Today we get to think about immigrants and immigration differently.
What we need as a nation has not changed. As over 180 corporations, law enforcement and faith leaders wrote yesterday, "Strong leadership and bipartisanship from Congress and the administration, starting on day one, are critical to build an immigration system that works for U.S. families, grows our economy, and strengthens communities across our nation while welcoming immigrants who seek to contribute as critical partners in our society."
On President Joe Biden’s first day, as Michael D. Shear details in the New York Times, he will submit to Congress legislation that would give many of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. the opportunity to become citizens in eight years, while addressing root causes of Central American migration and prioritizing smart border controls. And as Justin Sink at Bloomberg reports, Biden plans to swiftly sign executive orders that would halt funding to the border wall, end the travel ban, strengthen Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and more.
This morning, the Biden team released a fact sheet laying out the bill.
Welcome to your Inauguration Day edition of Noorani’s Notes. As always, if you have story to share from your own community, please let me know at [email protected].
ONE MORE SEPARATION — On the last full day of the Trump administration, immigration authorities separated brothers ages 19 and 9, deporting the 19-year-old and sending the 9-year-old to a shelter — all because the older brother was missing a form. As Adolfo Flores reports in BuzzFeed News, Vladimir Fardin, 9, and Christian Laporte, 19, each had a visa. Milli Atkinson, legal director at the San Francisco Immigrant Legal Defense Collaborative, says that despite other options, "What [Customs and Border Protection] chose to do instead was
take this 9-year-old's visa away, put him in a situation that turned him [into] an 'unaccompanied alien minor,' and [he] had to be turned over to a shelter. They did this knowing that yesterday his mother had offered to fly to San Francisco, meet him at the airport and take him home."
HOMELAND SECURITY — Alejandro Mayorkas, Biden’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), faced an array of questions during a Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday, Brian Naylor and Barbara Sprunt of NPR report. Mayorkas has credentials as former deputy secretary of DHS and head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, they note. (Listen here to Mayorkas answer questions about applying the rule of law to migrants seeking refuge in the U.S.) But there’s more, as Dayton, Ohio, Police Chief Richard Biehl writes in the Dayton Daily News: "Mayorkas’ commitment to and respect for
law enforcement, combined with his understanding and empathy for the community, make me confident that under his leadership, we can bolster community safety and achieve commonsense reform."
AND SPEAKING OF SECURITY — Incoming President Biden plans to rescind Trump’s travel ban, which affects mostly Muslim countries, Dan Merica of CNN.com reports. That’s good news for our national security, as former Trump DHS official (and current Forum senior national security advisor) Elizabeth Neumann lays out in our latest "Only In America" podcast episode — part of a series on Biden’s first 100 days. "You can achieve the enhancement of security without having to issue a travel ban," Neumann tells me
in the episode. In case you missed it, Neumann also authored a paper on the subject and spoke, with former Ambassador Ryan Crocker, on a press call Friday.
A REPRIEVE — Also on Trump's last full day in office, the president issued a memo allowing certain Venezuelans to remain in the country. The memorandum, issued late yesterday, notes: "The deteriorative condition within Venezuela, which presents an ongoing national security threat to the safety and well-being of the American people, warrants the deferral of the removal of Venezuelan nationals who are present in the United States." This is good news for Venezuelans facing threats of deportation, who can now
breathe a little easier knowing they won’t be deported to a country in the throes of a humanitarian crisis.
A LITTLE BIT OF HOPE — As Corrie Boudreaux from El Paso Matters reports, the San Juan Apóstolo Catholic Church at the U.S.-Mexico border provides care and support for migrant women who remain in Mexico hoping their asylum claims will be heard by the U.S. government, including those who are pregnant. "This is the shelter where I’ve felt very safe," said Leticia, a young mother from Central America who has been waiting in Juárez with her 3-year-old son since December 2019. "We haven’t had
any news about whether it’s possible for us to have the opportunity to enter (the United States). So we are a little desperate because we don’t have the help of any lawyers who could assist us or at least give us a little bit of hope."
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