A new report from the National Foundation for American Policy argues that the basis for the Trump administration’s proposed change to foreign student visa applications — which will force over 300,000 international students to seek extensions and limit stays to two years in some cases —  is flawed. “The rule relies on a flawed measurement – an overall overstay rate by country that includes individuals who DHS concludes have already left the U.S. and people DHS concedes may have lawfully changed status inside the United States and are not actual overstays,” the report reads.

The flawed logic has steep consequences, Stuart Anderson writes in Forbes: “The new policy threatens America’s ability to attract international students due to the added costs and increased uncertainty foreign students would face under the proposed regulation. If foreign countries that compete with the United States for international students were to create a new way to discourage students from coming to America, this is the policy they would design.”

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Ahead of Thursday’s deadline for the Trump administration to announce a refugee ceiling for fiscal year 2021, the Forum is hosting a press call with faith, business and other expert voices today. Former Trump DHS official Elizabeth Neumann will join leaders from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bethany Christian Services and the Tent Partnership for Refugees to call attention to the country’s dwindling refugee admissions. Media interested in joining can contact Joanna Taylor for more info.

‘MADDENING, CRUEL, HARSH’ – President Trump’s swift and dramatic immigration policy changes were designed to be difficult to unravel — meaning if a new administration is in the White House come January, it won’t be easy to walk them back, Kristina Cooke and Mica Rosenberg report for Reuters. The “sheer number of new policies mean that many people waiting in limbo are affected by not only one new Trump measure but several layered on top of each other.” Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said it would be “impossible” for a new administration to simply undo everything because of how much has changed and how many lives have already been altered. For Landys Aguirre and Karla Anez, a couple who fled political persecution in Venezuela in 2019, the policies mean Landys remains trapped in a hotel room in Mexico awaiting an asylum hearing while Karla, who was allowed to present her case, cares for their 2-month-old daughter in Chicago. “It’s maddening, cruel, harsh and painful to be here in Mexico alone, with no help, in danger and missing my wife and my daughter, who I haven’t met,” Aguirre said.

GENERATIONS IDENTIFY – New data from the Pew Research Center digs into the distinct attitudes and self-perceptions of Hispanics across generations, finding that generations who have been in the U.S. for longer are more likely to identify as American. “About half of Hispanic adults say they most often describe themselves by their family’s country of origin or heritage, using terms such as Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican or Salvadoran, while another 39% most often describe themselves as ‘Hispanic’ or ‘Latino’ … Meanwhile, 14% say they most often call themselves American,” Ana Gonzalez-Barrera reports for Pew’s Fact Tank. However, she writes, “the share who say they most often use the term ‘American’ to describe themselves rises from 4% among immigrant Latinos to 22% among the second generation and 33% among third- or higher-generation Latinos.”

MIXED REVIEWS – Also from Pew, a study from earlier this month measuring Americans’ satisfaction with the federal government’s performance in key areas finds that Americans think the government does a good job of managing certain responsibilities — like keeping the country safe from terrorism (72%) and responding to natural disasters (62%) — but while 81% of adults say the federal government should play a major role in the country’s immigration system, “just 34% say [the government] does a good job” handling it. Since Trump’s election, “[t]he share of Republicans saying the government is doing a good job of this has increased from 38% to 58% since 2017, while the share of Democrats saying the government is doing a good job has decreased from 29% to
14%.”

SUNSHINE VOTERS – A new Univision News poll conducted with Latino Decisions and North Star Opinion Research shows former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris leading President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence among Hispanic voters nationally, though the latter are trailing by much less in the battleground state of Florida. Nationally, Biden “is 42 points ahead of President Donald Trump among Hispanics registered to vote.” But “in key states like Arizona and Florida, the former vice president has failed to advance much among Hispanics. … Florida remains Trump's stronghold with Hispanics. Nationally, his approval is 30%, but in the Sunshine state it has risen to 39%.”

GEGE – With the future of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) hanging in the balance after an appeals court ruled earlier this month that the Trump administration could end the program for some immigrants, Mya Jaradat at Deseret News takes an in-depth look at the consequences of the program for immigrants like Geraldine “Gege” Baptiste, a 24-year-old student from Haiti. As a TPS recipient, Baptiste was cut off from federal financial aid and was only able to finish college through public fundraising. She hopes immigrant students like her do not have to “go through this much hardship ever again. … Hard working immigrant students that grew up in the U.S. public education system should have a fair shot at federal funding as well.”

LIBERAL DISCOURSE – The recent outrage over whistleblower allegations of unwanted hysterectomies in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody is justified, but also indicative of “the sensationalist turn in liberal immigration discourse,” that distracts from the everyday evils taking place in our immigration system, Felipe De La Hoz writes for The Baffler. In other words, the public tends to react to extreme examples of neglect and abuse by immigration officials while ignoring the flaws in an underlying system that facilitates everyday cruelty. “The rush to latch on to these exceptionally vivid cultural and historical signifiers—separating children from their parents, taking away a woman’s bodily autonomy and terminating her ability to reproduce—betrays not just ignorance, but a willful ignorance of the banal and persistent force that has been crushing detained immigrants, and people in government custody more generally, uninterrupted for decades.” 

Thanks for reading,

Ali