NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

In the month of October, the number of unaccompanied migrant children
apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border jumped to 4,630 - compared to
just 712 in April of this year, Alicia A. Caldwell and Michelle Hackman
report for The Wall Street Journal
.

Yes, the Biden administration is likely to face a significant challenge
on the border - but the lack of planning and readiness by the current
administration will exacerbate the situation. In a federal lawsuit,
acting U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Mark Morgan
seemed to outline the extent of the Trump administration's response in
his defense of the administration's policy of quickly expelling these
children without allowing them to seek refuge: "He said child migrants
weren't following Covid-19 safety procedures as instructed by agents."

Jennifer Podkul, vice president for policy and advocacy at Kids in Need
of Defense, told the Journal that while it may be difficult for
President-elect Biden to get rid of the Trump administration's border
policy entirely, he could argue that "children, families should be
considered exempt [from Article 42 provisions] under a humanitarian
exemption."

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]
.

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**DENYING ASSISTANCE**- U.S. District Court Judge Dominic W. Lanza
yesterday ruled that the City of Phoenix cannot deny immigrants without
"qualified immigration status" - including DACA recipients - from
receiving pandemic-related housing financial assistance from a federally
funded program, reports Josh Kelety in the Phoenix New Times
.
"The city had used the 'qualified immigration status' definition
featured in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 to judge who was eligible for the
program ... Judge Lanza noted in his order that the city acknowledged
that it would 'comply with the judgement.'"

**XU'S SUCCESS** - DoorDash launched its IPO on Wednesday, valued at
$32 billion - but founder Tony Xu credits the hard work of his
immigrant parents, who brought the family to the U.S. from China in
1989, for getting him here. "Xu's parents took jobs working in a local
restaurant despite the fact that Xu's mother had been a doctor in
China (the U.S. did not recognize her medical license) and his father
was also a graduate student studying aeronautical engineering and
applied math at the University of Illinois," writes Tom Huddleston Jr.
for CNBC
.
"DoorDash exists today to empower those like my Mom who came here with a
dream to make it on their own," wrote Xu in a letter to the SEC. 

**"VISAS THEY DON'T NEED"** - Drawing from his experience in the
U.S. Foreign Service, including as an immigrant visa officer, Andrew
Moore writes in a Politico

opinion piece about how the six-month restriction on U.S. "nonimmigrant"
visas is leading people to apply for immigrant visas and add the growing
visa backlog - even when they have no intention of staying in the
country permanently. "Perhaps the most common case was a grandmother who
wanted to spend a year in the United States to help care for her
grandchildren before returning to her family in Pakistan. ... Rather
than encourage people to apply for immigrant visas they do not need,
several other countries, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand,
have all adopted hybrid visa categories melding aspects of both
immigrant and nonimmigrant visas exactly for these parent and
grandparent applicants. The United States should do the same."

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**TIGRAY**-

****45,000 refugees have fled the Tigray region of Ethiopia to cross
into neighboring Sudan, write a team of reporters at CNN
.
Amid a government-endorsed communications blackout, the CNN team at the
Sudan-Ethiopia border "spent days gathering testimony from refugees who
say they were targeted because of their Tigray ethnicity." Across each
of the interviews the team conducted, refugees "described how the
Ethiopian army enters a town and tells civilians that they are safe.
Then the Ethiopian soldiers leave, and other armed groups arrive." In
addition to a growing refugee crisis, diplomats based in the region fear
the conflict "could descend into ethnic cleansing."

**150**- This week, for our 150th episode

of "Only in America," we dive into the importance of mental health care
in the U.S. - in particular for immigrant youth. I talked with Luna
Greenstein, a senior content manager at the National Alliance on Mental
Illness , about personal stories

of immigrants' mental health experiences, and how by understanding
these stories, we can get a sense of the mental health challenges that
young immigrants may face more often than their peers. Thanks for
listening and sharing these past few years.

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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