As many predicted, President Trump is expected to extend and expand his April 22 immigration ban to include additional foreign worker restrictions.

This will make the president’s base happy, but not business leaders who rely on foreign workers to maintain growing and competitive companies, Anita Kumar at Politico reports. “To try and balance the two sides, the administration is considering limiting the number of immigrants who come to the United States for cultural exchanges — generally those hired for summer jobs at amusement parks, camps and resorts — as well as students attending U.S. colleges hired for temporary employment…” In addition, the White House is exploring “cutting visas for skilled workers in specialty occupations and seasonal workers who work in industries that include landscaping, housekeeping and construction industries.”

Two things here. First, “more than a 1 million [sic] immigrants annually collectively receive those visas,” writes Kumar — approximately 70% of all guest workers in the U.S. Second, as I wrote on Medium over the weekend, “the changes to immigration policy are more than policy. They begin to tell a story about Covid-19 that paints immigrants as the villain.” 

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Hope everyone had some time off this weekend. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

MEMORIAL DAY – Leslie Sabo Jr. — who died fifty years ago while saving his fellow soldiers in Vietnam — is among the 22% of Congressional Medal of Honor recipients who are immigrants, Stuart Anderson writes for Forbes. “While Sabo would perform more spectacular acts of valor that afternoon, none would be more vital to the Currahees’ [506th Infantry Regiment’s] defense of their position. … ‘If it hadn’t been for him holding his side of the perimeter almost single-handedly so I could reinforce his position, we would have been overrun,’ [3rd Platoon leader Lieutenant Teb] Stocks said.” This Memorial Day, we remember Les, and countless others like him, for their bravery and selflessness.

DETAINEES AT RISK – A second immigrant has died in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody of complications due to COVID-19, Hamed Aleaziz reports for BuzzFeed News. “As of May 16, 1,201 immigrant detainees have tested positive for the disease in ICE custody out of 2,394 who had been tested. Since the beginning of the pandemic, medical experts and immigrant advocates have warned that the highly contagious coronavirus would put detainees at risk. They have pointed to the inherent problems within jails — like a lack of necessary space to accommodate proper social distancing guidelines — that put people in danger. Advocates have used these arguments as a way to push for more releases.”

ESSENTIAL WORKERS NEEDED – A COVID-19 outbreak at a Texas meat processing plant — which counts immigrants and refugees from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala and Myanmar as part of its 750-person workforce — has advocates calling for testing at the facility, reports Dianne Solis for The Dallas Morning News. “At least 40 people who work there have been infected, demonstrating, the advocates say, the need for testing at facilities because of the easy, rapid spread of the virus.” Meanwhile, Stephen Groves and Sophia Tareen report for the Associated Press that COVID-19 has led to concerns about labor shortages to meet demand for beef, pork and chicken at meatpacking plants nationwide. These plants employ 175,000 immigrants, and they’re home to the fifth-highest concentration of refugee workers in the U.S. — but the president’s immigration policies are creating hurdles for hiring. “Companies struggling to hire before the pandemic are spending millions on fresh incentives. Their hiring capability hinges on unemployment, industry changes, employees’ feelings about safety, and President Donald Trump’s aggressive and erratic immigration policies.”

JOBS AND WAGES – Contrary to the president’s rhetoric, halting immigration does not lead to more or better-paying jobs for American workers. In fact, new research finds that H-1B visa holders lower the overall U.S. unemployment rate and increase earnings growth among college graduates, Adriana Belmonte reports for Yahoo Finance. “If highly productive workers no longer can work in the United States, the U.S. economy as a whole is worse off,” according to the study from the National Foundation for American Policy. “With the country facing a long and difficult struggle to emerge from the economic downturn, this is not the time to impose additional restrictions that would reduce the number of skilled, innovative workers in the United States.”

DELAYED CITIZENSHIP – The pandemic has paused in-person swearing-in ceremonies for immigrants, and the lack of remote options for naturalization is unnecessarily obstructing the path to citizenship, Linda Chavez of the Becoming American Initiative writes in an op-ed for The xxxxxx. “Until they take the oath, immigrants are still just residents, not citizens, with none of the rights or obligations citizens undertake. Thousands of immigrants are currently waiting to take the oath after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services shut their offices in March.” According to one estimate, if the delays continue, 2,100 people per day could be blocked from naturalization. Members of Congress from both parties are urging U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to bypass the in-person swearing in ceremony.         

Thanks for reading,

Ali