At 11 a.m. ET this morning, faith and law enforcement leaders will join the National Immigration Forum to discuss how President Trump’s approach to immigration detention amid COVID-19 is putting all Americans at risk. With a new administration policy reportedly forcing migrant parents to choose between family separation and indefinite detention in crowded facilities, speakers will highlight the cruel and inhumane decisions families are facing and point to more compassionate and effective solutions like alternatives to detention. We’ll also cover the rapid spread of COVID-19 within immigration detention facilities. If you’d like to join us, please contact Magen Wetmore.

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

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT – The U.S. government is violating its social contract with immigrant workers who continue to put their own well-being at risk during the coronavirus pandemic, writes Kevin Murphy, an immigrant and the former CEO of California-based fresh berry company Driscoll’s, for Morning Consult. “At the end of the day, immigrants provide an indisputable value to our country, our economy, our ability to feed to the hungry, heal the sick and re-emerge from this crisis stronger than before,” Murphy writes. “By valuing them, supporting them, and not excluding them from any recovery effort, our own government can live up to its own ‘social contract’ with all Americans.”

MISSING THEIR CHANCE – With citizenship ceremonies still on hold due to the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of potential voters will remain ineligible to vote in the November election, writes Nick Miroff for The Washington Post. “President Trump, who claims falsely that millions of immigrants vote illegally in U.S. elections, now has the ability to effectively deny a large number of foreign-born Americans from becoming legally eligible to register ahead of the next presidential election.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which administers the oaths of citizenship, is set to begin a phased reopening next week, but “has not committed to resuming a full slate of ceremonies nor has publicly released a plan for rescheduling the approximately 150,000 naturalizations that have been postponed because of the closures.”

FAMILY SEPARATION – Family separation is back in the spotlight as the Trump administration uses the pandemic to justify deporting migrant children or separating them from their parents, reports Molly O’Toole for the Los Angeles Times. “[T]he administration is engaged in a pressure campaign against immigrant parents to get them to give up their kids or their legal claims to protection in the U.S.,” O’Toole writes. Advocates argue children are being deprived of due process, yet “[g]overnment attorneys maintain that many of the children had a hearing under the administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy after they first arrived at the border and still face deportation, even if that has the effect of dividing them from their parents.”

TEXAS-SIZED RESISTANCE – Property owners and bankers in Texas have formed an unlikely alliance to oppose the Trump administration’s border wall, writes John Burnett for NPR. “The federal government is planning to put 69 miles of its massive border wall along the river in Texas’ Webb and Zapata counties. When it became clear that the imposing barrier would plow through the center of the proud city of Laredo, a remarkably diverse coalition of wall-haters assembled to fight it.” The City of Laredo is the largest landowner to refuse to sign over land to the federal government.

ISOLATION – Before the coronavirus killed Antonio last month, the middle-aged undocumented immigrant was already afraid to leave his home, fearful of being apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Emily Kaplan writes for The Atlantic. “Even before the coronavirus pandemic forced much of the world’s population into lockdown, many undocumented immigrants in the United States were used to confining themselves in the way Antonio did, living in fear not of infection, but of discovery.” The pandemic has compounded the isolation and psychological suffering that many migrants experience after leaving behind desperate situations in their home countries.

ACCESS TO FOOD – One of the biggest challenges for undocumented immigrants during the pandemic is access to food, reports Stephanie Bertini for NBC Miami. “The financial toll of the pandemic hits harder when even help seems hard to come by. For undocumented immigrants who were working cash jobs before the pandemic, things are tough.” Karen, an undocumented mother from Honduras with four children, continues to be turned away from a food distribution site because she doesn’t have a car. “I’m not thinking of the sickness. I’m thinking of feeding my children,” she said.

SOLITARY – Telemundo has launched a new podcast series, 296+ Días, chronicling one undocumented immigrant’s experience in solitary confinement across two ICE detention facilities. The series tells the story of Anderson Gutiérrez, a 27-year-old man who sought political asylum in the United States after fleeing death threats in his native Guatemala. “In many ways, Anderson Gutiérrez’s story mirrors those of thousands of Latinos seeking political asylum in the United States,” said Elena González, senior producer for Noticias Telemundo Investiga, in a statement.

ONLY IN AMERICA – For the latest episode of our “Only in America” podcast, I spoke to Esmeralda Tovar, a mental-health case manager and a medication aide at an assisted living facility in Kansas, as part of our “Keeping Us Healthy” series. Esmeralda’s also a DACA recipient waiting in limbo for the Supreme Court to decide her fate in the U.S. She spoke about her work in health care and how it’s changed amid COVID-19 — and what she wants all Americans to know about DACA recipients like her.

Thanks for reading,

Ali