NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

We learned this morning that White House adviser Stephen Miller stopped
a multi-million dollar Justice Department settlement that would have
provided critical mental health services for families who had been
separated at the border by U.S. officials, report Jacob Soboroff, Julia
Ainsley and Geoff Bennett for NBC News
.

Amy Lally, a lawyer representing the separated families, said she was
"extremely frustrated when the settlement fell apart ... When the
settlement failed to get approval, my first thought was of the lost
time. The months spent negotiating the proposed settlement were months
that mothers and children and families continued to suffer, without
redress, from the trauma imposed by the government."

Today is the final day of Leading the Way 2020
, featuring
conversations with Republican and Democratic lawmakers at the state and
federal level. From Nebraska and Idaho to Nevada and California, it is
great to see the spirit of compromise. And, our last panel digs into
issues of racial justice and immigration with corporate and evangelical
leaders. Check out our preview of today's conversations
and
register for free here
.

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]
.

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**DEBTS TO PAY**-

****Minors fleeing violence and poverty in Central America arrive in the
U.S. with debts to pay - and as Melissa Sanchez reports for ProPublica
,
many of those debts are paid by working in dangerous jobs. "Labor
advocates say they've long heard whispers about child labor, but
whenever they try to dig deeper, nobody wants to talk." The complicated
reality is that even though many suffer injuries on the job, "[i]t's
an open secret no one wants exposed, least of all the teenagers doing
the work." All while these young people are trying to further their
education.

**WIN FOR CHILDREN** - In a major decision yesterday, Judge Emmet
Sullivan of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled
that the government cannot use COVID-19 restrictions to expel migrant
children and must instead allow minors to seek refuge in government-run
shelters while they await their immigration hearings, Camilo
Montoya-Galvez reports for CBS News
.
"[Sullivan] said the public health law cited by the Trump administration
does not authorize expulsions, reaching the same conclusions made by two
other federal judges who have reviewed the policy. He also rejected the
Justice Department's argument that public health law overrides the legal
protections Congress created for migrant children during a pandemic." As
a reminder, the Trump administration has issued at least 48
immigration-related policy changes - and we're keeping a running
list
.

**DEFICIENCIES**- A report
from
the Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General Joseph Cuffari
has found that "outdated IT systems not properly integrated between
departments" hampered the agency's efforts to track migrant families
detained and separated at the border, David Uberti reports for The Wall
Street Journal
.
"Because of these IT deficiencies, we could not confirm the total number
of families DHS separated during the Zero Tolerance period," Cuffari
wrote. "Without the ability to track and share data on family
separations and reunifications, CBP adopted various ad hoc methods to
work around system limitations, but these methods led to widespread
errors." Such methods, he noted, cost "roughly 28,000 man-hours from
Border Patrol agents and $1.2 million in overtime pay."

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**LATINOS FOR TRUMP** - We're continuing to see just how much our
media and political circles have misunderstood the complexities of the
Latino electorate. In the state of Massachusetts, where Joe Biden won
the overwhelming majority of both the Latino and overall vote, President
Trump still gained Latino support in several key cities with large
Latino populations by appealing to the evangelical and anti-socialist
attitudes of many, report Tibisay Zea and Simón Rios for WBUR
. 
Meanwhile in South Texas, Jack Herrera profiles the Tejano community for
Politico Magazine
:
"In the end, Trump's success in peeling off Latino votes in South
Texas had everything to do with not talking to them as Latinos. His
campaign spoke to them as Tejanos, who may be traditionally Democratic
but have a set of specific concerns-among them, the oil and gas
industry, gun rights and even abortion-amenable to the Republican
Party's positions, and it resonated."

**ROLE OF THE CHURCH**- The incoming Biden administration's plan to
raise the annual refugee admissions cap to 125,000 - a 956% increase
from the number admitted during the last fiscal year (FY)

- presents a "tremendous opportunity" for churches across the country
to help with resettlements, writes Matthew Soerens, U.S. Director of
Church Mobilization & Advocacy for World Relief, in an op-ed for
Christianity Today
.
"[T]he infrastructure for integrating refugees into local communities
throughout the U.S. has been decimated," Soerens writes, noting that
World Relief resettled 8,352 refugees in FY 2016 but just 1,217 in FY
2020 and was forced to shutter eight locations due to low funding. He
concludes that Christians can play a leading role in this new era by
holding the next administration and Congress accountable, and by
forming financial partnerships with organizations like World Relief that
will be rapidly scaling up capacity to meet the high demand for
resettlements.

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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