U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) notified Congress yesterday that they will “temporarily halt enforcement across the United States, except for efforts to deport foreign nationals who have committed crimes or who pose a threat to public safety,” report Maria Sacchetti and Arelis R. Hernández in The Washington Post.

This is a smart policy – if implemented correctly – that will help keep the public safe and healthy. But ICE “did not immediately respond to questions about how many of the approximately 37,000 detainees it has in custody will remain there,” meaning a massive risk to public health remains.

As Miriam Jordan reports in The New York Times, immigrant communities in places like California have been experiencing a “new layer of fear” in recent weeks about seeking medical care for coronavirus, worried that they could lose their job or that seeking treatment could risk their chance of getting a green card. “[I]mmigrants may be among the least able to self-isolate and seek the medical care that is essential to protecting their health and slowing the spread of the disease.”

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

PRODUCE INDUSTRY – Yesterday, a member of senior leadership for a large grocery chain asked me if I had heard anything about preventing H-2A agricultural worker visa admissions. “Will kill produce industry, if true,” he wrote. Tracy Jan and Laura Reiley at The Washington Post report that “American farmers are bracing for a shortage of seasonal workers following the State Department’s suspension of routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa processing in Mexico.” While coronavirus-related layoffs in other industries could be a source of labor, Mike Carlton of the Florida Fruit and Vegetables Association said, “Delays due to inexperienced workers could mean losses of crop.”

FAMILY SEPARATIONS – We may never know how many children have been separated from their families by the federal government, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that was first obtained by Adolfo Flores and Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed News. The report, set to be published this week, found that “[a]ll US agencies involved in separating immigrant families failed to accurately track parents and children, making it difficult for the government to reunite them in some cases… ‘It is unclear the extent to which Border Patrol has accurate records of separated family unit members in its data system,’ the report states.”

CHANGES – Over at CNN, Priscilla Alvarez has broken down all the new immigration policy changes that the Trump administration has enacted during the coronavirus pandemic. “In a little over a week, there have been a dozen changes, ranging from postponing immigration hearings to pausing deportation flights to certain countries and suspending refugee admissions. The tweaks to the system are being made incrementally, though rapidly, as the pandemic spreads across the country.”

COORDINATION WITH MEXICO – In order to further restrict travel across the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the federal response to the coronavirus, the Trump administration will need “cooperation and coordination” between both countries, reports Nick Miroff in The Washington Post. “Mexican officials said they were blindsided by the Trump administration’s plans, and have pointed out that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States is far higher than Mexico’s total. … Trump said he planned to announce the restrictions today, but [a Mexican] official said it would probably take several more days before such an arrangement could be made operational.”

GROWING A BETTER SYSTEM – This week, we released our trailer for Only in America’s upcoming miniseries, “Growing a Better System.” This series will focus on immigrant contributions to the agriculture industry, and the solutions needed to sustain this skilled and vital workforce. Listen here and stay tuned over the next few weeks to hear more.

Thanks for reading,

Ali