As we head into the holidays, millions of Americans will be without adequate food amid the pandemic’s ongoing economic crisis. Simran Sethi reports in The Counter that this reality is all too common for many immigrant families.  

"Perhaps the most tragic irony is that the very people engaged in the work of feeding us are among the most impacted. A study of migrant and seasonal farmworker households living on the U.S.–Mexico border showed 82 percent were food insecure and 49 percent were impacted by hunger. The statistics are no better on the other end of the food chain. In 2014, more than 40 percent of restaurant workers did not make enough money to feed themselves adequately. The dramatic number of restaurant closures in 2020 means those statistics have gone from bad to worse."

"It’s estimated that about half of the nation’s 2.4 million farmworkers and one-third of those in food services are undocumented," Sethi adds. "They not only grapple with systemic bias, vulnerabilities due to documentation status, and appallingly low pay, but have limited access to food assistance."

Welcome to Thursday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. We will be back to you on January 4, 2021 (but will still be available to press this week). We hope you have a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year and a wonderful holiday.

$2 BILLION – In order to continue building the border wall, the Trump administration has adopted a strategy of awarding contracts before acquiring the rights to land in Texas, costing the government millions of dollars in delays and suspended projects, report Perla Trevizo and Jeremy Schwartz for The Texas Tribune and ProPublica. "Since 2017, the federal government has awarded at least a dozen contracts in South Texas worth more than $2 billion prior to obtaining all the land it needed for the projects." Said Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight and former State Department senior counsel under the Obama administration: "The government is arguing that it has to seize these lands right now because it is being penalized under the contract it already signed. … In plain English, what that means is that American taxpayers are seeing their money thrown away for no purpose because the government signed the contract before it could execute the project."

REBUILDING – President-elect Biden’s transition team is warning that given the continued dismantling of the refugee admissions program under the Trump administration, it will take time to make good on its promise to reach a refugee admissions cap of 125,000. CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez reports that "[t]he diversion of refugee officers to work on asylum cases the past two years has left the pipeline largely void of refugees who are advanced in the system, a source familiar with the process said." Agencies like Catholic Charities of Dallas, which facilitate the resettlement process, have also been hollowed out in recent years; the organization reduced its staff by 80% and resettled just three unaccompanied refugee children this year. In a new report released earlier this month, Elizabeth Neumann, a former Homeland Security assistant secretary under the Trump administration, laid out the national security case for increased refugee resettlement.

DIVERGENT APPROACHES – When the United Kingdom’s transition period out of the European Union officially ends on Dec. 31, the country’s immigration system will be "dramatically overhauled," Ashley Cowburn writes for The Independent. With the end of the free movement of people to and from the EU, the UK plans to adopt a new points-based immigration system designed to encourage "skilled" migrants and discourage "low-skilled" ones — from the EU and elsewhere — in what British Home Secretary Priti Patel calls a "firmer but fairer" system. Meanwhile in France, COVID-19 frontline immigrant workers — from health professionals to store clerks to cleaners — will be fast-tracked for citizenship, the BBC reports. This recognition of the immeasurable contributions of these workers is a step that the incoming Biden administration and the next Congress could also make to help the more than five million undocumented essential workers who have served on the frontlines of the pandemic here in the U.S.

‘DANCED FOR FREEDOM’ – Some good news this holiday season: A Philadelphia couple, Oneita and Clive Thompson, walked free on Monday after hiding in two local churches for 843 days seeking sanctuary from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which told the Jamaican asylum seekers in August 2018 that they would be removed from the country after 14 years of building a life in the U.S., reports CNN’s Ganesh Setty. Last month, the Thompsons filed a motion to reopen their asylum case, and after letters of support from lawmakers as well as around 200 letters from church and community members, ICE joined the Thompsons’ motion to reopen the asylum case. The federal government ultimately dropped its deportation order earlier this month. "We just danced for freedom," Oneita said of walking free. "You just want to spread your wings and fly away."

FINALLY – Just a big thank you to the Forum team and our friends at SKDK for producing the Note every day. Y’all are the best.

Have a safe and restful holiday,

Ali