Signs of "Trump-era problems" continue at the U.S.-Mexico border, Nomaan Merchant at the Associated Press reports.  

Merchant tells the story of Nailet, a Cuban asylum seeker who was detained with her newborn son for six days — "twice as long as federal rules generally allow" — in a Border Patrol holding facility often referred to as the "icebox."  

With large numbers of families crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in the first few weeks of the Biden administration, "[w]arning signs are emerging of the border crises that marked former President Donald Trump’s term: Hundreds of newly released immigrants are getting dropped off with nonprofit groups, sometimes unexpectedly, and accounts like Nailet’s of prolonged detention in short-term facilities are growing." 

Meanwhile, The Washington Post's Nick Miroff reports that authorities "made nearly 78,000 arrests and detentions along the border with Mexico in January — the highest number for that month in at least a decade and more than double the amount from a year earlier." However, Miroff notes that the number of families arriving at the border "remains far below levels tallied during a record
influx in 2019."

Keep in mind that discerning migration trends is more difficult amid "soaring levels" of repeat crossing attempts, as some encounters represent the same individual trying to cross multiple times. And  in response to the new numbers, WOLA’s Adam Isacson tweeted a helpful visual. 

There is a lot of nuance to what is happening along the border. There is not a migration crisis at the border, there is a leadership crisis within U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that the Biden administration needs to address ASAP. 

In other news: NBC reports that the Biden administration will name Michelle Brané, director of migrant rights and justice at the Women's Refugee Commission, as the executive
director of the much-anticipated task force to reunite families who were separated at the border. 

Welcome to Thursday’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]. 

BORDER TRAUMA — Asylum seekers are enduring a mental health crisis as they remain stranded at the U.S.-Mexico border waiting for an immigration process to restart, reports Emily Green of VICE. Santiago, a 4-year-old boy confined with his father to a one-room apartment in a dangerous border town, wakes up crying nearly every night: "My family, my family." He is among the thousands of people still affected by the
Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or "Remain in Mexico" policy. César José Barrios Pichardo, a psychologist with Doctors without Borders, has spent two years offering therapy sessions to asylum seekers in the border
town of Matamoros. "At the beginning we saw a lot more acute stress," Barrios Pichardo said. "Now, the depression is almost structural. Infinite waiting, constant changes, the lack of a stable process."  

THE KOUADIO FAMILY — While Biden has already taken action to address several of Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, "activists say Biden must do more to prove his commitment to meaningful change," reports Amanda Holpuch for The Guardian. Until further changes are made, the fate of those like the Kouadio family remains in limbo: The Kouadios won the diversity visa lottery in 2019 after applying from their home in Ivory Coast. "But just before their visa interviews, Donald Trump implemented an immigration ban that runs through 31 March. If the president doesn’t step in, Kouadio’s family will lose their visas." Stef W. Kight at Axios further breaks down how diversity visa lottery winners are losing their chance to immigrate.  

A BIBLICAL PRINCIPLE — In an op-ed for The Baptist Standard calling for passage of the Dream Act, advocate Brenda Kirk explains how the Bible "makes abundantly clear God loves immigrants and commands his people to love and seek justice for them." When it comes to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and other Dreamers brought to the U.S. as children, Kirk writes that "there is a biblical principle at play here. We should not punish children for the offenses of their parents." She concludes: "One way we can demonstrate love to immigrant children is by urging our elected officials finally to pass the Dream Act to allow vulnerable immigrants to move forward with productive lives. Doing so also will
restore immigrants’ faith in God and country." 

TAXES — In an op-ed for Accounting Today, Tabassum Ali explains how, as we look to post-pandemic economic recovery, "[l]egalizing 11 million undocumented immigrants would not only improve quality of life for those families living in the dark, but also benefit states seeking additional revenues to fund projects that help millions of average Americans." As states face "considerable uncertainty regarding their budget outlook" into 2022, Ali writes, legalizing undocumented
immigrants may help foster tax collection at the local and state levels. According to a report from The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, granting legal status to all undocumented immigrants "would boost their current state and local tax contributions by more than $2.1 billion a year." (P.S. We recently wrote about how an increase in immigration could benefit local tax bases and offset the negative impacts of demographic change.)

Thanks for reading,

Ali