Ending the week with one of those stories that keep me going.

In South Dakota, where 70% of COVID-19 cases are among minorities, a coalition of organizations has come together to help immigrants. Makenzie Huber of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader reports, “The South Dakota Dream Coalition's statewide fund, which was started in April, can award up to $600 a month per immigrant household affected by the pandemic to cover rent and mortgage, healthcare expenses, groceries, utilities, work permit renewals and childcare.” Applications open today and you can donate to the fund at the South Dakota Community Foundation.

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

LOVE IN HOTSPOTS – Pedro Vasquez, who is currently in immigration detention, and his partner Zoila Orozco, who works in a chicken-processing plant, have been separated for nine months — and both have COVID-19, reports Mica Rosenberg at Reuters. “Now, more than 150 miles apart, they both tested positive for the novel coronavirus within a week of each other as their lives intersected with two hotbeds for the pandemic in the United States: immigration detention centers and meatpacking plants.” The couple’s young boy, Jostin, doesn’t understand why his father is no longer home.

DETENTION – Doctors fear that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers could cause significant COVID-19 outbreaks, a team at NBC Bay Area reports. “Doctors fear a wave of new infections will explode into communities around ICE detention centers. ICE began testing detainees in February. So far, more than half of those detainees tested positive for the virus.” This puts every person in the U.S. at risk. “‘Every day that passes the situation is more urgent,’ said Dr. Ian Kim, a family physician in Sacramento, and one of the doctors who signed an open letter urging ICE to release its detainees.  ‘There's a lot of evidence that these ICE detention centers are incredibly bad at preventing infectious disease,’ he said.”

“EVERYBODY WAS SICK” – While ICE detention centers across New York and New Jersey have released some detainees to reduce COVID-19’s spread, physicians say the number of people currently being held in detention is still too high, Tammy La Gorce reports for The New York Times. Abdul Massaquoi, a father of two from Sierra Leone, was recently released from the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey, where 18 others tested positive for the virus and moved into quarantine at a nearby hotel. “Everybody was sick, and we were all right next to each other,” he said of the facility.

OPTIONAL PRACTICAL TRAINING – The Trump administration is considering suspending the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, an incentive for foreign students to attend universities in the U.S. by offering them one or two years of occupational training between college and full-time employment, report Julia Ainsley and Laura Strickler for NBC News. Both business and academic communities are fighting the proposal: “International students contribute nearly $41 billion a year to the U.S. economy,” said Julie Schmid, executive director of the American Association of University Professors. “Our campuses and our communities benefit from the contributions international students make to education and research. This move does nothing to ensure the health of U.S. citizens during the COVID crisis.”

DNA SAMPLES – ICE has started piloting a decades-old Department of Homeland Security project to collect DNA samples from undocumented immigrants who’ve been arrested, report Betsy Woodruff Swan and Daniel Lippman for Politico. Implementation of the DNA Fingerprint Act, which became law in 2005, has been pushed back for years following criticisms from senior department officials who called the law “cumbersome and unhelpful” as well as civil rights advocates who call the idea “ripe for abuse.” Taking DNA samples represents a dangerous effort “to weaponize biometrics in order to surveil vulnerable communities,” said Saira Hussain of the Electric Frontier Foundation, which advocates for digital rights.

ALL OF US – As we navigate the effects of COVID-19, it has become clear that “it will take all of us — native-born Americans and immigrants alike — working together and tending to each other to overcome the pandemic,” Daniel Garza, President of the LIBRE Initiative, and I co-write in a Hill OpEd. This is why our organizations, plus the George W. Bush Institute, NAACP, National Association of Evangelicals, and others have launched “the #AllofUS campaign, which focuses on elevating the contributions of immigrants and celebrating the work they do to keep the country moving.”

Stay safe, stay healthy,

Ali