In their eagerness to issue the new “public charge” rule, the Trump administration apparently wrote it in such a way that it treats immigrants married to U.S. citizens more harshly than those married to noncitizens. One example: immigrants who are married to, or the children of, active-duty service members, write Dara Lind and Yeganeh Torbati at ProPublica. “It’s sloppy drafting. They’re trying to get the regulation out sooner than is probably practical,” said Charles Wheeler, an immigration attorney at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc.
This follows revelations that immigration officials sent inaccurate guidance to asylum officers allowing them to apply the “remain in Mexico” policy to all asylum-seekers, not just those who entered the country on or after July 16 as instructed by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, per Hamed Aleaziz at Buzzfeed.
Bad process makes bad policy even worse.
Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].
YOUNGER THAN 5 – Idaho officials report that drivers have been following and harassing buses carrying children of seasonal and migrant farmworkers to early childhood education programs, per Nicole Foy in the Idaho Statesman. Most of the kids are younger than 5. Organizers plan to remove and conceal the buses’ “Migrant and Seasonal Head Start” signs in an effort to protect their children.
DETAINING CHILDREN INDEFINITELY – Just a week after issuing its “public charge” rule, the Trump administration is expected to release a regulation today that would change licensing requirements. The expected changes would make it easier to keep migrant families locked up together by eliminating the 20-day limit on the detention of children set by the 1997 Flores agreement, reports Ted Hesson at Politico. Let’s be crystal clear: the administration has zero credibility when it comes to setting licensing requirements for the care of children in immigration detention facilities.
THE U VISA CATCH – Survivors of the El Paso shooting maybe be eligible for legal status thanks to a special visa, known as the U visa, which allows crime victims to live and work in the U.S. and apply for a green card in return for cooperating with law enforcement, reports Mallory Falk for KERA. "It expands the reach of justice, in a sense, because it gives people the opportunity to have a voice where otherwise they would be afraid to use that voice, due to possible retaliation or deportation," said Pamela Muñoz, an attorney in El Paso. The U visa catch? “Ultimately, the survivors who do come forward likely face a lengthy process. There is a cap on the number of U visas issued each year – 10,000 annually – and a substantial backlog of applications. As of March 2019, there were more than 140,000 pending petitions.”
SERIOUSLY? – As flu season approaches, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said officials will not vaccinate migrant families in holding centers, despite doctors pointing to the deaths of three children held in detention as justification, writes Jessica Bursztynsky at CNBC. “Flu deaths are particularly tragic in my opinion because they are almost always preventable with good public health measures,” said Harvard pediatrics professor Dr. Jonathan Winickoff, one of four doctors who sent a letter to two members of Congress calling for an investigation into detention center health conditions.
HISTORY OF ‘PUBLIC CHARGE’ –In the 1930s, 300,000 Jewish refugees could have entered the U.S. without exceeding existing quotas but were denied entry because of a “public charge” clause similar to the policy now being enacted by the Trump administration, writes Laurel Leff at The Conversation. “Many – perhaps most – were forced into hiding, imprisoned in concentration camps and ghettos, and deported to extermination centers,” she writes. “ … [T]he administration’s evocation of the public charge clause is chilling."
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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