The United States should allow Hong Kong residents facing life under communism to come to America, writes conservative columnist Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe.

“Any lingering doubts that China means to wipe out Hong Kong’s economic and democratic liberties were dispelled for good last week. The National People’s Congress in Beijing, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, approved a resolution calling for the imposition on Hong Kong of an authoritarian law that would criminalize opposition to the communist government headed by Xi Jinping. The law would also allow mainland Chinese security agencies to operate ‘as necessary’ in Hong Kong.”

This comes as U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will open the country’s door for 3 million people from Hong Kong to come to his country in response to China’s new security law, Mark Landler reports in The New York Times.

“Many people in Hong Kong fear that their way of life — which China pledged to uphold — is under threat,” Johnson said in a column for The Times of London. “If China proceeds to justify their fears, then Britain could not in good conscience shrug our shoulders and walk away; instead we will honor our obligations and provide an alternative.”

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

FACILITY PROTESTS – In a feature piece for the New York Times Magazine, Seth Freed Wessler details how people in immigration detention across the country have been organizing for months to raise the alarm over the spread of COVID-19 in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities. “In response to the pandemic, immigrants in at least a dozen ICE facilities have announced protests and strikes. … But the agency’s reluctance to release detainees seems to stem less from any public threats posed by the people it detains than from an existential sort of anxiety about its own future.” At the Houston Contract Detention Facility, more than one in five detainees have already tested positive for the virus, Olivia P. Tallet reports for the Houston Chronicle.

DOJ PRIORITIES – Even as the rapid spread of COVID-19 became apparent, the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) continued to aggressively file cases for “drug and immigration offenses,” writes Rory Fleming for Reason. While the nation entered lockdown, data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse show that the DOJ was still focusing on immigration enforcement. “Overall, a whopping 61.5 percent of the new cases charged in March 2020 involved immigration crimes. … The twin wars against drugs and immigrants march onward, while real crimes are more likely to go unaddressed.”

POLICY INSIGHT – Offering insight into the Trump administration’s latest immigration restrictions against certain Chinese graduate students, Jacqueline Varas at the American Action Forum explores the implications of the “extremely limited” order. “The order may be redundant, as the United States already has safeguards in place to protect U.S. intellectual property at universities – namely export controls and the Visa Mantis Program. If the order is expanded in the future to prevent a greater number of international students from studying in the United States, it could have harmful impacts on the U.S. economy.”

RELIEF IN CONNECTICUT – Some Connecticut immigrant families without legal status will receive financial assistance for COVID-19 relief, reports Susan Haigh for the Associated Press. “Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont announced Wednesday that $2.5 million in state-funded grants to landlords will be provided on behalf of renters who are ineligible for similar aid under the federal CARES Act. Additionally, the nonprofit philanthropic organization 4-CT plans to make $1 million — in the form of one-time debit cards in denominations of $200 or $400 — available to Connecticut families excluded from federal relief programs.”

TESTING – According to testimony before a Senate panel this week, ICE does not regularly test detainees for COVID-19 before they are taken into custody or deported, reports Max Siegelbaum for Documented. “The agency does not test everyone it deports for COVID-19, but instead runs a ‘removal checklist’ that includes questions about symptoms and taking deportees’ temperatures. They test just a ‘subset’ of people regardless of symptoms before removal.”

WHY IT’S DIFFERENT – A friend sent me this article. It has nothing to do with immigration, but I find hope in it: Anne Helen Petersen at BuzzFeed News reports on how national media has “missed dozens of protests across rural, small-town, and midsize-town America,” bringing a diverse set of people to the streets. Those protesters include Sheriff Orvis Campbell of Tuscarawas County, Ohio — who, along with his deputies, marched in New Philadelphia, population 17,000. “As Ande’ Green, one of the organizers of the protest in Alliance, Ohio, put it, ‘These small towns matter because it’s a lot of small towns. All of these small towns coming together, it’s what we need to make a change.’”

Thanks for reading,

Ali