New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed an executive order on Wednesday granting “temporary licenses to doctors from foreign countries who are in ‘good standing’” to help the state during the current coronavirus outbreak, reports Susan K. Livio for NJ.com. Murphy said in a statement:

“By signing this executive order, we are removing bureaucratic roadblocks to quickly bring more health care professionals into our efforts and provide additional flexibility and protections for our front line responders to aid in New Jersey’s response to COVID-19.”

This is a commonsense move that more states should take as they grapple with growing health care workforce needs in the coming months. And it’s more evidence that all of us are in this fight together.

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


REMAINING CLOSED – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced yesterday that it will keep in-person offices closed until May 3, including field offices, asylum offices and application support centers. Adam Shaw at Fox News reports that USCIS said “it would continue to provide emergency services and ‘mission-essential services’ that don’t require face-to-face contact. … Meanwhile, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) announced that Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) hearings in April would also be suspended.” The article links to something we missed yesterday: Reuters reports that the Pentagon is sending 500 troops to the US-Mexico border to assist border agents amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

REQUEST DENIED – U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut in Oregon refused to mandate virtual hearings for the nation’s immigration courts on Wednesday, denying a request by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Catholic Legal Immigration Network and other advocacy groups. Maxine Bernstein at The Oregonian reports, “Immergut said she must defer to the immigration courts on how to respond to the crisis in their jurisdictions but noted that her ruling shouldn’t in any way be taken to minimize the concerns raised by the immigrant advocates.”

PUBLIC HEALTH LUNACY – The president of Chances for Children International, J. Larry Brown, argues in an op-ed for The Washington Post that the Trump administration is demonstrating flagrant disregard for the health and safety of immigrants throughout their coronavirus response — and consequently endangering the entire nation. “To put the majority of us in a pot to protect us from a highly contagious coronavirus, and to then mix millions more into the pot who are unprotected, is public health lunacy.” To see how this is playing out at the state level, Chris Kenning at the Louisville Courier Journal takes a deeper look at how this response is affecting Kentucky’s undocumented families.

HELPING HAND – A Syrian refugee couple in Canada, Marwa Ataya and Salem Ajaj, has been delivering groceries to the family that helped them resettle in Canada back in 2015 after the family started a 14-day quarantine. Robin Stevenson, who received the helping hand, told Johanna Li at Inside Edition, “I’m hoping to show how much refugees contribute to the community they resettle in. It’s not a question of one country helping a group of people, but a very mutual relationship and just how much Canada has benefitted from the refugees that have come here.”

STRAWBERRY SEASON – Even as a stay-at-home order sweeps California, the state’s undocumented agricultural workers have been deemed essential and are showing up to work each day — many with no health insurance and no economic relief from the federal government, Andrea Castillo at the Los Angeles Times reports. “As peak strawberry season ramps up next month, pay switches from hourly to piece rate, [Lucas Zucker, policy and communications director at the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy] said. Pickers are incentivized to work hard and fast, sometimes at the cost of their own health. Spending 20 seconds washing their hands could feel like an eternity.”

COMBATTING RACISM – The Asian American Christian Collaborative has released a statement with thousands of signatories calling on church communities and Christians across the country to combat racism against Asian communities — a trend that has been on the rise since the coronavirus arrived in the U.S., reports Kate Shellnutt in Christianity Today. “The statement denounces xenophobia, stands in solidarity with victims, and directs Christians to speak out and make changes in their churches, schools, and communities. … Over the past couple weeks, the scope of the threat has become clearer with a spike in media reports on recent incidents, including a stabbing in Texas targeting an Asian family because of the virus.”

A BETTER SYSTEM – Now more than ever, we recognize the value of the work immigrants do in keeping our food supply running. In the second episode of “Only in America’s” series focused on the agriculture industry, Growing a Better System, we hear about the challenges that U.S. farms face due to a lack of workers. I talked with Fred Strathmeyer Jr., the Pennsylvania Deputy Secretary for Plant Industry and Consumer Protection, who explained his department’s commitment to a sustainable and safe food supply and its connection to immigration.

Thanks for reading.

Ali