NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

The outgoing Trump administration is moving at breakneck speed to
complete as much of the president's border wall in his final weeks in
office as possible, aiming to meet the 450-mile benchmark he pledged at
the start of his term. While President-elect Biden is "promising open
doors for immigrants and refugees - and says he'll stop building the
border wall," Heather Sells writes for CBN News
,
the "pace at which construction is continuing all but assures that the
wall, whatever Mr. Biden decides to do, is here to stay for the
foreseeable future, establishing a contentious legacy for Mr. Trump in
places that were crucial to his defeat," per Simon Romero and Zolan
Kanno-Youngs at The New York Times
.

"While the president-elect has said he will halt new wall
construction, other immigration priorities
 like
ending travel bans, accepting more refugees and easing asylum
restrictions" - and finding a pathway to citizenship for the
nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants - may take precedence,
Romero and Kanno-Youngs write. Meanwhile, Sells notes that the
"Evangelical Immigration Table ... is promoting one such plan
 -
a restitution-based concept that would support a pathway to legal
permanent residency for illegal immigrants."

Welcome to Monday'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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**WHO COUNTS** - Today, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on
President Trump's efforts to exclude undocumented residents when
counting state populations to determine congressional representation,
Robert Barnes and Tara Bahrampour report for The Washington Post
.
If the Court rules in the government's favor, meaning the president
has the authority to decide whether or not to count undocumented
immigrants in the census, it could change the congressional map
dramatically - not just for "blue" states with historically high
immigrant populations, but for "red" states too
.
Meanwhile, "opponents of [Trump's] plan say it is foreclosed by more
than 200 years of practice, the text of the Constitution and the
authority granted the president by Congress. Three lower courts have
ruled against Trump, and a fourth said the time was not ripe for a
decision on the question's merits."

**FINAL PUSH** - While President Trump makes a final push to restrict
immigration before January, President-elect Biden's transition team is
realizing the extent of the complexities in the administration's
actions on immigration. "Even changes that are ultimately up to the
president could face hurdles, including Biden's pledge to bring more
refugees to the United States. ... a change in actual arrivals would
require policy changes and new refugee interviews, according to a source
familiar with the process," Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands report
for CNN
.
Meanwhile, Anita Kumar at POLITICO

writes that "Trump's aides are showing signs of long-term planning.
... And they're launching some changes that can be enacted swiftly."
Among the changes? More restrictions to the H-1B high-skilled worker
visa program, lengthening the citizenship test, and allowing U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services more power in determining the fate
of immigration applications. As I told Anita, it's clear that the
Trump administration is using the transition to check off its list of
items to minimize immigration to the U.S.

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**NATURALIZATION OBSTACLES **- As we noted in the previous item, the
Trump administration recently revised the citizenship exam to make it
longer and more difficult. "More alarming, it injected politics into the
questions and answers," the Boston Globe
 Editorial
Board writes. Now, the pool of questions from which immigration
officials can pick to test an applicant is 128 - up from 100 - and
applicants must get 12 out of 20 correct to pass. "The shift to more
questions and procedures ... will slow down the naturalization process
and lead to an increased backlog of applications," said Aaron
Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council.
With wait times already reaching nine months to process citizenship
applications, I told the Globe that one Trump-era practice worth keeping
is the virtual oath ceremony, which would allow us to clear the final
hurdle more expediently. 

**BORDER CHILDREN** - According to a new federal court filing, U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) "held more than five dozen children,
some under the age of 1, in facilities along the US-Mexico border for
over three days during the last two months,"  Priscilla Alvarez reports
for CNN
.
The findings reveal that CBP is violating the Flores settlement
agreement
,
which requires children to be released from immigration detention within
three days. Meanwhile, the "wide-ranging new controls on immigration put
into place under the Trump administration have made it harder for
migrants of all kinds to cross the Southern border, but they have been
particularly difficult for pregnant women, who often arrive at the
border after arduous journeys, in a state of exhaustion," Lynsey Addario
reports in a photo essay for The New York Times
.

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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