The Trump administration wants to require individuals who apply to sponsor immigrant family members to hand over their bank account information to the government, Stef W. Kight reports for Axios.

This is about discouraging people and causing them to think twice about sponsoring immigrants: “President Trump told agencies to find ways to enforce sponsors’ legal financial responsibility for immigrants — including paying the government back if the immigrants use certain public benefits.”

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

WAITING TO VOTE – Thousands of immigrants must wait to take their oath of citizenship due to the spread of COVID-19, reports Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed News. The delay has electoral implications: “In the wake of the cancellations, immigrants like [Luis] Molina fear that they not only won’t get the chance to call themselves Americans anytime soon, but that they won’t be able to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Experts warn that the delayed naturalizations could have an impact on the number of eligible voters in November, as many states require registration by October.” In a new report, Boundless Immigration estimates that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) closures “could add up to as many as 441,000 missing voters in the general election.”

FIGHTING FOR RELEASE – Nearly 150 immigrants are fearing for their lives in a Massachusetts detention facility — and they are suing for their release, reports Nicole Narea at Vox. Social distancing is “all but impossible at the Bristol County Correctional Center, where the detainees are held together in tight quarters without the protective equipment or sanitation resources necessary to protect themselves, they argue in a class action lawsuit.” There are currently around 38,000 immigrants in 130 detention facilities nationwide. To hear what some of them have to say from the inside, listen to WNYC investigative reporter Matt Katz’s interviews for “The United States of Anxiety” podcast.

ADVOCATING FOR RELEASE – Immigration advocates are pushing to halt immigration detention and release those already in custody during the COVID-19 pandemic, reports Elvia Malagón in the Chicago Tribune. “We don’t have any gloves, we don’t have any masks,” said Francisco Torres, who is detained at a facility in Wisconsin. “In fact, not even the officers who are the ones coming in and out of the facility, neither the medical staff or any staff is using masks. Nothing has changed with my pod. We have a communal bathroom that we have to share.” Meanwhile in New Mexico, Saul Saenz at KVIA interviews a 57-year-old man held for five months in immigration detention “where he says people are packed into cells, sometimes as many as 40 per cell.”

CALIFORNIA CARES – Home to the largest immigrant population in the U.S. – a substantial number of whom are farmworkers getting food to tables across the nation – California understands the value of immigrants, regardless of status. ABC7 News reports that California Gov. Gavin Newsom “is working with the Legislature on an economic stimulus package for immigrants in the country illegally and others not covered by the federal stimulus package approved by Congress.” Newsom, who plans to unveil the package in May, said Californians “care deeply about undocumented residents in this state.”


ESSENTIAL WORKERS – The pressure on companies and immigrant workers alike in rural America to stay safe and healthy while getting food to America’s tables is captured by Miriam Jordan and Caitlin Dickerson in a piece for The New York Times. Tyson Foods is taking steps such as “dividers between work stations and slower production lines to widen the space between workers.” But some workers fear the precautions are not enough to keep them safe, and as Christine McCracken, a meat industry analyst at Rabobank in New York, told the Times, “If workers don’t feel safe, they may not come back, and we don’t have a large pool of people that are lining up to work in these plants.” Remember that the chicken you are eating tonight had to be packaged by someone.


REFUGEE CAMPS – COVID-19 is spreading through makeshift refugee camps in northern France where 1,000 people are clustered without proper sanitation, reports Annie Kelly for The Guardian. Claire Moseley, founder of the organization Care4Calais, which provides emergency services to migrants and refugees in Calais, put things in blunt terms: “Now we know the virus is in the camps we urgently need the authorities to take action, and faster. The refugees can’t use the mitigation methods the rest of society are practising [sic], like social distancing. Without these, the spread of the disease could be exponential and we estimate that half the population could be infected within four weeks.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali