An unsettling draft investigation report obtained by The New York Times reveals that top Justice Department officials were a “driving force” behind the Trump administration’s 2018 decision to separate migrant parents from their children, write Michael D. Shear, Katie Benner and Michael S. Schmidt. “We need to take away children,” said then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, making President Trump’s wishes clear. When five U.S. attorneys along the border with Mexico expressed their concerns about prosecuting children who were “barely more than infants,” Rod Rosenstein, who was then the deputy attorney general, told them it did not matter how young the children were.
The two-year inquiry, obtained by the Times and authored by Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, provides a close look inside the agency’s handling of Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy. Citing “more than 45 interviews with key officials, emails, and other documents,” the draft report “provides the most complete look at the discussions inside the Justice Department as the family separation policy was developed, pushed and ultimately carried out with little concern for children,” the Times reports. Among other revelations detailed in the document: “Border Patrol officers missed serious felony cases because they were stretched too thin by the zero-tolerance policy requiring them to detain and prosecute all the misdemeanor illegal entry cases.”
Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Ahead of tonight’s vice presidential debate, check out the Forum’s list of resources on prominent campaign topics in immigration, including a summary of recent polling and a list of actions the Trump-Pence administration has taken to restrict immigration since the outbreak of the pandemic.
And tomorrow at 12 p.m. ET, join us for a Facebook Live conversation on the rise of white nationalism in America and what it means for immigration reform. Head to the Forum’s Facebook then to listen in.
If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
‘WORTHY’ – Though Iraqis who support U.S. war efforts are typically promised refuge in America, thousands have been unable to find safety under the Trump administration due to bureaucratic technicalities, Shoshana Akabas writes in Rolling Stone. “The number of U.S.-affiliated Iraqis waiting for their resettlement applications to be processed has ballooned from 60,000 to more than 100,000 under the Trump administration, with only a lucky few making it to the United States each year,” Akabas reports. “For all intents and purposes, they are veterans. They deserve to be treated on par with our combat soldiers,” said Chris Purdy, who served in the Army National Guard for eight years and was deployed to Iraq. “These people are just as brave and just as worthy of our respect as anybody who serves the United States overseas.”
H-1B UPDATE – The Trump administration will dramatically scale back the number of H-1B visas issued to skilled foreign workers, Ben Fox reports for the Associated Press. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that “about one-third of the people who have applied for H-1B visas in recent years would be denied under the new rules,” per Acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli. The administration claims the changes are needed amid job losses caused by the pandemic, but as we’ve noted before, reducing skilled foreign workers may actually backfire and slow the economy’s expansion: “The H-1B program was created under President George H.W. Bush to help companies fill specialized jobs as the tech sector began to boom,” Fox writes. “Many companies insist they still need the program to fill critical positions.”

STUCK – Some Cuban asylum seekers like Dionel Perez-Hernandez have been stuck in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody for more than a year because the agency failed to send them home before Cuba shut its borders due to the pandemic, Ben Schamisso reports for Newsy. More than 1,800 Cubans in detention — 58% of whom have deportation orders — currently face overcrowding and an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. “I thought that in the U.S., there was democracy, rights and humanity,” said Perez-Hernandez, who worries about his health. “But I realize that it's all a lie. This is just like Cuba.” According to a draft report obtained by Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed News, DHS officials also admitted that the transfer of detainees has contributed to COVID-19 outbreaks across ICE facilities. An unnamed former official corroborated the report, claiming that the report “is incredibly consistent in reflecting long-standing issues of ICE detainee management and medical care that have only been exacerbated by a pandemic.”

‘WHO WE REALLY ARE’ – More from Hamed Aleaziz at BuzzFeed News: U.S. refugee officers are expressing dismay and alarm over the long-term effects of the Trump administration’s recent decision to set a record-low cap for refugee resettlement in fiscal year 2021. Aleaziz notes that Muslims seeking safety are especially affected by Trump’s immigration policies, leaving refugee officers “actively [hoping] they don’t get assigned cases of individuals seeking protection who are from the Middle East.” Said one refugee officer: “I look at the systematic dismantling of the refugee program in America and I have to ask myself: Is this, what’s happening now, who we really are?”

COST OF CITIZENSHIP DENIED – Lost in the daily deluge of news is the fact that approximately 11 million people are currently living in the United States without legal status, contributing and surviving. The Emerson Collective’s Marshall Fitz is out with a series of papers looking at the social and economic cost of denying citizenship to this population. The papers delve into the country’s enforcement-only immigration approach, the essential workforce, scapegoating, access to healthcare and protecting DACA recipients. Worthy of your time.


Thanks for reading,

Ali