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ordered deported because they didn’t appear in court successfully reopened their cases and had their removal orders rescinded.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].  

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 — 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." 

 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