In what is being called the largest workplace raid in a decade, 680 immigrants were arrested yesterday at numerous chicken processing plants in Mississippi. Just as President Trump visited El Paso and Dayton, the Mississippi raids occurred in small towns where “[c]hicken plants dominate the economies,” Rogelio V. Solis and Jeff Amy report for the Associated Press.

As I told Miriam Jordan at The New York Times, “We have officially returned to the era of massive worksite raids. The net result will be immigrant workers pushed further underground, families separated and local economies decimated. The American worker and their family lose their neighbors, fellow church members and friends.

“The American economy loses a work force that is contributing in more ways than we can imagine. And, along the way, we are no safer as immigrant communities are pushed further from law enforcement.”

Welcome to Thursday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes.
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THE CHILDREN – The impact on the children of those detained in Mississippi has been immediate. WJTV’s Alex Love reports from Forest, Mississippi, that children “as young as toddlers were relying on neighbors and even strangers to pick them up outside their homes after school and drive them to a community fitness center where people tried to keep them calm. But many kids could not stop crying for mom and dad.”

SCHOOLS – In Scott County, Mississippi, kindergarten started Tuesday – but while six children were busy at school, their parents were among the 680 people detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the state’s workplace raids. Superintendent Tony McGee expects the number of children now without parents to increase, reports Sarah Fowler for the Mississippi Clarion Ledger. “We're going to be here at the school until we make sure that every child is home safe or has a safe place to go. We’ll worry about the school part of it after we get all this sorted out, you can't expect a child to stay focused on the schoolwork when he’s trying to focus on where Mom and Dad are.”

TUSCON – This November, voters in Tucson, Arizona, will have the option to declare Tucson a “sanctuary city” after the city council added the initiative to the ballot. But Chris Magnus, Tucson Police Chief and Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force member, writes in an op-ed for the Arizona Daily Star that while he is “proud to live in a city that is ‘welcoming to all,’” Tucson would not benefit from this designation. “The truth is, many of the purported protections, such as limiting police questioning to only those specific matters related to traffic stops or criminal investigations, are already required by department policy.” Magnus urges people “dig deeper and become as informed as possible” regarding the initiative. He is spot-on.

BALTIMORE – City of Baltimore Mayor Jack Young issued an executive order to protect immigrants on Wednesday that includes new protections for crime victims and witnesses regardless of their immigration status, reports WBALTV 11. “The mayor also announced extra funding for Safe City Baltimore, which provides legal representation to people living in Baltimore facing deportation hearings.”

DEPORTED TO DEATH – Jimmy Aldaoud, a Chaldean Catholic and Iraqi national who has lived in the U.S. nearly since birth, died this week after being deported to Iraq, a country he left at six months old. Before his death, Aldaoud made a video about his situation from a sidewalk in Baghdad, Ted Hesson and Nahal Toosi report for Politico. Michigan Reps. Andy Levin (D) and Rep. John Moolenaar (R) “introduced a bipartisan bill in May, H.R. 2537 (116), that would grant two years of deportation relief to Iraqis with final orders of removal.”

OHIO – Following last week’s conversation with Cleveland entrepreneur and Romanian refugee Adrian Bota, our latest episode of “Only in America” continues to focus on the Buckeye State. For this week’s episode, I spoke with Eileen Wilson, the director of Refugee & Immigrant Ministries at Building Hope in the City Cleveland. We talk about Eileen’s immigrant story, love for her hometown, and the importance of tough love in her work.

Thanks for reading,

Ali