NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

In The Washington Post
,
columnist Greg Sargent points to President-elect Biden's ambitious
immigration agenda, reported this week by CBS News
,
and his selection of Ron Klain as his chief of staff. "All this suggests
that the Biden administration is not primarily viewing these reversals
as politically treacherous territory to be carefully tiptoed around,"
Sargent writes.

Most, if not all, of the proposed changes have bipartisan support, as we
outlined in our own immigration priorities framework

for the Biden administration. This is an opportunity for the
president-elect to strengthen his coalition.

We're coming up on our 1,000-person cap for next week's Leading the
Way  convening, so
register now

and join us from 3-5 p.m. ET daily from Nov. 16-19. You'll hear from
39 speakers across 13 conversations on the post-election path forward,
American identity amid polarization, the new economics of immigration
and more. 

Welcome to Friday'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]
.

[link removed]

**MULTIPLE ATTEMPTS**- President Trump's use of Title 42, a federal
public health act, to expel migrants to Mexico immediately after they
cross the border has led to an increase in repeated border crossing
attempts - fueling business for smugglers and leading to a greater
number of expulsions by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Laura
Gottesdiener and Sarah Kinosian report for Reuters
. Three men who
identified themselves as smugglers "told Reuters they save about $1,000
or more each time U.S. Border Patrol expels one of their Central
American clients at the Mexican border rather than returning them back
by plane to their home countries." If I had to summarize the Trump
administration's immigration policy over the last four years, it would
have to be Make Smugglers Great Again. Because without a comprehensive
approach to Central American migration, they are the only ones winning
here.

**"ONE SECOND CHANCE"**- Bounchan Keola, a 39-year-old immigrant from
Laos, was on the front lines of a major California wildfire last month
as an incarcerated firefighter - a dangerous and essential job that
resulted in a near-death injury, Sam Levin writes for The Guardian
.
Days later, California prison officials transferred Keola to U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, where he now faces
deportation to a country he left when he was 4. "Keola grew up a U.S.
permanent resident, and is the latest refugee to face deportation as a
result of California's controversial policy of transferring certain
foreign-born prisoners to [ICE] after they've completed their prison
sentences, a practice governor Gavin Newsom has supported." It's also
unclear whether Laos will accept Keola, a member of the Khmu ethnic
minority, as the country does not recognize the citizenship of Khmu
refugees. Said Keola: "All I know is I'm American. I've never
thought of myself not being a citizen. I'm just asking for that one
second chance."

**CATHOLIC HOSPITALITY** - For the last eight years, the Casa de Paz
hospitality house in Denver has helped ICE detainees who have been
released on parole or are awaiting asylum hearings by providing them
temporary shelter and helping make arrangements to return them to their
families or sponsors - help that's as critical as ever amid the
pandemic. "As of September, volunteers had donated more the 424,619
frequent flyer miles to help detainees reunite with their families or
sponsors," Jean Lotus writes in U.S. Catholic
.
During the pandemic, the program developed a pen pal and phone
visitation program which reaches a dozen detention centers nationwide.
Founder Sarah Jackson said, "The Bible warns against being lukewarm.
When you're not numb, when you can feel something, you can be enraged
and use that anger in a righteous way, to speak up and walk beside
immigrants, demanding better treatment for all."

[link removed]

**'LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR'** - Brooklyn Stephens, a volunteer with
Refugee Hope Partners in North Carolina, writes in Wake Weekly

[paywall] that her meeting with a Guatemalan immigrant at the border
helped her realize the importance of taking care of vulnerable refugees
from a faith perspective. "We have an idea as Christians, particularly
in America, that we have to stay committed to a certain political
ideology, depending on where we grew up or what those around us think.
But we have to go back and ask ourselves what has Jesus commanded. Which
is to align our hearts with His - to love God with everything in us
and to love our neighbor as ourselves. When we see another human being
as something other than a person made in the image of God - a person
with worth and dreams and a purpose - we have missed what's really
important."

**MORE NATURALIZATIONS** - Last year saw the highest number of green
card holders becoming U.S. citizens in over a decade, with more than
843,000 immigrants taking the Oath of Allegiance. Per Jo Craven McGinty
in The Wall Street Journal
:
"This year, the cost of becoming a naturalized citizen was expected to
nearly double in October - which might have motivated some green-card
holders to get their citizenship - but the proposed increase was
delayed after immigrant-rights organizations sued. It's also not
unusual for naturalization increases to occur near a presidential
election, [University of California, Berkeley sociologist Dr. Irene
Bloemraad] said, pointing to 'huge spikes' around the 1996, 2000 and
2008 elections."

**MEXICAN REFORMS** - As of Wednesday, the Mexican government is
prohibiting its federal officials from keeping children in immigrant
detention facilities, Christopher Sherman with the Associated Press

reports. "Under the changes, Mexico shifts responsibility for housing
child migrants and their families to the country's family development
agency and away from the National Immigration Institute, which is
responsible for immigration enforcement and runs the detention centers."
Last year, Mexico detained more than 50,000 migrant children, mostly
from Honduras and Guatemala.

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

DONATE

 

**Follow Us**

 

[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]

 

 

 

The

**Only in America** podcast brings you to the people behind our
nation's immigration debate.

 

Listen now on:

 

**iTunes**
,
**Stitcher**
,
**Spotify** ,
and **more.**

 

 

National Immigration Forum

50 F Street NW, Suite 300

Washington, DC 20001

www.immigrationforum.org

 

Unsubscribe from Noorani's Notes
or opt-out from all Forum emails.

 

                                               
           
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

National Immigration Forum, 50 F Street NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20001, United States