The soaring cost of naturalization from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) – a fee hike of 83% this year – “will hit a level that totals about a month’s worth of gross income for an immigrant making the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour,” reports Enelly Betancourt for LancasterOnline.

“These increases will prevent poorer immigrants, and correspondingly people of color, and the most vulnerable individuals and families seeking protection in the U.S. from obtaining legal status and citizenship for which they are eligible but merely for lack of money will not be able to obtain,” said Janet Tisinger, an immigration legal services coordinator with the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, office of Church World Service. 

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. As we enter the homestretch of a grueling election season, I’m convinced there’s a path for systemic change, and over the next few months  we’ll be paying close attention to how immigration is impacting the election — especially in swing states. To help us do that, we’re asking you to help us cover our bases by sending us local stories that highlight these impacts. If there’s a story you’d like us to include, send it to me at [email protected]. Thanks, all.

LOCAL SOLUTIONS – The Allston, Massachusetts-based nonprofit Immigrants Like Us is helping low-income immigrants in Massachusetts “renew their DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) paperwork, apply for green cards and permits, and seek citizenship, all online” using a special software to prepare the documents, Meghan Sorensen reports for the Boston Globe. “The goal is to serve low-income immigrants who are eligible for [legal] status, but can’t get it because they can’t afford legal help,” said Jonathan Petts, cofounder of Immigrants Like Us. “We believe that the solution is combining technology with lawyers.” Since the organization’s founding last year, it has served hundreds of applicants.

“WOEFULLY INADEQUATE” – A federal order issued Friday by Judge Dolly Gee of the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles will go into effect this week, banning the Trump administration practice of holding migrant children in hotel rooms while arrangements are made for their expulsion from the U.S., reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez for CBS News. Judge Gee cited the Flores Settlement Agreement, which outlines rules and protections for migrant children in custody, as grounds for the ban: “Gee said the use of hotels for detention purposes violates the Flores agreement because the locations lack sufficient oversight, state licenses to hold minors and standards for the care of young children. Minors have also faced a ‘woefully inadequate’ process to seek the help of lawyers, who have been barred from entering the hotels.”

A CORONAVIRUS DISASTER – Farmworkers are essential to keeping Americans fed during the coronavirus pandemic, and they’ve been hit hardest by COVID-19. Around 6,700 are estimated to have tested positive for the virus so far — a “partial snapshot” due to limited testing. “For several weeks, many of the places that grow the nation’s fruits and vegetables have seen disproportionately high rates of coronavirus cases — a national trend that, as harvest season advances in many states, threatens already vulnerable farmworkers, their communities and the places they work,” concludes a Politico analysis led by Helena Bottemiller Evich, Ximena Bustillo and Liz Crampton. “We are entering a large health crisis and there is no one with the moral authority within the government to define a clear strategy that makes sense,” said Carlos Marentes, founder of the Border Agricultural Workers Project. Meanwhile, meatpacking workers are also disproportionately feeling the toll of the crisis.

“FOR EVERY CHILD” – Evangelical Christian women have turned to online activism to oppose the Trump administration “binary choice” policy that forces migrant parents to choose between family detention or separation from their children, Micah Danney reports for Australia-based Sight Magazine. “For Every Child” was formed in June when 2,300 women signed a letter calling for an end to the policy, and participants have since taken to Zoom to meet with elected officials including Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-California), Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois). “There’s a pretty strong narrative or stereotype that among Christian women there’s an opposition to immigration, so we want to not let the loudest voices in the room be the only ones that are heard,” said Amanda Johnston, one of the digital activists. How this advocacy translates to the polls will be interesting to watch.

IN THE BALANCE – For DACA recipients, “joyful moments continue to be marred by politics. The euphoria of getting into a dream university, landing the perfect job, or going outside the country for the first time is inevitably eclipsed by the uncertainty of tomorrow” thanks to the Trump administration’s years of continued attacks against the program, writes author and former DACA recipient Julissa Arce in an op-ed for Refinery29’s SOMOS project. Arce (who joined me for an “Only in America” conversation back in 2018) points to the experiences of DACA recipients like Denea Joseph, who called the recent Supreme Court decision allowing the program to continue “one of the happiest moments of [her] life,” albeit a fleeting one: “The lives of DACA recipients still hang in the balance.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali