NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

In a "death blow" to the U.S. asylum system, the Trump administration
yesterday finalized a regulation

that "would bar huge swaths of asylum seekers from obtaining protection,
including those who face persecution on the basis of gender and
resistance to gang recruitment, and as victims of criminal coercion,"
Vox
's
Nicole Narea reports. "Those targeted by international criminal gangs
like MS-13 will therefore likely face a much narrower path to asylum
under the rule."

The regulation - set to take effect just nine days before the
President-elect Biden takes office - will allow immigration officials
to throw out asylum applications without hearings and "also refuse
asylum to anyone coming from a country other than Canada or Mexico, who
does not arrive on a direct flight to the US, who has resided in the US
for more than one year, or who has failed to pay taxes, among other
provisions."

In the final weeks before Inauguration Day, the Trump administration is
expected to seek to impose further barriers to asylum seekers and
foreign workers - and potentially end birthright citizenship, Narea
reports, complicating immigration matters for the incoming Biden
administration.

Not a lot of great news below, so spend a minute reading

about how 20,000 students from 75 countries "researched, debated and
drafted 'resolutions' tackling issues such as climate-induced
displacement, toxic narratives about refugees, and the inclusion of
refugees in economies and educational systems of host countries" as part
of the Model UN Refugee Challenge. That is promising.

Welcome to Friday'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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**'NO CHOICE'** - After Hurricanes Eta and Iota struck Honduras
last month just two weeks apart, destroying homes and crops and killing
about 100 people, a few hundred Hondurans have formed a caravan headed
for the U.S. in what will be "a fresh challenge to efforts to stem
illegal immigration from Central America on the cusp of a new U.S.
administration," Jose Cabezas reports for Reuters
.
"Mostly younger migrants with backpacks and some women carrying children
left the northern city of San Pedro Sula on foot for the Guatemalan
border after calls went out on social media to organize a caravan to the
United States." An unidentified man in the caravan told Honduran
television: "We lost everything, we have no choice but to go to the
United States."

**'COMPASSION'** - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
is set to deport a Guatemalan immigrant and domestic violence survivor,
Daris Bartolon, and her two daughters after an immigration judge in
Detroit denied her asylum request. Returning to Guatemala would leave
Bartolon's daughter, Maddeline, who was born with rickets, without the
medical care she needs, Niraj Warikoo reports for the Detroit Free
Press
.
Their story has brought out Catholic advocates in Michigan to pray and
protest their deportation while their attorney works to convince ICE to
let the family stay another year. "There is no question that this family
has been through so much already and yet they are here pleading to the
U.S. government for compassion," U.S. Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Michigan)
said. "The family deserves to be here to continue the medical treatment
they are receiving at Shriners Hospital."

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**'MISTRUST' **- As the country anxiously awaits the approval of
a vaccine for COVID-19, some people, especially those in Latino and
Black communities where trust in the government is low, are hesitant to
take it as soon as it becomes available, report Ian Duncan and Arelis R.
Hernández for The Washington Post
:
"A recent survey found that fewer than half of Black Americans and only
66 percent of Latinos would definitely or probably get vaccinated
."
Many Latinos cite the history of mistrust between the government and
immigrant populations, including just this year when hysterectomies were
allegedly performed on migrant women without their consent at a Georgia
detention facility. Oscar Torres, a construction worker in Dallas, has
taken it upon himself to be the messenger about the vaccine for his
community: "I get it. A vaccine is the most important thing we can do to
fight this pandemic. But...there is a lot of mistrust."

**VANDALISM **- Anti-Asian American sentiment continues to rise as
the pandemic rages across the country, manifesting itself in cities like
Santa Ana, just south of Los Angeles, where the Huong Tich Temple and
five other Buddhist temples in the area were vandalized just last month.
"15 of the temple's Buddha and bodhisattva statues had been
spray-painted. The word 'Jesus' in black letters had been emblazoned
down one statue's back," writes Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil for Religion
News Service
.
Funie Hsu, a professor of American Studies at San Jose State University,
said that for Asian Americans, religion has long been a "barrier to
their acceptance" in the U.S., and Buddha statues in particular often
serve as "a punching bag for any form of animosity people are feeling
against Asians."

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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