Citing the pandemic, the Trump administration is extending its April proclamation barring certain immigrants from the U.S. from an initial 60-day period to at least through the end of the year, and expanding it significantly — a move that does not address the challenges we face as a country, but does undermine the trust and unity required to recover from the pandemic and the economic downturn.

“The ban expands earlier restrictions, adding work visas that many companies use, especially in the technology sector, landscaping services and the forestry industry,” report Nick Miroff and Tony Romm in The Washington Post. “It excludes agricultural laborers, health-care professionals supporting the pandemic response and food-service employees, along with some other temporary workers.”

Specifically, the ban suspends those coming to the U.S. on H-1B, H-2B, L or J temporary visas.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) put it, per Rebecca Klar in The Hill: “This decision, in my view, will have a chilling effect on our economic recovery at a time we should be doing all we can to restore the economy.” Graham went on to say: “Legal immigration is a positive for the American economy, and visa programs allowing American companies to secure qualified, legal labor throughout the world have benefitted economic growth in the United States.”

Hundreds of businesses including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Lyft have voiced opposition to the restrictions on temporary workers, expressing concerns over a shortage of skilled employees. Last month, a group of Republican senators — including Graham — sent a letter to President Trump urging him to continue to allow these non-immigrants to come to the U.S.

Meanwhile, visiting a wall in Arizona to tout closing off America doesn’t make us safer or more prosperous — it also doesn’t win over the middle that the president needs in order to earn a second term.

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

BUSINESSES – Most H-1B visa holders work in computer occupations, which have an unemployment rate of just 2.5% — far lower than the national rate, Stuart Anderson writes for Forbes. The number shows, as National Foundation for American Policy Senior Fellow Mark Regets argues, that the president’s immigration ban is not rooted in a “rational economic argument,” and will hurt American companies. “Jon Baselice of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said preventing businesses from transferring executives and workers into the country will discourage them from investing in the United States, which will harm job creation.” Remember, there is not a fixed amount of jobs in the U.S. economy, and research shows that these “high-skilled” immigrant workers often support additional jobs for other employees at a particular firm (they also leave their firms and launch companies that create new American jobs).
ECONOMY – President Trump’s immigration ban is misguided because it is based on the idea that limiting immigration preserves jobs for American workers — which is not the case, Sarah Al-Arshani writes for Business Insider. “According to Harvard Business Review, immigrants in the U.S. tend to contribute about twice as much to entrepreneurship as native-born citizens do and also tend to create more successful businesses. A study from Harvard Business School found that immigrant-founded businesses performed better in terms of employment growth over three and six years than businesses founded by native citizens.” Linda Moore, president of TechNet, said the Trump administration’s policy would “slow innovation and undermine the work the technology industry is doing to help our country recover from unprecedented events.”
EL PASO – Deporting Dreamers from El Paso would be a “grave mistake” and Congress must find a bipartisan solution that allows them to continue living and working in the U.S., writes Jon Barela, CEO of the El Paso Borderplex Alliance and a “lifelong Republican,” in an op-ed for the El Paso Times. “If these incredible individuals — and 660,000 others like them — had fallen out of status and were deported, it would have been detrimental to our state and country.” Some stats: There are 16,298 immigrant entrepreneurs in El Paso, and Dreamers contribute more than $5.9 billion in taxes.

DEPORTATION – Families of deported immigrants often endure financial and mental health struggles when a loved one is forced to leave the United States, writes Julia Preston in a powerful piece for The Marshall Project. “Across the country, hundreds of thousands of American families are coping with anguish compounded by steep financial decline after a spouse’s or parent’s deportation, a more enduring form of family separation than President Trump’s policy that took children from parents at the border. Trump has broadened the targets of deportation to include many immigrants with no serious criminal records. While the benefits to communities from these removals are unclear, the costs — to devastated American families and to the public purse — are coming into focus.”

IOWA – Iowa’s 10,000 refugees from Myanmar are being hit especially hard by the coronavirus pandemic, reports Kate Payne in NPR. “Many are Christians who fled ethnic violence from the world's longest-running civil war. The vast majority work in a handful of the state's meatpacking plants where they can make better than minimum wages without having to understand English.” These conditions make the community especially susceptible to COVID-19: “One advocacy group says all its clients from Myanmar have either had the virus or been exposed to it.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali