Ostensibly because of COVID-19 concerns, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is turning away children seeking asylum — but a joint investigative piece from ProPublica and The Texas Tribune finds that children are being deported only after testing negative for the virus, undermining the administration’s very rationale for circumventing federal immigration laws that protect migrant children.  

“A court report filed in July noted that ‘virtually all’ children in ICE custody were being tested for COVID-19 before expulsion, as a condition of ‘testing requirements’ imposed by their home countries,” Dara Lind and Lomi Kriel write. “Ironically, migrants who test positive for COVID-19 are required to remain in the U.S., while those who test negative are expelled.”

As the same outlets reported last week, thousands of children have been expelled by the Trump administration since the policy took effect in March. The administration’s approach to these children is part of item No. 1 on our list of immigration-related executive actions during the pandemic.

Good morning and welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email your guest host at [email protected].

CERTIFIED – Eager to use their professional skills to treat patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, internationally trained health care workers in Maryland’s Montgomery County are struggling to get the right certification in the U.S. to do their part, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff reports in The Washington Post. “In a county like Montgomery — where about a third of its residents are foreign-born — these medical workers, with their language skills and varying cultural backgrounds, are especially needed during a pandemic, when demand is heightened,” administrators and participants from Montgomery County’s Welcome Back Center told the Post. Nationwide, more than 260,000 immigrants with health backgrounds are “working in positions that require a lesser degree than they hold,” according to the Migration Policy Institute.

USCIS FURLOUGHS – With congressional negotiations on a COVID-19 relief package stalled, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is slated to furlough two-thirds of its employees by the end of August unless it receives more than a billion dollars in new funding, CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez reports. “With no imminent legislation in sight and a stalemate in Congress over the stimulus, the likelihood additional funds will go to USCIS has all but diminished. Furloughs, if they happen, could bring the immigration system to a halt.” We’re talking about the legal immigration system here — and about more than a few American businesses that rely on a stable workforce.

NO PUBLIC HEALTH PURPOSE – Meanwhile, the union representing USCIS asylum officers and other agency employees has come out against the Trump administration’s proposed rule to deny asylum to migrants under the “pretext” of public health, reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez for CBS News. The union states in its public comment that “[t]he measures that the Proposed Rule seeks to implement serve no public health purpose, nor do they advance our country’s national security. Rather, they are draconian and contrary to our country’s moral fabric and longstanding tradition of providing safe haven to the persecuted … Simply put, the Proposed Rule serves no purpose other than to advance the Administration’s political objective to shut down the U.S. asylum program—at whatever cost to human life.”

SCAPEGOATING IN NEBRASKA – Like others nationwide, meatpacking workers in Nebraska — many of whom are Latino immigrants — are working in unsafe conditions while simultaneously being scapegoated for COVID-19 outbreaks. Christina Stella for NPR’s Morning Edition reports that “with 23 of Nebraska's beef, pork and poultry plants reporting outbreaks, some meatpacking workers have been turned away from retail businesses or even asked where they work before they could get their hair cut. … For now, organizers are keeping their eyes on safety, pressuring Nebraska's politicians to pass new mandates, like requiring social distancing to help prevent a second surge.”

FRIENDS LIKE THESE – Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft are among more than 50 of the nation’s biggest tech companies that have filed an amicus brief in the court case against the Trump administration’s proclamation to freeze H-1B, H-2B, L-1 and most J-1 temporary visas through the end of the year, per Stuart Anderson in Forbes. In the brief, the companies write that “the indiscriminate suspension of these crucial nonimmigrant visa programs does not further the interests of the United States … Indeed, the overwhelming weight of evidence and the experience of amici — leading corporations, trade associations, and other business-oriented organizations — make clear that the suspension of these vital nonimmigrant visa programs will stifle innovation, hinder growth, and ultimately harm U.S. workers, businesses, and the economy more broadly in irreparable ways.”

Thanks for reading,

Dan