Under the cover of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration is preparing new rules to temporarily suspend some work visas, including H-1Bs and H-2Bs, reports Priscilla Alvarez for CNN. White House adviser Stephen Miller is once again at the center of the push to further restrict immigration in the name of saving American jobs — but business advocates are continuing to push back on the administration, noting the proposed rules could hurt the nation’s economic recovery. “Constraints on our human capital are likely to result in unintended consequences and may cause substantial economic uncertainty if we have to recalibrate our personnel based on country of birth,” reads a letter signed by hundreds of employers and organizations including Facebook, Twitter, Google and Lyft.

And ICYMI,  American Urban Radio Networks reports that the White House “is preparing a speech on race relations written by Stephen Miller, who crafted the Trump Administration’s immigration plan along the southern border with Mexico.” (No, that’s not a line from The Onion.)

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

BAD DATA – The Trump administration relied on miscalculated budget numbers when deciding to replace some immigration court interpreters with recorded videos in San Francisco and three other cities, reports Tal Kopan at the San Francisco Chronicle. The Justice Department “said the move was necessary to save money. But an analysis by the department’s inspector general released Tuesday found that Justice Department officials were working off faulty numbers, part of an inaccurate portrayal of the agency’s larger budget situation.” The calculation error estimated an annual cost of $110 million in 2019 for the interpreters, instead of the actual cost of $74.4 million. Speaking of bad numbers, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University found that data it received on asylum applications from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) are “too unreliable to be meaningful or to warrant publication.” The EOIR’s faulty data, according to TRAC, could “thwart external efforts at oversight, and leave the public in the dark about essential government activities.”

CONTRADICTION – Writing for Forbes, Stuart Anderson of the non-partisan National Foundation for American Policy points out that President Trump’s own boasts about the rebounding economy “contradict” his rationale for restricting temporary work visas. “Why does the Trump administration need to use executive action to override laws passed by Congress and enact emergency immigration measures if the president has said on the record that the U.S. economy is booming, will grow rapidly and is roaring back with jobs?” Immigration lawyer Jonathan Wasden told Anderson: “If the prognosis for the economy is so good, then there is no national emergency.”

FARMWORKERS – Coronavirus cases among farmworkers deemed “essential” are on the rise across the country after the federal government’s failure to mandate safety rules to protect them, Liz Crampton reports for Politico Pro [paywall]: “Advocates for the low-income, mostly immigrant workforce say not enough farming operations have taken steps to protect workers, warning that pickers of the nation’s fruits and vegetables could trigger Covid-19 contagions in new places just as they are reopening their economies.” As the Forum highlights, 70% of the farming workforce is made up of undocumented immigrants, who contribute $9 billion annually to the economy.

NEWCOMERS – As the U.S. is reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and reckoning with the systemic injustices that contributed to the killing of George Floyd, the plight and treatment of immigrants also remains central to the story of the nation, the editors of Christianity Today write. “[T]he White House has continued enacting aggressive policies in the name of public safety, including effectively ending asylum at the U.S. border and further restricting who can apply for a green card.” Christianity Today “asked a group of contributors how, if at all, the Bible should inform what a nation expects of immigrants.”

COVID EXPOSURE – The Latinx community in Los Angeles County saw a sharp increase in coronavirus infections even after stay-at-home orders went into effect, report Elly Yu and Yingjie Wang for LAist. “Health experts say part of the late jump in Latino infections may be attributed to better testing — but not all of it. … In California, Latinos are overrepresented in the service, production, construction and maintenance industries. They are the group least likely to be able to work at home, followed by African Americans, according to a May survey from UC Berkeley. White workers are the group most likely to be able to work at home.” As of last week, “Latinos were known to make up 51% of the county's known coronavirus cases; they make up 49% of the county's population.”

Stay safe, stay healthy.

Ali