Six months into the pandemic, the restriction of crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border between El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Mexico — instituted under the Trump administration’s COVID-19 protocol — remains a major obstacle for families and workers in the area.

“As family and financial obligations mount for those whose lives bridge the U.S.-Mexico divide, so does the pressure to cross the border — even at the risk of unpredictable lines, record-long wait times and rapidly shifting border policies that some worry could leave them trapped on one side or the other,” Veronica Martinez and Lauren Villagran report for the El Paso Times.

The restriction “has divided the lives of Borderland families in ways few could have imagined before the pandemic:” Wait times skyrocketed at the border to between six and eight hours after U.S. Customs and Border Protection intensified the crackdown on “non-essential” crossings this summer.

For Blanca Escalante, who splits her time caring for seniors in El Paso and her elderly mother in Juárez, there is no choice: “For me, it's essential. I can't not go.”

Welcome to Monday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].

BETTER TOGETHER – Last night, Swiss voters “overwhelmingly rejected” a measure from the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) that would have limited free movement of European Union residents and curbed immigration to Switzerland — a country where foreigners make up a quarter of the population. “Opponents said the plan would have robbed business of skilled workers and torpedoed accords that enhance non-EU member Switzerland's access to the crucial EU single market,” Michael Shields reports for Reuters. “The Swiss people have spoken & sent a clear message: together we have a great future ahead of us,” said European Council President Charles Michel.

‘PERFECT STORM’ – A third of the 3 million farmworkers in the U.S. — around half of whom remain ineligible for federal pandemic aid — are based on the west coast, where wildfires have burned over 5 million acres across Oregon, California, and Washington. Between the pandemic and the fires, these workers are facing a “perfect storm,” Jorge Ramos reports on Real America. “People have continuously been ignored by our agencies and our governments in terms of how these emergencies are communicated to them …We know that some places are telling people to stay at home, and some folks are so desperate, that they’re showing up to work because they have to,” said Reyna Lopez, Executive Director at PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union, which has been providing essential resources to farmworkers affected by the fires in Woodburn, Oregon. 

‘EPICENTER OF THE EPICENTER’ – Central de Abasto, the largest produce market in the Western Hemisphere, became the “epicenter of the epicenter” of Mexico’s COVID-19 crisis — “the teeming heart of a neighborhood that has registered more COVID deaths than any other part of the capital,” Azam Ahmed reports for The New York Times. In Mexico, as in many parts of Latin America, the virus hasn’t hit in waves so much as a flood: “By the first week of September, the 10 countries with the highest deaths per capita were all in Latin America or the Caribbean.” Said Christopher Arriaga, who runs a vegetable stall in Central de Abasto: “It made me realize what a trapped animal feels like.”

PAY UP – A new investigation from Damià Bonmatí for Noticias Telemundo Investiga [article in Spanish] details the exorbitant bail amounts set by immigration Judge Mary Baumgarten in Louisiana. Yulier Bejerano, a Cuban immigrant with no criminal record, was “petrified” when he found out his bail was set by Judge Baumgarten at $150,000 — a price he considered “astronomical.” Under the Trump administration, the average bond for immigrants stands at $8,000, up 60% from ten years ago. “Setting an excessive bond is the same as denying it," says Cliff Johnson, director of the University of Mississippi Legal Clinic.

IN THE BALANCE – A number of immigration issues — the Trump administration’s “public charge” rule, the inclusion of non-citizens in the census and the future of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) among them — hang in the balance as President Trump moves forward with the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett. If Judge Barrett’s ideals on immigration push the court further in a restrictionist direction, we could be looking at a stunted immigration system – and further U.S. isolation – for years to come, I told Julián Aguilar and Vianna Davila at the Texas Tribune. Barrett has sided with President Trump on the “public charge” rule, and “repeatedly refused to review cases brought by immigrants applying for humanitarian protections,” reports Nicole Narea for Vox. But her record isn’t that simple: “In one case, she actually prevented the Trump administration from ending a policy that allows immigration judges to indefinitely close deportation cases in which the immigrant doesn’t appear to be a priority for enforcement, giving them a chance to live in the U.S. without fear of deportation.”

TAXES – A reminder from the Forum’s policy team that immigrants — both documented and undocumented — “paid an estimated $328 billion in state, local, and federal taxes” in 2014 alone. And the 4.4 – 4.6 million people with Individual Tax Identification Number holders, which are only available to noncitizens, paid $23.6 billion in total taxes in 2015. (None of these folks are eligible for CARES Act support.) The Washington Post’s Kevin Sieff put a finer point on it: “The average undocumented immigrant in the United States pays more federal income taxes than the president.”                      

Go Heat.  

Thanks for reading,

Ali