In an interview with Lester Holt of NBC News yesterday, President-elect Joe Biden pledged he will "send an immigration bill to the United States Senate with a pathway to citizenship for over 11 million undocumented people in America" within his first 100 days in office. Yet as Daniella Silva writes for NBC, fully undoing President Trump’s legacy on immigration could prove to take longer: "Three people involved in crafting Biden’s immigration platform have told NBC News that the changes will be hard fought and that they may not happen all at once." Among the changes a Biden administration may be able to accomplish quickly? Reinstating and expanding protections for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and returning to Obama-era immigration enforcement priorities, according to Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute.

But as Sabrina Rodriguez points out in Politico Pro [paywall], advocates hope Biden will improve the Obama administration’s policies and learn from its mistakes while also contending with a likely divided Congress. Kerri Talbot, director of federal advocacy for the Immigration Hub, predicts that immigration "will remain a big focus of a Biden administration. For starters, he’ll have to undo a lot of what Trump did. And lessons from the Obama era will position Biden to pursue ‘more humane and smarter priorities.’"

Earlier this month, the Forum recommended a list of immigration priorities for the Biden administration’s first 100 days, all of them with bipartisan backing. "Sustainable immigration reform that doesn’t further divide our country can only occur if the effort is bipartisan," our policy team notes. "A working immigration system can help unite our country through our common patriotism and American identity."

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].

SAYING THANKS – While Thanksgiving may look different this year, at least one thing will remain unchanged: Migrant farmworkers continue to ensure that food reaches our tables. They’re doing essential work in spite of the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on them and continued hostility from the Trump administration, which earlier this month moved to freeze the wages of H-2A workers for the next two years at their current pay, per NPR’s Dan Charles. The administration estimates that change will yield workers $170 million less in wages annually. So, if you’re digging into the turkey and mash tomorrow, I hope you’ll join me in saying thanks to these essential workers who are helping feed us at a great personal cost. Hopefully we can soon give our thanks in a more concrete way: prioritizing farmworkers for a COVID-19 vaccine.

PATTERN OF DISCRIMINATION – Two Latina women who were detained and questioned by a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officer in Havre, Montana, after being overheard speaking Spanish in a store have reached a settlement in their racial discrimination lawsuit, Traci Rosenbaum reports for the Great Falls Tribune. "The ACLU said Ana Suda and Martha ‘Mimi’ Hernandez, two American citizens, were shopping in a Havre convenience store in May 2018 when CBP Agent Paul O'Neill approached them. O'Neill commented on Hernandez's accent and asked where both women were born. When they responded with their American places of birth, O'Neill requested identification and they presented their valid Montana driver's licenses. … Although O'Neill had no indication that they broke the law, he detained Suda and Hernandez for 40 minutes in the parking lot." The lawsuit revealed that "local CBP agents have long engaged in a pattern of similar behavior toward Latinx individuals," including "routinely profiling non-white individuals." 

‘ABSOLUTELY STUNNING’ –  A new study from Anne Roder and Mark Elliott at the Economic Mobility Corp shows that employment-focused English language instruction netted significant earnings gains for immigrants, Katie Johnston reports for The Boston Globe. "Unemployed residents with prior U.S. work experience who enrolled in an employment-focused English course boosted their earnings by an average of more than $7,100 annually two years after starting the program, compared with unemployed non-English speakers who weren’t in the program. Among all participants, including those who started out with jobs, the average annual increase during the second year was more than $2,600." The study’s findings, which Elliott called "absolutely stunning," track with the Forum’s English at Work effort through the New American Workforce, offering industry-contextualized English language training at worksites. 

‘MAKE AMENDS’ – When Leticia and her son Yovany fled Guatemala for the U.S. amid gang threats and violence in November 2017, they were optimistic: "We were a little happy because we thought that the fear we felt had been left behind and that once we were in this country, they could no longer harm us," Leticia said. But as Catherine Rampbell writes for The Washington Post, the pair were promptly separated as part of the pilot for the Trump administration’s "zero-tolerance" policy at the border in El Paso, Texas. Leticia relinquished her asylum claim after seven months and was deported to Guatemala in hopes she could position her son for release from the shelter for unaccompanied children that the government placed him in. Nearly two years later, "a judge found that Leticia had been coerced into giving up her asylum claim and ordered that she be allowed back into the United States." Leticia is one of only about 20 parents who have been allowed back in the U.S. among the thousands separated from their children. Now, she’s fighting for other parents, hoping that an incoming Biden administration will "make amends for [past] mistakes."

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and stay safe,

Ali