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].

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."

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