A group of around 70 D.C. protesters found refuge inside Washington resident Rahul Dubey’s home Monday night after police blocked them from leaving the Dupont Circle area, reports Natalie Delgadillo for DCist. Officers had sprayed what appeared to be pepper spray and flash bangs to disperse the protesters, forcing them to run for shelter. Dubey, an Indian American health care executive, “flung open” his door to usher the protesters into his home. “I’m first generation here, and God, man, do we love America,” Dubey told Justin Kirkland for Esquire. “My dad came over here at age 19 with eight dollars in his pocket. His daughter rose to the top ranks of corporate America, and his son is one of the top innovators in the world of healthcare. I love this [expletive] country, and I love it because of what’s going on in my house right now.”

Elsewhere in D.C. this week, WAMU reporter Martin Austermuhle spoke with primary voters including Jezelle Estrado, a Trinidad-born naturalized U.S. citizen, who waited five hours in line to vote. Estrado had requested an absentee ballot but never received it: “A lot of people came before us to do this, so it’s a privilege.”

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

“GAPING HOLES” – Dr. Scott Allen, previously contracted by the Department of Homeland Security to advise on detention health conditions, appeared before Congress yesterday to criticize the Trump administration’s approach to containing COVID-19 within immigration detention centers, Quinn Owen reports for ABC News. Allen noted that the continued spread of the virus in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities was in part due to “gaping holes” in CDC prevention guidelines. “We need to get more aggressive with our testing strategies,” Allen said. Meanwhile, Henry Lucero, a top Trump administration immigration official, admitted in a Senate hearing that a “shortfall in supplies prevented the testing of all detainees in ICE custody,” reports Alexander Nazaryan at Yahoo News. Lucero said detainees are usually tested if they display symptoms of COVID-19, even though they could have been “shedding virus” while symptom-free for days beforehand.

OPTIONAL PRACTICAL TRAINING – A group of 21 House Republicans sent a letter to the Trump administration urging support for Optional Practical Training (OPT) for foreign students, which typically allows them to work in the U.S. for 12 months after graduation, reports Stuart Anderson for Forbes. The Trump administration recently announced plans to suspend the program in its latest effort to curb legal immigration. “As countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, China and Australia bolster immigration policies to attract and retain international students, the last thing our nation should do in this area is make ourselves less competitive by weakening OPT,” the letter reads.

ECONOMIC BOOST – As the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the fate of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) this month, Congress should boost the economy by supporting Dreamers, writes Matt Sandgren, executive director of the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation, in an op-ed for The Hill. “In the worst-case scenario, if Dreamers were to be deported, it would cost our economy between $7 and $21 billion and shrink GDP by 0.4 percent,” Sandgren writes. “Further, the economy would experience a $280 billion reduction in growth over the next decade. Our nation could ill afford a loss of this magnitude in normal times, much less in the midst of one of the greatest economic crises in a century.” FYI: Sen. Hatch, a retired Utah Republican, was one of the original co-sponsors of the DREAM Act.

HONG KONG – Prime Minister Boris Johnson says the United Kingdom is preparing to change its immigration rules if China imposes a security law on Hong Kong, reports Kanishka Sing for Reuters. “Under the change, holders of British National Overseas passports from Hong Kong would be allowed to enter the UK for a renewable period of 12 months and given further immigration rights, he added, ‘including the right to work, which could place them on a route to citizenship.’” As we noted earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board called on the Trump administration to offer green cards to the people of Hong Kong as Beijing undermines the city’s autonomy.

SAYING GOODBYE – Brooklyn’s undocumented immigrants are struggling to access funeral services for their loved ones during the pandemic, reports Jessica Parks for AMNY. Undocumented people continue to die at higher rates than the documented population, with insufficient government support complicating the bereavement process. City Councilmember Carlos Menchaca’s office “has been supporting undocumented immigrants across the city in making funeral arrangements for their deceased loved ones — a process in which, he claims, many non-English speaking families are being subjected to price gouging.”

URGENT NEED – Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the nation’s reliance on nurses, physicians and other health care workers born outside of the U.S. has proved we must change immigration policy, writes immigration lawyer Kate McCarroll for Michigan Lawyers Weekly. A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate in April seeks to address some of the issues around granting green cards. “Given our immediate and urgent need for available healthcare professionals in regions hit particularly hard by COVID-19, Congress should act quickly to pass the bill and send to President Trump for signature,” McCaroll writes. Our summary of the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act can be found here.

Stay safe, stay healthy,

Ali