NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Democratic and Republican lawmakers are looking to immigration reform as
a potential area for bipartisan cooperation under the incoming Biden
administration, Jordain Carney reports in The Hill
.
Regardless of the outcomes of the Georgia runoff Senate races, both
parties will be well under the 60 votes necessary to pass a deal. Key
Senate Republicans are speaking out: John Cornyn of Texas said he would
"try to be part of that effort" should it come up, while South
Carolina's Lindsey Graham expressed his willingness to work with the
new administration "in ways to make the country stronger."

Let's see what House Administration Committee Chair Zoe Lofgren
(D-California) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) have to say during their
#LTW2020
conversation tomorrow afternoon.

Today at Leading the Way
, we'll hear from
Mayor Dee Margo of El Paso, Texas; Mayor Marvin Rees of Bristol, United
Kingdom; the presidents of both Arizona State University and Trevecca
Nazarene University; John R. Tyson; Jay Timmons and more. While you
register for free
,
check out our preview of today's program
.

As we think about the Central American families impacted by Hurricane
Iota, welcome to Wednesday'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]
. 

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**RELIEF**-

****Immigrants across the country are hopeful that the results of the
2020 election will mean the end of the "atmosphere of terror" they've
faced over the past four years, reports Joel Rose at NPR
.
In the Atlanta suburbs of Georgia's Gwinnett County - which appear
to have helped flip the state from red to blue - thousands of
immigrants have been "deported for minor offenses, advocates say,
because of close ties between county jails and immigration authorities."
Now, Sheriff-elect Keybo Taylor is seeking to reassure residents: "I'm
the sheriff of Gwinnett County for everybody, regardless of your race,
regardless of your gender, regardless of your immigration status." The
incoming Biden administration has said it plans to rein in U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the federal level, and it
will have help from down-ballot winners. "On the local level, a number
of sheriffs known for their hardline immigration stances retired or lost
their reelection bids," Rose writes.

**460**

**%**-

****COVID-19 cases spread rapidly through ICE detention centers in
Arizona due to negligence and inaction by the agency, Jerod
MacDonald-Evoy reports for The Arizona Mirror
.
Despite a 460% spike in cases

at the Eloy Detention Center in June, testing was only expanded at
another facility, La Palma, in August - when a 189% spike was
detected. "People with COVID-19 are treated with water and Tylenol. They
don't test people for COVID-19 even if you have symptoms, they only
take your temperature," a group of Cuban asylum seekers at the Eloy
facility wrote in an August letter. "The medics and guards say it is not
their fault if we catch the virus; they say we are strong and healthy
and we can tolerate the virus."

**"BOUNCE BACK"** - Recent news of promising COVID-19 vaccine trials
from Moderna as well as Pfizer and BioNTech - all companies founded or
led in part by immigrants - illustrate why immigration is essential,
Philippe Legrain writes in Foreign Policy
.
Businesses founded by immigrants, like Zoom and DoorDash, have boomed
during the pandemic, he notes, while skilled and unskilled immigrant
workers alike - from hospitals to grocery stores - have kept
communities and countries running. "After decades in which ever more
people have been on the move around the world, this year immigration has
ground to a halt, while many migrants have gone home," Legrain writes.
"But with the help of vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and others,
economies are likely to bounce back in 2021 and with them the demand for
migration."

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**REVERSAL** - As we noted yesterday, the Trump administration is
continuing to seek permits and build out the southern border wall in its
final months. Yet as Sandra Sanchez writes in Border Report
,
the government met a stumbling block Friday when nonprofit The Valley
Land Fund declined to sell the Salineño Wildlife Preserve in Starr
County, Texas - a birding preserve that was set to be sold to the
Trump administration for border wall construction - "despite the
organization having already agreed on a 'set price' with the federal
government." Said Debralee Rodriguez, the nonprofit's executive
director, of the decision: "With the outcry of the community, the
flooding of information coming into our office, the board of directors
called an emergency meeting and discussed this and decided that we would
walk away from any deal that was being presented to us." Birders
contribute an estimated $463 million to the local economy in the Rio
Grande Valley each year, per a 2011 study

from Texas A&M University.

**FULL-SCALE CRISIS** - Thousands of people are fleeing violence in
Ethiopia's Tigray region, creating a "full-scale humanitarian crisis"
in the Horn of Africa, CNN
's
Eoin McSweeney reports. Per the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR),
nearly 4,000 people

**a day** have crossed the border into eastern Sudan since November 10,
totaling more than 27,000 people. "Across the border in Sudan, refugees
from Tigray are arriving exhausted and with few belongings, said the
UNHCR. In the border town of Hamdayet, clean water is available and
latrines are being built but the agency says it is concerned about
hygiene conditions as thousands more people continue to arrive on a
daily basis."

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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