Some good news to end the week: “The Trump administration reversed itself Thursday and said it will again allow immigrants who are facing serious illnesses to remain in the U.S. to get medical care without fear of deportation,” Monique O. Madan reports in the Miami Herald. The fact that the administration even discussed deporting people who are facing illnesses speaks to the moment we’re living through.
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HIGH-SKILL BLOCKAGE – Legislation that would have eliminated per-country caps on employment-based green cards and would have “effectively [opened] the door to more high-skilled immigrants from India and China,” has been blocked in the Senate, reports Nicole Narea in Vox. Senator David Perdue (R-Georgia) blocked the bill, a similar version of which passed the House in July with 365 in favor and 65 against. What this tells us: “Even in the GOP, consensus on reform to legal immigration appears out of reach.”
POULTRY CAPITAL – The Hispanic population of Gainesville, Georgia, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta, has doubled since 2000, driving growth in the region’s poultry industry. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jeremy Redmon reports from the “Poultry Capital of the World” on the complexities of a city wholly dependent on immigrant labor, documented or not, and the role of local law enforcement. John Hulsey, who voted for Trump in 2016 and supports the president’s border wall, said his Latino employees are “hard workers … I could not run my business without them.” Tom Hensley, president of Baldwin-based Fieldale Farms, a major poultry company, told Redmon, “The poultry industry is significantly understaffed…partly because of the physically taxing work, low unemployment and fear surrounding the Trump administration’s [immigration] clampdown.”
CREDIBLE FEAR – Border Patrol agents – not asylum officers – are starting to screen migrant families for “credible fear” to determine whether applicants can receive U.S. protection, Molly O’Toole reports in the Los Angeles Times. “Border Patrol agents began training to conduct asylum interviews in late April, but agents have now deployed to family detention facilities for the first time.” We don’t yet know how this has or will impact approval rates, “but internal communications and other official documents obtained by The Times indicate early problems with the program.”
BORDER CONSTRUCTION – The Department of the Interior is transferring 560 acres of land along the U.S.-Mexico border to the U.S. Army to assist in border wall construction, per Gregory Wallace and Paul LeBlanc at CNN. While the Trump administration repeatedly said that Mexico would foot the bill, the Department of Defense is “diverting an estimated $3.6 billion in military construction funds to help build the wall.” Meanwhile, Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey report in the Washington Post that planning documents they obtained “show the cost of building 509 miles of barriers averages out to more than $36 million per mile. The documents also show that the government would need to obtain — either by eminent-domain claims or purchases — land that lies under nearly 200 miles of proposed barrier.”
UTAH – Salt Lake City’s police chief signed onto a Law Enforcement Immigrant Task Force letter “asserting that local police want to protect, not deport, undocumented immigrants,” reports Scott D. Pierce in the Salt Lake Tribune. 56 law-enforcement officials have signed on to the letter which tells “immigrants that local police ‘need your trust’ and ‘want you to feel safe … and comfortable calling law enforcement to report crimes, serving as witnesses, and asking for help in emergencies.’”
HOSTING HOPE – Immigrant aid groups are receiving an influx of applications from Americans wanting to support or host families and individuals coming across the southern border, Claudia Torrens and Gisela Salomon report in the Associated Press. According to the Asylum Seekers Sponsorship Project, volunteer numbers increased from 100 to 2,000 in just one year. These volunteers represent a small yet “growing number of U.S. citizens who have picked up immigrants from detention centers, driven them to bus stations and doctor appointments, shared meals with them or hosted them at their homes, sometimes for one night, sometimes for a full year.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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