The Trump administration has “[gone] to war with states” over immigration, Josh Gerstein reports for Politico. Yesterday, the administration sued California and New Jersey over laws that they claim undermine immigration enforcement. “The Justice Department suits target a California law banning privately run detention centers and a New Jersey law limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities. The new barrage of litigation also included a suit against a county in Washington state that effectively prohibits federal contractors from using the Seattle airport to carry out deportations.”

And Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed News scoops that “the administration considered using ‘friendly’ states to discreetly collect information for federal immigration authorities that would otherwise be inaccessible by law” and using “retaliation measures against states that limit access to records.”

Earlier yesterday, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed suit over the administration’s targeting of New Yorkers by preventing them from enrolling or re-enrolling in Trusted Traveler Programs, a move that came as a result of a New York law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, News10 reports.
Welcome to the Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].
IOWA – Woodbury County, Iowa — where Sioux City is located — had a higher percentage of students from immigrant households (17%) than any other county in Iowa as of 2017, reports Lillian Mongeau for The Hechinger Report. “‘I can tell you, in less than a decade, it has become more diverse and open,’ said Tori Albright, who coordinates the world languages program at the Sioux City Community School District, one of the largest employers in town. ‘No matter where you go, you see people from all different cultures and heritages.’”

KENTUCKY –Kentucky’s Senate Bill 1 – which would ban any “sanctuary” policies in the state, although it currently has none — could harm small business owners who rely on immigrant employees to power growth, write Ben Abell and Bree Pearsall in the Courier Journal. The husband and wife team run a midsized, diversified farm in Oldham County, Kentucky, and contend that passage of the bill “will damage our ability to recruit and maintain these vital members of our community and economy by creating a climate of fear and persecution among Kentucky’s immigrants.”

INDIANA – According to a new report from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, 25% of the state’s population growth from 2000-2015 was driven by immigration, and 19 Indiana counties — particularly rural ones — saw their population decreases stabilize thanks to immigrants, KPC News reports. “The study found that immigrants are net contributors to the nation and state’s social welfare and public assistance programs. According to the study, not only do immigrants, including unauthorized workers, pay into the public service system through income, payroll, sales, and property taxes, they tend [to] use fewer services than the native-born population and receive less benefit when they do use services.”

DANGEROUS SITUATIONS 1/2 – Asylum seekers in the U.S. face very dangerous consequences when their cases are not taken seriously and they’re deported, writes Alison Parker, managing director of the U.S. Program at Human Rights Watch, in an op-ed for The Washington Post. “Human Rights Watch released a report that identified 138 cases of Salvadorans who had been killed since 2013 after being deported from the United States; more than 70 others were beaten, sexually assaulted, extorted or tortured. These numbers are shocking but certainly an undercount, because no government or entity tracks what happens to deportees.” The fix: “Give all noncitizens a full and fair opportunity to explain what abuses they fear before deporting them.”

DANGEROUS SITUATIONS 2/2 – Pablo and Josué, who fled dangerous situations in El Salvador and Honduras made more precarious as gay men, ended up on the front lines of the Trump administration’s efforts to dissuade immigrants from seeking asylum in the U.S., Hamed Aleaziz writes in BuzzFeed News. “The immigrants were told they could no longer gain protection in the U.S. They would have to settle in Guatemala, a country also racked by poverty, violence, and instability, whose own citizens made up a sizable portion of those arrested at the southern border last year.” To date, the Trump administration has deported more than 300 people (including families) from El Salvador and Honduras to Guatemala since launching the “safe third country” program in late 2019.

Thanks for reading,

Ali