While the nation’s attention was fixated on Tuesday’s election, Trump-appointed Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) officials on Monday voted to decertify the National Association of Immigration Judges, meaning the country’s federal immigration judges — approximately 470 in total — could lose their collective bargaining power.

Columnist Joe Davidson writes in The Washington Post: “Decertifying or busting a federal union is ‘a very rare thing,’ said Ernest DuBester, an authority member since 2009 and the only one supporting the union. … In his dissent, DuBester said the authority’s ‘facetious’ ruling was based on ‘sophistry’ and concluded ‘it is abundantly clear that the majority’s sole objective is to divest the [immigration judges] of their statutory rights.’”

Why is this important? Well, as Business Insider’s Charles Davis writes, “[t]he decision could enable the federal government to dismiss judges that fail to hew to its line on asylum-seekers and deportations, treating them as at-will employees and thus undermining their ability to exercise independence.

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].

Want to be a part of the conversation about what is next for immigration? Join us the week of Nov. 16 for our annual convening, Leading the Way: An American Approach to Immigration. 35 speakers, 13 panels, two hours a day, streaming to your screen for free. Register for Leading the Way here.

NET NEGATIVE – National election night polling released yesterday by Public Opinion Strategies (POS) shows that President Trump’s hardline immigration policies made a plurality of voters less likely to vote for him. FWD.us President Todd Schulte breaks down the poll’s findings on Twitter: “The issue was a significant net negative among both Independents (27% more likely/48% less likely) and Democrats (4% more likely/76% less likely). Further, it was a significant net negative among suburban women (27% more likely/52% less likely).” You can find the POS memo here.

LATINO VOTERS – With Election Day results gradually becoming clearer, political operatives continue to reflect on how Trump captured an impressive level of support from Latino voters in key states like Florida and Texas. In the case of Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, Juan Carlos Huerta, a professor of political science at Texas A&M University Corpus Christi, “said that the gap between Latinos and Latinas, disinformation campaigns and an increasing percentage of evangelical Protestants all likely played a role in how this group voted. He also cited the fact that the U.S. Border Patrol has provided Latinos in the area with good-paying jobs, perhaps blunting the outrage for some over Trump’s harsh rhetoric over illegal immigration,” Brittny Mejia report for the Los Angeles Times.
KEY WITNESSES – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is attempting to deport potential key witnesses before they are able to testify in the congressional investigation of forced and unneeded gynecologic procedures at a Georgia immigration facility, report Gianna Toboni, Ana Sebescen and Nicole Bozorgmir for Vice News. One of the witnesses, Ana Cajigal Adan, was set to be deported to Mexico before Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia) stopped the order. “People who may be willing to speak up and speak out about what they suffered and to provide medical records about what they suffered are seeing what happens when you speak out when you make your name known,” said Andrew Free, an attorney involved in the case. “They’re thinking, ‘Is this going to be something that could affect my deportation case? Is this something that could lead me to be permanently separated from my children?’”
MOVED TO TEARS – “Last Week Tonight” host and British immigrant John Oliver was nearly moved to tears after voting for the first time on Tuesday, Laura Zornosa writes for the Los Angeles Times. “As an immigrant who had just got his citizenship in December of last year, I was waiting for that to feel real. When you worry about your immigration status all the time, even getting your passport still doesn’t feel real because you haven’t tested it against a system,” Oliver said on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He joins other famous immigrants like Ryan Reynolds, Gregg Sulkin and Claire Holt who all voted in the U.S. for the first time this year.

ONE-MAN ARMY – Sergio Garcia is a federal public defender for the Western District of Texas in El Paso. He was also the first lawyer in the country to take on a case related to President Trump’s “zero-tolerance” family separation policy back in November 2017, when he discovered the Justice Department and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) had “launched a secret five-month pilot project in El Paso to test family separation,” reports Melissa del Bosque at The Intercept. A Mexican immigrant himself, Garcia has since relentlessly pursued all available legal avenues to reunite families affected by the policy, arguing presciently before a judge in 2017: “If we allow the government to use these 1325 charges, they are rendering asylum and refugee law meaningless. Because these clients are going to plead guilty, they are going to be deported, and they are not guaranteeing to keep track of their children. We don’t know what’s going to happen. And that is terminating parental rights.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali