More than one million cases are now backlogged in immigration courts across the country, according to the latest data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Michelle Hackman in The Wall Street Journal reports that the number “has nearly doubled since President Trump took office in January 2017, when about 542,000 cases were pending.”

In celebration of Citizenship Day, our “Only in America” episode this week features Valdeta Mehanja, a MAVNI program recruit and Army Black Hawk pilot-in-training who is currently serving in the Alabama National Guard. Originally from Kosovo, Val spent time in German refugee camps before working as a military contractor for the U.S., where she realized her passion for military service. Val is a remarkable person from a remarkable family.

Welcome to Thursday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes.

Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

SINCE WORLD WAR II – In the latest piece for the Associated Press’s “Outsourcing Migrants” series, Cedar Attanasio and Tim Sullivan report on life in a Mexican border shelter called “El Buen Pastor” — home to a diverse array of around 130 refugees turned away from the entering the U.S. “For the first time since World War II, the U.S. government is turning away thousands of asylum seekers regardless of their need for refuge.” In spite of heroic efforts by the shelter’s pastor and his team, “Daily life is marked by brutal summer heat, occasional dust storms, crushing boredom and the guilt of mothers who can’t afford dinner for their children.” I visited El Buen Pastor last week. It is a place of both hope and sadness.

WORLD WAR II LEGACY – As the Trump administration weighs refugee admissions for 2020, Patricia Hatch, a former program manager at the Maryland Office for Refugees and Asylees, writes in an op-ed for The Baltimore Sun that the very existence of the federal refugee resettlement program may be at risk. “If the ceiling is set at last year’s level or lower, the infrastructure for serving refugees [and Special Immigrant Visa holders] is very likely to collapse.” Southern Baptist minister Alan Cross explains in Providence Magazine the impact on the faith community: “A 70-plus-year-old post-World War II legacy — involving thousands of churches and faith-based and community organizations and non-profits who have held out hope, love, and welcome to the persecuted and rejected victims of abuse and violence from around the world — could essentially be coming to an end.”

DIRE OUTCOMES – U.S. Defense Department budget requests reveal that Pentagon officials have warned of “dire outcomes” if Congress does not pay for the military construction projects that have been cancelled as a result of redirected funding for the border wall, Aaron Gregg and Erica Werner report for The Washington Post. “[The warnings] include potentially hazardous living conditions for troops and their families, as well as unsafe schools that would impede learning. In numerous cases, the Defense Department warned that lives would be put at risk if buildings don’t meet the military’s standards for fire safety or management of explosives.”

INCENTIVIZING – Breaking down the root causes of the current immigration crisis, the American Action Forum’s Jackie Varas argues in The Ripon Forum that the very limited number of work visas the U.S. awards each year “makes it nearly impossible for individuals who want to move to the United States for work to legally do so — even if they are qualified to contribute to the economy — incentivizing unauthorized border crossings.”

“MORALLY QUESTIONABLE” – Francisco Verona, a former Cuban political prisoner who was freed and brought to the U.S. by the Carter Administration in 1979, is now being denied citizenship after 40 years in U.S., writes Fabiola Santiago in the Miami Herald. “The reason given in the denial letter: His activities against the government in Cuba and his jail time in 1961, 1966, and 1972 make him morally questionable. And Verona couldn’t provide the ‘criminal records and court dispositions’ immigration officials needed for him to prove otherwise from the government that jailed him.” Cuba doesn’t provide documentation of their political prisoners? Strange.

“I FEEL MORE FREE…” – Refugee Nasir Zakaria, one of thousands of persecuted Rohingya people not recognized by the nation of Myanmar, reflects on his long road to naturalization — and what it means to be a recognized citizen of any nation for the first time — in a PRI piece from Tania Karas. Zakaria, founder of Chicago’s Rohingya Cultural Center tells Karas that “Our country, they keep us out and they kill us, so we don’t have any rights … That’s why American citizenship is so important. It’s powerful. You have freedom of religion here. In this country, I feel more free than ever before.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali