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].

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."

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