Happy New Year, and welcome to the first 2021 edition of Noorani’s Notes. I hope you found peace and joy over the holidays.

On the eve of the Georgia runoff elections — both tight races that could determine which party controls the Senate moving forward — the increasing electoral influence of Latino and Asian American communities is playing out in real time.

Emily Wilkins at Bloomberg reports that Georgia Republicans "are seeking to persuade and turn out a diverse voting bloc that largely supports Democrats but has been receptive to some GOP messaging" — in particular, Latino communities.

Daniel Garza, president of the Libre Initiative, told Bloomberg that after decades of ignoring Latino voters, Republicans are shifting the Democrats’ historical advantage with better targeted messaging. "It is just now in the past few years where the numbers cannot be ignored," said Garza. "Latinos are very much defining races across the country."

Meanwhile, Georgia’s increase in Asian American voters "was so significant in the general election that they could play a decisive role in the two Senate runoff races this week," Matt Stevens reports for The New York Times. The growing voting bloc is indicative of a larger national trend: November’s general election illustrated that parties "must go after nonwhite voters with the same nuanced approach and level of urgency that has generally been reserved for white voters in swing states."

"The real victory," Stevens writes, "would be for voters of color to be pursued with the same vigor as white voters, who are routinely grouped into subcategories based on where they live, or their income or education level."

Today we’re doing something a little different and focusing on things to watch for in the new year. We’ll incorporate some stories that emerged over the break, and we’ll try to reserve some space for those in the days ahead as well. If you saw a story we should consider, please send it to me at [email protected]. We’ll be back with our regular news updates tomorrow.

Our first podcast series of the new year will focus on what we want to see in 2021 and opportunities for change and reform. Keep an ear out for the trailer this Wednesday, and if you’re new to "Only in America," catch up on past episodes here.

DACA AND DREAMERS — A Super Ball would get tired watching Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) bounce around the courts and (so far) dodge the Trump administration’s efforts to end it. The latest, as Julián Aguilar previewed Dec. 18 in the Texas Tribune, was a Dec. 22 hearing before U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas, in a case about the legality of the program. Hanen could issue a ruling any day. Our take: Congress can and must end the whiplash for DACA recipients, other Dreamers and the native-born Americans who love and depend on them. (The same goes for recipients of Temporary Protected Status [TPS], by the way.) Encouraging bipartisan reform should be among the top priorities for the incoming administration.

REFUGEES… — Increasing refugee resettlement from the current administration’s historically (and shamefully) low cap of 15,000 is high on Biden’s immigration to-do list. As former Trump administration Homeland Security official Elizabeth Neumann wrote in a Dec. 24 op-ed for Fox News, a significant admissions increase done right will make us safer, although it will require substantial investment in our decimated resettlement infrastructure. Neumann, currently the Forum’s senior adviser on national security, recently wrote a paper on the subject — be on the lookout for other papers from us focusing on national security and immigration early in 2021.

…AND ASYLUM SEEKERS — The Trump administration has effectively ended asylum as we know it, and is (again) turning a blind eye to human dignity in the process, as Sarah Towle documented last week in the Boston Globe. The new administration should consider how it can process asylum seekers securely, lawfully and humanely. On the subject of Central American migration, we have some suggestions.

LEGAL IMMIGRATION — President Trump continues to use the pandemic as cover for legal-immigration restrictions, as we’ve been tracking since last spring. Just as many of these policies were set to expire last week, he extended them through March, as Jason Hoffman reports for CNN. But even as we continue to battle the pandemic, Congress and the incoming Biden administration should look for ways to honor the commitment of immigrants who are standing with native-born Americans and working to keep us safe, healthy and fed amid the pandemic. (One opportunity: The new Congress should resurrect the bipartisan Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act.) Longer-term, reforming our legal immigration process will be crucial when it comes to the future of a stable workforce, not to mention helping ease the pressures and challenges spelled out above. Keep an eye out early this year for more of the Forum’s thinking on legal immigration and reform.

Thanks for reading, and here’s to a brighter 2021.

Ali