On the one year anniversary of the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols — also known as “Remain in Mexico” — the Department of Homeland Security announced that the controversial policy will now also apply to Brazilian asylum seekers at the southern border, the Associated Press reports. “They will join about 55,000 migrants waiting in Mexico for rulings on their asylum claims, decisions that can take months or even years.”

Camilo Montoya-Galvez at CBS News points out that they will be the first non-Spanish speaking population to be subject to the dangerous policy.

From the Bay Area, welcome to Thursday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].


THERE WAS A DIRECTIVE – Following the killing of Iranian official Qasem Soleimani earlier this month, Politico’s Lauren Gardner, Daniel Lippman and Andy Blatchford wrote that “[r]eports of Iranians and Iranian-Americans being detained for questioning upon entering the U.S. kicked off a furor.” At the time, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) denied the existence of any official directive to target particular individuals. However, Patrick Grubb at The Northern Light uncovered an undated CBP directive that ordered “frontline officers to conduct vetting on all individuals … born after 1961 and born before 2001 with links (place of birth, travel, citizenship) or any nexus to the following countries … The directive then lists Iranian and Lebanese nationals and Palestinians as well as persons of any other nationality who had traveled to Iran or Lebanon.”
INDEPENDENT COURTS – National Association of Immigration Judges (NAIJ) President Ashley Tabbador called for immigration courts to be independent of influence from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in her testimony before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship on Wednesday. The Hill’s Rafael Bernal reports that in her testimony to the panel, Tabbador wrote that the “judicial role of the Immigration Court is simply irreconcilable with the law enforcement mission and role of the DOJ.” In case you missed it, former immigration judge J. Traci Hong and Forum policy expert Larry Benenson discussed challenges in the immigration court system in a Facebook Live conversation this week.

ANTI-TRAFFICKING SUMMIT – Many of the country’s top anti-human-trafficking advocacy groups are boycotting a summit on the issue that will be hosted this Friday by Ivanka Trump, reports Jessica Contrera at The Washington Post. “Their decision comes after months of anguish over what they describe as an act of public deception. They say that although the president frequently invokes human trafficking, his administration is actively endangering a significant portion of trafficking victims: immigrants.” Contrera writes that advocates “are especially alarmed by increased scrutiny of T visas, which provide temporary legal status for immigrants who can prove they were trafficked while in the United States.”

GRANDPA TRUMP – The Trump administration’s “public charge” rule for new migrants, which the Supreme Court just upheld, could have prevented the president’s own grandfather from entering the U.S., writes Jason Lemon in Newsweek. Trump's grandfather, who reportedly entered the country with only a suitcase in hand and no English skills, “initially worked as a barber, [and] went on to become a successful businessman and amassed a sizable fortune.” As Jesse Bless, director of federal litigation at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), put it: “If Grandpa Trump were to enter today it is far more likely that he would be deemed ‘likely to become a public charge’ or refused entry now versus then.”

MEANWHILE – Now that the Supreme Court has allowed the “public charge” rule to go into effect, advocates are preparing for chaos on the ground, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune’s Maya Rao. Hennepin Healthcare Dr. Rachel Sandler Silva “said there's often fear around accessing medical care … She works with many families of mixed immigration status, with someone who isn't affected by the public charge rule but doesn't access medical care out of concern for a family member who they think could be penalized.”

ONLY IN AMERICA – Tune in to the latest episode of “Only in America,” featuring Aaron Reichlin-Melnick from the American Immigration Council and the Forum’s own Christian Penichet-Paul. For the third episode in our border series, we take a look at how the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols are only creating more disorder rather than deterring people from seeking safety here.

Thanks for reading,

Ali