NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Our friends at the American Immigration Council are out with a
must-read report
 by
Ingrid Eagly and Steven Shafer that focuses on a central
question: "Do immigrants attend their immigration court hearings?"  

Based on 11 years of government data tracking attendance rates, the
answer is a resounding yes. Yet the government "used faulty data that
undercounts appearance rates - and then relied on that data to justify
restrictive and cruel immigration policies."  

Some key findings: From 2008 to 2018, 83% of nondetained immigrants
with completed or pending removal cases attended all their
hearings. 15% of those who were ordered deported because they didn't
appear in court successfully reopened their cases and had their removal
orders rescinded. 

"This crucial finding suggests that many individuals who fail to appear
in court wanted to attend their hearings but never received notice or
faced hardship in getting to court," they write. 

Welcome to Friday'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]. 
 

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LEGAL LIMBO -  For a powerful feature from
DocumentedNY  and The Marshall Project
, Andrew
R. Calderón spoke to young immigrants who have been granted
Special Immigrant Juvenile Status
 (SIJS) because
of abuse, neglect or abandonment 
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- but are still waiting for their green cards. Some 26,000 young
people with SIJS "can expect to wait three or more years to become
legal residents because of limits on green cards and court slowdowns due
to COVID-19. They are not allowed to work, and depending on the state,
may not qualify for medical insurance or in-state tuition. Most of them
are fighting deportation in court."    

**PATRIOTIC
PARENTS** - Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-California) has formally reintroduced
the Protect Patriot Parents Act, which would give legal status to
immigrant parents of U.S. military service members, reports Beth
Farnsworth at KEYT NewsChannel 3
.
One of those parents is Juana Flores from Goleta, California.
A mother of 10 and grandmother to 18 who lived in the U.S. for 30
years, Juana was deported after returning from a visit to her dying
mother in Mexico. "Family's everything to us and to my mom," said her
son, Cesar Flores, a staff sergeant with the U.S. Air Force. "To be
reunited with my mom would mean everything. It would mean the
world."  

**EOIR CHANGES** - A memo released Wednesday from Acting Deputy
Attorney General John Carlin informed staffers and judges to expect a
shift in the nation's immigration courts, report Josh Gerstein and
Sabrina Rodriguez for POLITICO
. The Justice
Department said Jean King, former Executive Office for Immigration
Review (EOIR) general counsel and the office's current chief
administrative law judge, will replace James McHenry (a "close ally
of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions"), as acting EOIR director
effective Sunday. "If [McHenry] is allowed to stay in office, the
many steps he has taken to steamroll cases through the courts for
removal orders will continue apace," said Greg Chen, director of
government affairs for the American Immigration Lawyers
Association. "His removal is imperative to the new administration being
able to implement its vision of make courts fairer and more
efficient." 

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**DOORDASH** - Our friends at DoorDash
 have
published a new blog post highlighting their ongoing efforts on
immigration. Last week, DoorDash was among the nearly 200 voices
 calling for
bipartisan leadership on immigration reform, including prioritizing a
pathway to citizenship for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
recipients. The company says they are focused on "advocating for
public policies that better serve immigrants and other groups who
contribute so much to the United States. We recognize that there is
always more to be done and we look forward to continuing to use our
voice to make a meaningful difference."  

**REFUGEE CEILING** - In a discussion organized by the
Forum, speakers from evangelical organizations joined a national
security expert to explore issues facing refugee resettlement in the
U.S., reports Jackson Elliott of The Christian Post
.
A key takeaway: President Biden's goal to resettle 125,000 refugees
per fiscal year "will only be as good as the infrastructure that has
been decimated in recent years" due to the previous
administration's cuts to the refugee ceiling
 (the
cap was set at 15,000 during Trump's last full fiscal year in
office, compared to nearly 100,000 refugees resettled in the last
full fiscal year of the Obama administration). "As we're thinking
about this from a policy standpoint, this is a problem that is more
significant than raising a number," said Travis Wussow, vice president
for public policy at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the
Southern Baptist Convention. "It's about rebuilding the pipeline for
refugee settlement." 

**BIPARTISAN ACTION** - Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Illinois)
and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) are teaming up
to reintroduce DREAM Act legislation next week "that would provide
permanent residency, and eventual citizenship, to immigrants brought
into the country as children who meet education or work requirements,"
Jordain Carney reports for The Hill
. "If
we can reach an agreement soon, very soon, we will have the base bill
reintroduced and then that will be our starting point to build support
as well as consider any additions, too," Durbin told
reporters. Graham added that the new bill "will mirror their
earlier legislative efforts, which he viewed as a starting point for
broader discussions that would also need to include border security." 

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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