A new study published yesterday by our friends at FWD.us found that more than two-thirds of undocumented immigrant workers currently serve in frontline jobs for industries considered essential amid the fight against COVID-19, Julia Ainsley at NBC News reports.

"Sixty-nine percent of undocumented immigrant workers have jobs deemed essential by the Department of Homeland Security, according to the study, which is based on the 2019 American Community Survey by the Census Bureau. The study also estimated that nearly one in five essential workers is an immigrant."

Speaking of new studies, Elizabeth Neumann, a senior advisor to the Forum who served as a national security expert at the Department of Homeland Security under the Trump administration, authored a new report to be released today. The report addresses the dismantling of the U.S. refugee program, the destabilizing impact of forced displacement, and the need to increase resettlement and address root causes of displacement. Neumann will join Terron Sims, a veteran and author specializing in national security, and Matthew Soerens, the U.S. director of church mobilization and advocacy for World Relief, for a live virtual panel today at noon ET to discuss the report’s findings. Contact Magen Wetmore for more information about the event.

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].

 32 CHILDREN – After U.S. Judge Emmet Sullivan blocked the Trump administration from expelling unaccompanied migrant children over alleged COVID-19 concerns last month, top U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials scrambled — but ultimately failed — to comply with the new order as 32 migrant children were flown to Guatemala City around the same time as the judge’s order, BuzzFeed News’ Hamed Aleaziz reports. When asked by colleagues for advice on handling the children in the wake of the ruling, ICE lawyer Adam Loiacono wrote: "[Office of the Principal Legal Advisor] strongly recommends that the T42 [the public health order the judge blocked] unaccompanied minors be returned on this flight and not deplane in Guatemala." Even so, ICE claimed personnel on the ground found out about the order "nearly 15 minutes after the children had been handed over to Guatemalan authorities. ICE officials there obtained contact information for the adults to whom the children were released in Guatemala."

2% – The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it has finalized an agreement with El Salvador to send asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border to the Central American country instead of allowing them to go through the asylum process in the U.S., Nick Miroff reports for The Washington Post. The administration reached similar agreements with Guatemala and Honduras last year, which have not proved effective. A report from Refugees International and Human Rights Watch found that "the United States sent nearly 1,000 asylum seekers [to Guatemala] between November 2019 and March 2020. Just 2 percent of the migrants who were returned to Guatemala applied to seek asylum there, with the rest apparently giving up and going home," Miroff writes.

‘OPEN ITS DOORS’ – After the fall of Saigon in 1975, Loc Van Le and his wife Kim Hue Nguyen fled Vietnam for the U.S. as refugees, eventually settling in Oklahoma City and starting their own restaurant, Jimmy’s Egg, which now has more than 60 locations across Oklahoma and seven other states. In a tribute to Le, who died of complications from COVID-19 last week, The Oklahoman Editorial Board highlights his story as "a reminder of the wonderful contributions refugees have made to this country," adding that "[t]his country needs to open its doors to more refugees, people like Loc Le who are longing simply for a chance to escape oppression and flourish in this great country." Meanwhile, in his latest column for Forbes, Stuart Anderson spotlights some of the most inspiring immigrants of 2020 who have been fighting on the frontlines during the pandemic — from the vaccine makers at Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna to the selfless doctors in hospitals across the country to Chef José Andrés and his team at World Central Kitchen. "From the creative minds of the vaccine makers to dedicated health care professionals and essential workers, in the year 2020, immigrants helped Americans to persevere," he writes.

LOCAL RESOURCES – On Tuesday, the Indianapolis Immigrant Welcome Center announced the launch of the Immigrant Welcome Center Connect, a database available in more than 150 languages that will "help the immigrant community and local organizations in Central Indiana find food, financial, healthcare and legal resources available," reports Natalia E. Contreras for the Indianapolis Star. According to a news release from the Center, "The calls [to the Center] indicated that immigrants and refugees were experiencing hardship from the pandemic at high rates, with 66% self-reporting a loss of income and 38% indicating a decrease in food access, it became clear that a database of this nature was of critical importance for the community."

MIGRANT YOUTH, SERBIA EDITION – In the season finale of "Only in America," we get a glimpse of the challenges migrant youth face in other parts of the world. I talked to Irena Abdelalem Abdelmaksoud, a protection officer who specializes in working with unaccompanied children at Info Park, a grassroots NGO in Belgrade, Serbia, that has been assisting refugees in the area since 2015. They provide urgent aid, psychological support, accommodation, information and other services for refugees across Belgrade, a major transit hub for refugees making the arduous journey to the European Union. Thank you to our friends at Church World Service for their work in the region and to make the introduction.

Thanks for reading,

Ali