President Trump has issued a memorandum that would exclude undocumented immigrants from the census apportionment count, which determines the number of House seats for each state. “An undercount of just 51,000 people in Texas could be the difference between two or three new seats, according to a December analysis from Election Data Services,” The Dallas Morning News reports. “If they don’t count Latinos in all our complexity, we lose one congressmen who would probably be Latino,” said Ramiro Luna-Hinojosa, an activist and DACA recipient. The move to exclude undocumented immigrants “upends a long history,” Katie Rogers and Peter Baker write for The New York Times. “Even as he signed his memorandum on Tuesday, the Census Bureau’s own website continued to say in a question-and-answer section that undocumented residents are to be counted.”

Already, civil rights groups and attorneys general who fought the administration’s attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census — a move ultimately blocked by the Supreme Court — indicated they will pursue legal action on the new memo, Hansi Lo Wang reports for NPR. As the Forum’s VP of Policy and Advocacy Jacinta Ma pointed out, quoted by Anita Kumar at Politico: “There’s an assumption that an undercount of immigrant populations will negatively impact blue states, but the reality is that rural communities and red states will also be underrepresented and underfunded. Today's memorandum will undermine their future success.”

Our full statement here.

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

BACKLOG – Some updates to a story we’ve been following: A report from the naturalization services company Boundless Immigration found that more than 300,000 immigrants on the path to citizenship may not be naturalized in time to vote this November, Daniel Gonzalez writes for the Arizona Republic. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which processes naturalization applications, has suspended in-person interviews and ceremonies amid the coronavirus pandemic and has yet to reschedule them as it faces a serious budget shortfall, with more than two-thirds of the agency’s staff scheduled to be furloughed in August unless they receive congressional funding. While Dianne Solis at The Dallas Morning News reports that USCIS plans to complete all of its postponed naturalization ceremonies by the end of July, the remaining backlog could have a noticeable impact in swing states: “It’s estimated that about 8,000 immigrants in Pennsylvania likely won’t naturalize in time to vote,” reports Ryan Deto for the Pittsburgh City Paper. “In a state that President Trump only carried by about 44,000 votes in 2016, those potential votes could make a big difference come November.”

PROVED FATAL – According to two whistleblowers from the Richwood Correctional Center in Louisiana, at least 65 cases of COVID-19 among detainees at the immigration detention facility can be traced to neglect and abuse on the part of LaSalle Corrections, the private prison company that runs the facility. Allegedly encouraging staff to falsify temperature tests and neglect sick detainees, LaSalle also “deliberately withheld personal protective equipment and vital information from both staff and detainees in hopes of preventing panic. With two Richwood guards dead after testing positive for COVID-19, the deception appears to have proved fatal,” Noah Lanard reports for Mother Jones. “If anyone was to say or do anything, they knew that they were automatically putting their job in jeopardy,” one of the whistleblowers said. 

DISPOSABLE – After only a week on the job, around 50 out of 200 immigrant workers hired to clean up buildings impacted by flooding in Midland, Michigan, in May developed symptoms of COVID-19, Niraj Warikoo reports for the Detroit Free Press. The workers reported being forced into close, hazardous conditions without proper protective gear such as masks and gloves, working in potentially contaminated work areas, such as the morgue of the MidMichigan Medical Center. “These are subhuman conditions and no one deserves them,” said Saket Soni of Resilience Force, a group that advocates for workers who help areas hit by natural disasters. “They were crowded into hotels, despite CDC guidance saying they shouldn't be, and they contracted COVID-19. They were treated as disposable.”

ENVIRONMENT OF FEAR – Malaysia is turning its back on Rohingya refugees arriving on its shores from Bangladesh, part of a disturbing trend of xenophobia in the country, Kaamil Ahmed and Rebecca Ratcliffe report for The Guardian. Last month, a cohort of refugees was convicted under the Immigration Act, with at least 31 men sentenced to prison — at least 20 being sentenced to caning — and more than a dozen children in the group also facing jail time. Meanwhile, advocates suspect hundreds more Rohingya migrants are being held in detention centers, hotspots for COVID-19 that accounted for 10% of the nation’s total cases in June. “The government is cracking down on migrants and refugees, instead of upholding everyone’s right to health during COVID,” said John Quinley, human rights specialist at Bangkok-based Fortify Rights. “The environment of fear and intimidation against migrants and refugees must end.”

HELPING HAND – As immigrant theatre artists feel the financial strain of COVID-19, the See Lighting Foundation is working to distribute $500 monthly grants to 60 theatre artists over the next six months, Olivia Clement writes in Playbill. The fund will benefit visa holders who are legally allowed to work in the U.S. but lack access to COVID relief in the form of unemployment benefits and other subsidies. You can learn more about the artists See Lightning is supporting here.  

Thanks for reading,

Ali