With just 26 days until the election, the Trump campaign is returning to its 2016 playbook of mobilizing voters around their immigration concerns — but this time, the campaign has the Department of Homeland Security at its disposal. Ben Fox and Elliot Spagat at the Associated Press point to the administration’s recent string of immigration announcements, as well as a press conference on a “routine and relatively minor” enforcement operation held yesterday by acting secretary Chad Wolf that “had the ingredients of a President Donald Trump campaign speech: dangerous immigrants, attacks on Democrat-run cities, even a mention of ‘America First.’”

Meanwhile, after two debates, not one question about immigration.

Welcome to Thursday’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].

EVANGELICAL MOBILIZATION – The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and World Relief are calling on fellow Christians to engage in civic life ahead of the election, placing a full page ad in Tuesday’s Washington Post, reports  Adelle M. Banks for Religion News Service. “We have not always fulfilled God’s command to protect the immigrant, the refugee and the poor, and we have not always treated those who hold different opinions — both inside and outside of the faith — with dignity,” said Scott Arbeiter, president of World Relief. NAE President Walter Kim also penned an op-ed for Christianity Today, writing: “We are in a season in which the evangelical faith is being narrowly defined and misunderstood by many, with long-term ramifications for our gospel witness.”

SERVICE MEMBER BARRED – Army Pfc. Fadel Tankoano, an Army soldier born in Manhattan and currently on assignment in South Korea, could be barred from reentering the country “in a dispute over his legal status stemming from his birth in New York while his father was a foreign diplomat there,” Alex Horton writes in The Washington Post. The State Department argues that because Tankoano’s father was a Nigerien diplomat and not subject to U.S. laws, Tankoano is not entitled to birthright citizenship. “Tankoano, 22, said he thought he was a dual citizen of Niger and the United States, pointing to the U.S. passport he was issued as a toddler and a birth certificate from a Manhattan hospital.” Nevertheless, U.S. Customs and Border Protection may not allow this service member to return to the U.S.

A VETERAN’S DILEMMA – In a piece available in both English and Spanish, David C. Adams at Univision dives into the story of Jose ‘Joe’ Cervera, a Vietnam veteran, father of two and engaged voter who spent more than 50 years under the impression that he was an American citizen — only to find out after his mother died that he was actually adopted from Cuba. Facing ongoing legal battles for his citizenship, Cervera points out that “[n]on-citizens like me have served in the armed forces during peace and war time with many giving their lives in service to this country since its inception. Surprisingly there are many non-citizen veterans in similar cases like mine that thought they were citizens and have been denied citizenship, stuck in limbo and in many cases have been deported back to their native country.” 

NO MORE DEATHS – U.S. Border Patrol agents raided Byrd Camp, a humanitarian aid camp in Tucson, Arizona, Monday for the second time in three months. Agents arrested 12 undocumented immigrants and apprehended seven volunteers, who were subsequently released, claiming the camp was “harboring illegal aliens with unknown health status,” Rafael Carranza reports for the Arizona Republic. Jack Jenkins explains in Religion News Service that the camp “is run by No More Deaths/No Más Muertes, a humanitarian organization founded in 2004 by a partnership of community and faith groups to ‘stop the deaths of migrants in the desert.’ The group is an official ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson.” Though Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector claimed COVID-19 was the reason for the arrests, it’s unclear whether the immigrants have tested positive for the virus or have been expelled under emergency rules.

VOTE OF CONSCIENCE – In this week’s episode of our Vote of Conscience series for “Only in America,” I chat with Greisa Martinez Rosas, executive director at United We Dream, the largest immigrant-led youth network in the country. We talked about how marginalized communities are leveraging their collective power this election season — even if they can’t vote themselves.

Thanks for reading,

Ali