur the line between refugee and economic migrants.”
And yet, as the authors point out, the political conversation around refugees misses a key point: the gains that these men and women provide. From a policy perspective, refugees should be seen as an asset, not a burden.
Welcome to the Friday edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].
NEWS THIS MORNING – The Trump administration purchased access to a commercial database that maps the movement of millions of cellphones in America — and they are using that data for immigration and border enforcement, Bryon Tau and Michelle Hackman report in The Wall Street Journal. “The location data is drawn from ordinary cellphone apps, including those for games, weather and e-commerce, for which the user has granted permission to log the phone’s location. The Department of Homeland Security has used the information to detect undocumented immigrants and others who may be entering the U.S. unlawfully, according to these people and documents.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has already used the location data to help identify immigrants who were later arrested.
NEWS LAST NIGHT – A federal judge issued a permanent injunction Thursday against the Trump administration’s 2018 action to make it harder for foreigners to stay in the U.S. after their legal status runs out, reports Josh Gerstein in Politico. “The policy in dispute involves how immigration officials calculate the duration of a foreigner's ‘unlawful presence’ in the U.S. Several American college presidents sued over the change, arguing that it could jeopardize more than one million foreign students, scholars, and others who sometimes lose their legal status when switching schools or for other reasons.”
WEST VIRGINIA – In West Virginia, there aren’t enough people to care for the elderly as the population decreases, reports Kara Leigh Lofton in West Virginia Public Broadcasting. One solution: immigration. “West Virginia is losing population, our state is shrinking, we’re likely to lose a congressional seat. The population that we do have is older, the population we do have is sick, the population we do have doesn’t work as much as we’d like to see in the economy. And all those things are made less of a factor by our immigration,” said Sean O’Leary, senior policy analyst for the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy.
CHILDREN ON THE RIVER – Sister Norma Pimentel, a sister of the Missionaries of Jesus and executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, attended the State of the Union this week. In an op-ed for The Washington Post, she writes about the human suffering resulting from the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as MPP or “Remain in Mexico.” Although President Trump did not touch on the humanitarian consequences of the policy, Sister Pimentel urges him: “please don’t look away from the human suffering that is occurring because your MPP policy is keeping people out of our country. Remember that they are human beings. They are desperate to protect their loved ones from harm. Listen to their stories and be present. Don’t turn away from what is happening.”
WARRANTS – The ACLU of Texas is suing ICE over a raid in Allen, Texas, in 2019 that resulted in the arrest of 280 people because the agency is refusing to provide new information, Charles Scudder and Obed Manuel report for The Dallas Morning News. “David Donatti, an attorney with the ACLU of Texas, said the public has a right to see the warrants because they are the legal foundation for everything that happened during the raid at CVE Technology Group and how employees were treated.” As a refresher: The raid in Allen was the largest workplace immigration raid in a decade – one which ICE said was part of a larger investigation into companies hiring undocumented workers.
USE OF FORCE – A video obtained by NPR shows a controversial use of force inside an ICE detention center in 2017, Tom Dreisbach reports. Detention officers pepper sprayed men who were on a hunger strike protesting conditions in the center. “As they visibly recoiled from the spray, some of the detainees were pushed into walls, pulled to the ground or dragged on the floor by guards.” They were then showered in hot water, which can worsen the pain of pepper spray. “As NPR reported in January, a previously confidential government inspection found that the facility was failing to meet many of the government's own standards for solitary confinement, mental health treatment and medical care.”
“THE CRIES” – Pope Francis on Thursday released a video message calling for the world to hear the cries of migrants, many of whom are victims of trafficking, reports the Vatican News. “We pray that the cries of our migrant brothers and sisters, victims of criminal human smuggling and human trafficking, may be heard and considered.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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