Hope everyone is hanging in there right now.
Doctors, asylum seekers, lawyers and others are urging the Trump administration to release thousands of immigrants from detention to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak in numerous facilities, Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports for CBS News. “Unless Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) dramatically reduces the number of immigrants in its custody, experts warn the coronavirus could spread quickly among the roughly 37,000 detainees in the system.” Meanwhile, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández and Carlos Moctezuma García, a law professor and a lawyer respectively, write in an op-ed for The New York Times that immigration prisons should be closed: “there are only two reasons recognized under U.S. law to confine these people [migrants]: flight risk or dangerousness. But in this moment, the risks to life and public health that come with imprisoning migrants far outweigh either reason.”
Immigration courts remain open as coronavirus cases grow, reports Yamiche Alcindor at PBS: “judges, lawyers and courtroom personnel are worried that the coronavirus could be spreading during ongoing immigration hearings, while much of the nation has hunkered down to blunt the virus’ transmission. That concern has led many of the people involved in those proceedings to band together to demand that the Trump administration stop all in-person immigration hearings, close down immigration courts and move to a system using telephonic or video conferences.”
Welcome to Friday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected]
EVANGELICAL VOTERS – Pundits assume that evangelicals always support candidates on the right of the political spectrum, but among conservative evangelical women, “a rich dialogue is developing around how we can best help families seeking refuge here in America,” writes Briana Stensrud, director of Welcome., in an opinion piece for Religion News Service. Many evangelical women, like Stensrud, see immigration as a human dignity issue rather than a political one: “Many of us feel — likely for the first time — politically homeless. Politicians can appeal to evangelical women by addressing the nuance of this issue. Talk to us about our fears. Acknowledge them with honest and specific solutions. The message must be that while we may not align on every part of a political platform, we can all agree on the inherent dignity of refugees and immigrants.”
FEARFUL – As the nation figures out how to manage life under COVID-19 restrictions, undocumented immigrants face economic and health threats with no clear solutions. USA Today’s Alan Gomez interviewed a range of advocates across the nation to highlight the realities many immigrants face: “Their jobs are disappearing, they often have no company-sponsored health insurance to rely on, and there won't be any $1,000 checks coming from Washington, D.C., for them.” This is a problem we could have solved in 2013 when bipartisan immigration reform passed the Senate and was blocked in the House, writes Nancy LeTourneau in Washington Monthly. This is all a stark reminder that allowing people to live in the shadows ultimately makes all of us less safe, which “could thwart efforts in some parts of the country to get this virus under control.”
ICE – The coronavirus pandemic is a scary time for many people, but especially so for those living in ICE detention, as an anonymous inmate at Hudson County Correctional Center in New Jersey writes – via Felipe De La Hoz – in The New Republic. “We are not coming in and out. I think If I’m going to get the coronavirus, I’m going to get it from an officer before I get it from an inmate. I’m telling you. I asked an officer ‘Now with the corona, do you guys have to wash your hands as soon as you guys come in here?’ He was like, No, they just told us pretty much to wash our hands when we get home and when we come out of the house. But when they come in, it’s regular, like they’re just coming to work. They come right in.”
TIMELINE – For those keeping track, David Bier at the Cato Institute has a timeline breaking down the 28 actions on immigration during the COVID-19 outbreak that the Trump administration has taken. “While the government is correct to reduce unnecessary travel at this time, it should not completely close off immigration because many immigrants are serving important roles in combating this epidemic.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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