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]. 

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."

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