Tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants who qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) — including 66,000 teenagers — remain “indefinitely locked out” due to the Trump administration’s decision last week to reject new applications, Camilo Montoya-Galvez writes in an extraordinary profile of some of the young people affected for CBS News. “[U]nlike more than 640,000 of their immigrant peers enrolled in the DACA program, they’re not protected from having their lives upended through deportations to countries they left as children.”

When she found out that no new DACA applications would be accepted, Marilu Saldaña, who was brought to the U.S. as a 13-year-old, told CBS News: “I was crying, because I feel like I will never be able to complete any of my dreams, any of my goals … There’s no chances for people like me that know no other country but can't do anything because of our immigration status. I was counting on DACA."

Meanwhile, following the Supreme Court’s decision last month allowing DACA to survive and the Trump administration’s subsequent memo changing the policy, President Trump is expected to make at least one more major immigration policy announcement (adding to the dozens of immigration policy changes made since the pandemic began) before November as part of his ongoing attempts to develop a “merit-based” immigration system. “[F]or years, the president and his team have used the term ‘merit-based’ as a code for reducing or restricting immigration, particularly (but not exclusively) family-based immigrants,” Stuart Anderson points out in Forbes. The most likely policy on the table will target the H-1B visa, revising its definition of “specialty occupation” and of “employment and employer-employee relationship,” building on President Trump’s previous restrictions to “high-skilled” immigration to the U.S.

One quick thing: During the month of August, there will be no Friday Noorani’s Notes as the team recharges for the months ahead. Thank you for reading. We really appreciate it.

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

IMPERIAL – California’s Imperial County, a largely Latino and low-income community along the Mexican border, has seen nearly triple the number of COVID cases per capita of Los Angeles County, the largest county in the nation. “There is no single reason for Imperial County’s plight, but inequalities loom large,” reports Elliot Spagat for the Associated Press. “Imperial is 85% percent Latino, with elevated rates of diabetes and obesity. Wind-blown dust contributes to asthma. Its 21% poverty rate is among California’s highest. Crowded, multigeneration households spread the virus quickly.” Dr. Tien Vo and his wife, a nurse, emigrated from Vietnam as teenagers, moving to Imperial from New York 10 years ago. They now run a clinic and nursing home, serving about 40,000 patients across the county. “I’ve tried my best already, but sometimes, you know, we can’t do enough … They really need a doctor here,” said Vo.

2020 CENSUS – Several states and civil rights groups are challenging the Trump administration’s July memorandum blocking undocumented immigrants from being counted in census congressional apportionment, “arguing that such a directive is unconstitutional and likely to have a chilling effect on immigrants’ response to the 2020 Census,” Fredrick Kunkle writes for The Washington Post. A federal judge heard the challenges yesterday, setting “a brisk initial schedule for both sides for filing additional arguments and evidentiary material in coming weeks.” The situation has only become more urgent since the U.S. Census Bureau announced plans to cease door-knocking efforts a month earlier than originally planned.
FAILURE TO PROTECT – A new report from the Hope Border Institute reveals that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has not only failed to protect detainees from COVID-19, but also actively facilitated the spread of the virus by continuing unsafe practices. “For example, ICE continues to transfer detainees between facilities, greatly increasing the risk of contagion. Reports from detained migrants also indicate that COVID positive detainees have been removed and then returned to barracks and co-mingled with the general population while still sick,” writes Hannah Hollandbyrd, the lead author of the report.

USE OF FORCE – An investigation from BuzzFeed News reveals that there has been a “major increase” in the use of force against detainees in immigrant detention centers since the COVID-19 pandemic began. “Since the end of March through the beginning of July, guards at detention centers across the country deployed force — pepper spray, pepper balls, pepper spray grenades — in incidents involving more than 10 immigrants at a time on a dozen occasions, according to a review of internal reports. In total, more than 600 detainees have been subjected to these group uses of force,” Hamed Aleaziz writes. “We are numbers to them …We are not people. They are not going to listen to us. They are going to follow their rules. There is nothing we can do,” said Alejandro Ramirez, a former detainee at Adelanto ICE Processing Facility in Southern California who has since been deported.

2007, 2013 – For this week’s “Only in America,” I spoke with Becky Tallent, vice chair of the Forum’s board of directors and head of U.S. Government Relations at Dropbox, about the push for immigration reform in 2007 and 2013. Continuing with our key question, How did we get here?, Becky shares her perspective as former chief of staff to Sen. John McCain and adviser to House Speaker John Boehner, discussing how these recent campaigns for reform shaped our current moment.

Thanks for reading,

Ali