A growing group of bipartisan lawmakers are urging the Trump administration to conduct virtual naturalization ceremonies, reports Miriam Jordan in The New York Times. “Senators Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, who are both sons of naturalized citizens, sent a letter on May 22 to Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, who heads the [U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)] agency, requesting that he ‘take all necessary measures’ to enable naturalizations to proceed, including with virtual ceremonies.” A spokesman for USCIS has “ruled out remote oaths” which would allow potentially thousands of new citizens to be naturalized in time for the November election.

Meanwhile in Michigan, Tresa Baldas at the Detroit Free Press reports that some immigration officials got creative and naturalized dozens of new citizens this week via drive-thru oath ceremonies. “Without ever leaving their cars, they raised their right hands and vowed to be good and law-abiding Americans — all while wearing a face mask as a judge donning a plastic face shield stood 6 feet away.”

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

79.5 MILLION – Ahead of World Refugee Day this Saturday, UNHCR is out with sobering new data: One in every 97 people on the planet — nearly 80 million individuals, including 30-34 million children — have been forcibly displaced. “This continues to be a global issue, an issue for all States, but one that challenges most directly the poorer countries — not the richer countries — in spite of the rhetoric,” said UNHCR High Commissioner Filippo Grandi.

MAJORITY SUPPORT – As the nation anxiously awaits a decision on the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), Pew Research Center finds that 74% of Americans support giving permanent legal status to “Dreamers.” Jens Manuel Krogstad writes, “In the Center’s new survey, Americans also express support for finding a way for all undocumented immigrants — not just those brought to the country as children — to stay in the U.S. legally. Overall, three-quarters of adults say there should be a way for undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. to stay in the country legally if certain conditions are met.”

MISSING DETAINEES – Families of some immigrants in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody have struggled to determine the whereabouts of their loved ones during the coronavirus pandemic, reports Monique O. Madan for the Miami Herald. “ICE’s withholding of detainee location and medical information from lawyers has become very common, attorneys say, despite federal regulations that require that a detainee’s lawyer of record be notified at the time of a transfer. … According to ICE, at the field office director’s discretion a detainee’s movement within the ICE detention network may be protected for a variety of reasons ranging from operational security to privacy concerns resulting from medical care.” 

GREEN CARDS – Green card applicants living in the United States are once again able to advance in the permanent residency process after USCIS lifted the “general hold” it’s had on most applications for the past several months, reports Tanvi Misra in Roll Call. “The USCIS said about 45,000 U.S.-based permanent residence applications had been completed between March 30 and June 1, but it's not clear how many of those were outside the exemption categories listed in the agency's hold guidance. Based on fiscal 2019 statistics, roughly 107,000 applications would have been typically been completed during that period.”

GETTING COUNTED – Chicago advocacy groups like the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Enlace Chicago are organizing to ensure local immigrants and refugees are counted on the 2020 census. “Lawrence Benito, CEO of the refugee coalition, said that since last year, their partners in the Chicago area have knocked on over 45,000 doors and made over 100,000 calls to households to raise awareness for the census,” reports Manny Ramos in the Chicago Sun-Times. “We have to do everything we can to tell people that their information is confidential and that money is going to come into our communities that will go toward roads, our schools, our hospitals and political representation,” said state Rep. Edgar Gonzalez.

TRAGIC – Juan Marin, a beloved father and Salvadoran immigrant who worked at the Cargill Meat Solutions plant in Fort Morgan, Colorado, died from COVID-19 after an outbreak at the meat plant infected nearly 100 employees. “It appears the spread of the disease at the plants has mostly subsided. But the painful aftershocks of the outbreaks are still being felt weeks later,” Jesse Paul writes for The Colorado Sun. “Immigrant workers are the backbone of the American food supply, making Juan Marin emblematic of the people put at risk by simply showing up at their jobs.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali