46.

That’s the number of immigration policy changes the Trump administration has issued since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. These changes affect almost all facets of the immigration system — some are temporary and proportional, while others use the pandemic as a pretext to dramatically transform America’s immigration system. Keep in mind that more than half of them have no expiration date.

The National Immigration Forum’s policy team created this resource to categorize and keep track of all actions to date. Pass it along.

Meanwhile, an imminent Supreme Court decision could force Congress to decide the fate of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients — but Congress may not have the bandwidth to help, report Marianne Levine and Sarah Ferris in Politico. 

“Many lawmakers from both parties say they support the popular ‘Dreamers’ program … which has been in legal limbo since Trump’s attempt to ax it in 2017. But they are also openly skeptical that Congress could, on top of everything, finally clinch a deal on immigration reform.”

One scenario that could help Dreamers: the Court requiring Congress to fix the situation with a hard deadline. “I have learned in my time in Congress, Congress always does best when there’s a deadline,” said Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas).

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

AVOIDING CARE – In April, Esmeralda, a 24-year-old-woman living near Boston, felt dizzy and unable to breathe, reports Catherine McGloin for WGBH. “But Esmeralda, whose mother sent her from El Salvador to escape gang violence seven years ago, was afraid to seek medical treatment because she worried it would derail her asylum application.” Ultimately, Esmeralda tested positive for COVID-19. She’s one among many immigrants across Massachusetts, “both with and without documentation, [who] are not seeking medical care or testing for the coronavirus due to deep fear and distrust of government entities. Undocumented immigrants fear questioning and detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials at medical facilities, while those with documentation avoid treatment because they believe relying on public programs, like MassHealth, will endanger their immigration status.”

HISTORY MONDAY – The landmark 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act — which abolished the restrictive 1924 National Origins Act that had codified America as a white, Protestant nation through ethnic quotas — was seen by many as a way to ensure America’s ethnic balance would not change all that much, writes Jia Lynn Yang, author of “One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924-1965,” for The New York Times. What came in the following decades surprised nearly everyone: The 1965 law “opened the door to Asian, Latin American, African and Middle Eastern immigration at a scale never seen before. Demographers now predict that nonwhite Americans will outnumber white Americans within three decades.”

BLACK LIVES MATTER (1/2) – It took the current context and awareness around Black Lives Matter for the body of Jamila Nabunjo — a Muslim immigrant from Uganda who lived in a shelter in Mexico while waiting to petition for asylum in the U.S. — to receive a proper burial, Alfredo Corchado writes in The Dallas Morning News. Without Black Lives Matter, Mexican authorities would not have released Nabunjo’s body, said Edith Tapia, a policy analyst and researcher with Hope Border Institute (and a tour de force of border advocacy) “who almost single-handedly waged an uphill, nine-month battle to reclaim her body. ‘We had to basically call them (Mexican authorities) out on their prejudice, racism, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant history. Only then were they willing to cooperate.’” In September of last year, Nabunjo was on a waiting list to enter the U.S. when she was admitted to a local hospital where she died from sepsis, pneumonia and tuberculosis. She was married with two children, and the family had hoped to reunite in the U.S. one day.

BLACK LIVES MATTER (2/2) – When the first wave of nationwide protests following George Floyd’s murder began, immigrants wanting to join the calls for justice faced a choice: join protests and jeopardize their legal status, or stay on the sidelines, reports Aditi Sangal for CNN. If an immigrant is “detained, arrested or charged, it could be problematic, even if the charges were dropped, according to Parisa Karaahmet, an immigration attorney at Fragomen, an immigration law firm. ‘They could be asked to disclose the arrest in an application for a visa or at a green card interview in the U.S. for any immigration benefits.’” Still, some immigrants are taking the risk. “Prerna Gupta, an Indian national on a work visa, has been going to protests in her neighborhood in Brooklyn. ‘Nothing is wrong with marching with people. We’re not breaking any law.’”

FUNDING DENIED – The Trump administration has gone out of its way to deny funding to immigrant students experiencing financial strain due to the pandemic, writes Alyssa Aquino for Law 360. “Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has formally cut out Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients from the $6 billion relief that Congress set aside for students to obtain food, health care and child care amid the coronavirus crisis. … Students ineligible for federal financial aid include undocumented students and international students.”

Thanks for reading, 

Ali