127 military construction projects stand to lose funding to pay for the $3.6 billion border wall construction. The Washington Post’s Paul Sonne and Seung Min Kim look at the details: “The Pentagon is defunding Hurricane Maria recovery projects at military installations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to pay for President Trump’s border barrier and is also taking money from construction projects across Europe designed to help allies deter Russia.”
Seung Min also lifted up two stories from McClatchy that highlight the local impacts of this decision – one from Emma Dumain and Tara Copp digging into the $11 million taken from a South Carolina project, and the other from Alex Daugherty looking at $17 million taken from a Panama City, Florida, project.
Officially, the administration is saying these projects are deferred – but to pay for them in the future, congress will need to allocate funding.
From La Unión, Honduras, welcome to Thursday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes.
Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].
SOLUTION WITHOUT A PROBLEM – A new administration policy to use videos instead of human interpreters in immigration court “has mostly served to delay proceedings, by adding lengthy steps and information that is not necessary for all migrants to hear,” Tal Kopan reports in the San Francisco Chronicle And experts are concerned that the videos’ focus on voluntary departures and criminal penalties, rather than their legal right to apply for asylum, “could prompt immigrants with valid claims to stay in the U.S. to waive their right without fully understanding what they’re doing.”
ASYLUM CONDITIONS – Thousands of families with children are being held in federal immigration facilities, with limited public access. Tom K. Wong, a professor and director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego, writes in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times that he and his team found more than one-third “of the asylum-seeking heads of households we studied reported problems related to conditions in immigration detention, treatment in immigration detention, or medical issues.” As the administration seeks to indefinitely detain immigrant families by altering the Flores Settlement Agreement, Wong and his colleagues’ report is a must-read.
ASYLUM CHIEF PUSHED OUT – The head of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asylum office, John Lafferty, is being reassigned to another role, reports Nick Miroff at The Washington Post. It’s a move “that follows multiple White House-directed attempts to raise new barriers to those seeking humanitarian refuge in the United States.” Per Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed News, Lafferty “was pushed out this week by the agency’s hardline acting director, Ken Cuccinelli, according to a source with knowledge of the move.” Keep in mind that, as Miroff reports, “Lafferty received a leadership award last year from the agency’s then-director, L. Francis Cissna.”
“THEY CRIED INCONSOLABLY” – A report from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) inspector general found that children separated from their parents through the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy ended up exhibiting “more fear, feelings of abandonment, and post-traumatic stress” than children who were not separated. The Hill’s Nathaniel Weixel writes that, according to the report, “Mental health staff said some children expressed so much grief and confusion over the separation that they cried inconsolably.”
VICTORY – French immigrant Corina Turcinovic challenged U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in court and won, Carlos Ballesteros reports in the Chicago Sun-Times. Following the death of her husband – who was in line to become a U.S. citizen but could not appear to be fingerprinted because of health issues, leading to a rejection of his application – Turcinovic faced deportation. Attorney Scott Pollock filed an emergency motion which resulted in a green card. “Corina’s case is a significant example of what can be achieved when someone decides to challenge an injustice by going to court … Sad to say, but under this administration, suing ICE or USCIS has become the only way to shine a light on these cases so they get the attention they deserve.”
ICE CREAM – Ending with a positive taste in our mouths: Tune into the latest episode of “Only In America,” where I chat with Ben & Jerry’s CEO Matthew McCarthy about ice cream and what it’s like to lead a company known for its commitment to advocating for immigrants and refugees. Matthew also explains the significance that social and political activism plays in the past, present, and future of Ben & Jerry’s.
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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