"Senate leadership announced a bipartisan deal on an approximately $900 billion economic relief package late Sunday afternoon that would deliver emergency aid to a faltering economy and a nation besieged by surging coronavirus cases," Jeff Stein and Mike DeBonis report for The Washington Post. In a welcome change, this round of stimulus checks will "allow U.S. citizens who are in households that also include non-citizens to receive the payments," write Naomi Jagoda, Niv Elis and Alexander Bolton for The Hill.

In the original stimulus package passed back in April, millions of Americans were excluded from relief simply because their spouse had an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) rather than a Social Security number — a caveat that disproportionately impacted immigrants and their families. Leaders of the Evangelical Immigration Table sent a letter to Congress on Friday stating that "no Americans should be penalized because they have gotten married," noting that had these Americans "chosen to cohabitate unmarried with or even divorce [a partner with an ITIN], they would have qualified, which creates a penalty against marriage that should not be the public policy of the United States government." 

Welcome to Monday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. To close out the year, I wrote on Medium about Lord Alfred Dubs, unaccompanied minors around the world and the voters who are watching.

If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].

CONSEQUENTIAL SHIFT – A New York Times analysis of voting patterns in 28,000 precincts across more than 20 U.S. cities — including 5,700 "in which the combined population of Latinos and people of Asian descent was 65 percent or more" — reveals that areas with the greatest Latino and Asian populations saw "a surge in turnout and a shift to the right, often a sizable one," Weiyi Cai and Ford Fessenden report. President-elect Biden still defeated President Trump in nearly all of these areas, but as Cai and Fessenden point out, "in a divided American electorate, any shift can be consequential. Already the shift appears to have changed outcomes in a number of congressional races."

VACCINE FEARS – Surgeon General Jerome Adams is encouraging undocumented immigrants in the U.S. to get vaccinated for COVID-19 when shots are available, arguing that for the sake of public health, immigration status should not be a barrier to the vaccine, John Bowden reports for The Hill. Adams emphasized in an interview Sunday with CBS’s "Face the Nation" that no information gathered from patients during vaccination could be used against them, and no one should be denied a shot based on their immigration status. However, as Marco della Cava, Daniel Gonzalez and Rebecca Plevin note for USA Today, "after years of isolationist and punitive immigration policies from the Trump administration, many immigrants — whose physical and fiscal health has, along with many people of color, been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic — might be unwilling to come forward and get vaccinated."

NEW LEAF – In President-elect Biden’s first call with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, the two "noted a shared desire to address the root causes of migration" in Central America and southern Mexico and discussed "working together on a new approach to regional migration that offers alternatives to undertaking the dangerous journey to the United States." Said President López Obrador on Twitter: "We reaffirmed our commitment to working together for the well-being of our peoples and nations." Per Axios’ Rebecca Falconer, the positive report "represents a key part of the president-elect's plans to overhaul President Trump's aggressive border policy." But, as Biden’s team notes, it will "take time and resources to implement those commitments effectively."

VACCINE HEROES – "If COVID-19 vaccines bring an end to the pandemic, America has immigrants to thank," Joel Rose writes for NPR, noting the significant contributions immigrants have made to the fight against the virus. Rose points to people like Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian immigrant and senior vice president at BioNTech who pioneered the use of messenger RNA technology — which is now the basis for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. "Karikó is one of several foreign-born scientists and entrepreneurs involved in the covid vaccine breakthrough, including Moderna’s Canadian co-founder, Patrick Rossi, and French CEO, Stéphane Bancel," David C. Adams writes for Univision.

WELCOME CHANGE – Officials behind the Common Application, a form used by around 1 million students to apply for multiple colleges at the same time, "found students who had to answer questions about citizenship and immigration status were often less likely to finish their application," Chris Quintana reports for USA Today, noting that while college applications have generally increased in recent years, "submissions among students who are undocumented declined 16% from 2016 to 2020." The findings have led to revisions for the 2021 form in hopes of preventing students from "selecting themselves out of the process" because of "questions they feel are putting themselves and their family in jeopardy," said Common Application CEO Jenny Rickard. However, as Academic Success Program Executive Director Sara Urquidez points out, these changes won’t fix the systemic issues undocumented students face or fully solve the issue: "Just because you take it off the Common App doesn’t mean that the college still doesn’t need it and use it in a way. … So how are they going to find a way and a solution that doesn’t put more burden on a student and family?"

FORCED OUT – A beloved Spanish teacher at the Friends Select School in Philadelphia may be forced to return to Chile at the end of the month after 16 years of living, working, and paying taxes in the U.S. because of revised Trump administration "wage prevalence" laws that are likely to price many immigrants out of their jobs, reports Jeff Gammage for the Philadelphia Inquirer. While fighting to stay in the country, Francoise Thenoux could be left in limbo when her H-1B visa expires at the end of the month, leaving her jobless and forcing her to abandon her heartbroken students at Friends Select School. "I love it there," she said of the school. "That’s one of the reasons I want to stay. ... I feel Americanized, part of the grassroots movement that is making this country a more equitable place."

Thanks for reading,

Ali