Yesterday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied the Trump administration’s request to overturn a lower court’s order barring the government from detaining unaccompanied migrant children in hotels before expelling them from the country, reports the AP’s Nomaan Merchant.

“The appeals court judges were sharply critical of the administration during oral arguments, questioning why children in the hotels were not guaranteed access to lawyers and why the government wasn’t using existing youth shelters that have thousands of empty beds.”

Leecia Welch, an attorney with the National Center for Youth Law, told the AP: “It is a sad fact that court involvement was needed once again to ensure the basic safety of children.”

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].

ENCYCLICAL – In the third “book-length” encyclical of his papacy, “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis warns against tribalism and xenophobia taking the world backwards — especially in the aftermath of the global COVID-19 pandemic — and encourages countries to better welcome migrants, Chico Harlan and Stefano Pitrelli report for The Washington Post. Francis writes, “Other cultures are not ‘enemies’ from which we need to protect ourselves, but differing reflections of the inexhaustible richness of human life.” 

JUST IN TIME TO VOTE – Despite U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) disruptions amid the pandemic, dozens of immigrants in Miami were finally sworn in as citizens on Friday — just in time for the state’s Monday voter registration deadline, Lautaro Grinspan reports for the Miami Herald. “Given Florida races tend to be decided by razor-thin margins, new citizens in the Sunshine State could be more influential in the upcoming election than new citizens anywhere else. ... For Yoandrys Alfar, being able to vote in the upcoming election means ‘getting to choose for the first time what I really want, and not what was imposed on me in my country.’”

BILLBOARDS FOR THE BASE – We’re learning more about U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s plans for anti-immigrant billboards ahead of Election Day, with new billboards going up along highways in the battleground state of Pennsylvania depicting faces of immigrants who are “wanted by ICE,” reports Hamed Aleaziz in BuzzFeed News. “All six men had been released by jails in Pennsylvania — either on bond or because they had served their sentences — despite ICE’s request for them to be transferred into their custody so that they could attempt to deport them. ... One ICE employee said the billboards were clearly an attempt to ‘pander’ to Trump’s base: ‘It’s appalling, but so much about immigration enforcement under this administration has been for that purpose alone.’”

TEACHER OF THE YEAR – Jorge Pulleiro, an immigrant from Argentina and a U.S. Army veteran, was awarded Teacher of the Year in Idaho, reports Sami Edge for Idaho Education News. Pulleiro, a Spanish teacher for a dual immersion program, was picked from more than 170 applicants. He advised a relational teaching style in his application: “Drop any lesson plans and be there for those kiddos. Be there for them when sadness and tragedy come upon them. Believe in them and make sure they know you do. Laugh and cry with them. Let those students know that you too are human with problems and feelings.”

SPEAKING OUT – After the Trump administration announced its historically low refugee cap for fiscal year 2021 last week, evangelical leaders and advocates across the country are speaking out against the “unconscionable” decision, writes Anugrah Kumar in The Christian Post. “Our nation has a great tradition as a beacon of liberty to those fleeing for their lives from terror and tyranny, said Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Persecuted Christians, and others, will be harmed by this closed door.” Meanwhile, Rhina Guidos at Catholic News Service reports that Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Auxiliary Bishop Mario E. Dorsonville of Washington said in a joint statement that they “continue to be disappointed by the Trump administration’s diminishment of the U.S. refugee resettlement program.”

‘INCALCULABLE LOSS’ – Accepting fewer refugees not only goes against America’s values — it also undercuts the reputation of our country, encourages radicalization, and ignores refugees’ contributions, Catherine Rampell writes in her latest column for The Washington Post. Rampell notes that refugees are the most vetted immigrants in the United States, forced to prove that they are not harmful and are fleeing persecution in their home country. She concludes that “[t]he only constituency helped by Trump’s latest cruelty are the bigots and knee-jerk nationalists crafting his policies. For the rest of us, it represents an incalculable loss.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali