NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

A winter storm spreading across Texas and northern Mexico
has brought below-freezing temperatures to the tent camp in
Matamoros where asylum seekers are waiting to enter the U.S., reports
Dianne Solis of The Dallas Morning News
.  

The asylum seekers are enrolled in the Trump administration's
Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) or "Remain in Mexico" policy and
have no choice but to wait in Matamoros for their immigration
hearings. "The tattered camp remains one of the most visible symbols of
the draconian immigration policies of the former Trump administration,"
writes Solis. 

"'We are frozen here,' texted a Honduran man at the camp named
Rolando who asked that his full name not be used because of the nature
of his persecution claim in U.S. immigration courts. 'There is so much
cold in the camp of migrants.'" 

Global Response's Andrea Leiner told Solis that waiting to enter the
U.S. is putting migrants' health at risk amid the freezing conditions.
"With people anticipating that Friday is going to open to MPP crossings,
people don't want to move to a shelter with a roof. They are afraid
they will lose their spot in the MPP line." 

Welcome to Tuesday'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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**SEN. PADILLA** - If you haven't seen the video
 of California Gov. Gavin
Newsom asking then-California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to serve
as U.S. Senator, take a minute and you'll understand the
significance on Sen. Padilla now chairing the Senate Judiciary
Committee's Immigration Subcommittee, as CBS Bay Area
 reports. "As
the proud son of immigrants from Mexico, I'm honored to be the first
Latino to serve as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on
Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Safety," said Padilla. "While no
state has more at stake in immigration policy than California, the
entire nation stands to benefit from thoughtful immigration reform." 

**HOPE** - San Diegan Negar Sadegholvad and her husband,
Kourosh Sepahpour, an Iranian citizen, have been separated from each
other for three years because of Trump's travel ban, Jackie
Crea reports for NBC 7 San Diego
. Sadegholvad told
NBC that her husband was just starting his Green Card process - and
she was eight months pregnant with their son - when the first travel
ban hit. Following President Biden's reversal of the ban, the State
Department has contacted the family about
restarting Sepahpour's Green Card process, renewing the family's
hopes of being reunited. "I'm happy. I'm grateful that his green
card will be ready soon right," Sadegholvad told NBC. "But my son has
been separated from his father for three years and the emotional and
psychological scars will not be reversed through a policy."  

**BORDER CHAOS **- In the days after a U.S. military drone
killed powerful Iranian leader Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani in
January 2020, "277 people - dozens of them American citizens or
legal permanent residents - would be stopped and held for secondary
screenings as they tried to cross into the U.S. from Canada," reports
Lauren Gardner for Politico
. An
87-page U.S. Customs and Border Protection internal affairs report
obtained by Politico covers the 48 hours of  border chaos that
followed the drone strike, "confirm[ing] that federal officials
initially misled the public about what took place." H/t to my
friend Ted Alden , Ross
Professor at Western Washington University and senior fellow
at the Council on Foreign Relations, for being one of the first to
lift this story up a year ago.  

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**40 YEARS** - A paper trail from the anti-immigrant Federation
for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reveals a
40-year effort by immigration hardliners to change the way the
U.S. census counts immigrants, Hansi Lo Wang reports for NPR
.
In an exhaustive report, Wang lays out how beginning with a lawsuit
filed before the 1980 census count, FAIR has pursued "one consistent
goal - obtaining an official count of unauthorized immigrants through
the census to radically reshape Congress, the Electoral College and
public policy." 

**ECONOMISTS WEIGH IN** - A group of more than 60
economists signed a letter
 last
week urging President Biden to include a path to citizenship for
undocumented immigrants in an upcoming economic and infrastructure
plan, reports Jordan Fabian of Bloomberg News
.  "Offering
them the chance to earn citizenship will help to ensure that the
economic recovery reaches all corners of society, including those that
have disproportionately been on the front lines of the pandemic and yet
left out of prior relief bills, and establishes a more stable and
equitable foundation on which future economic success can be built,"
the letter reads. 

**REFUGEES **- On Monday, Jordan became the first country in the
world to open a COVID-19 vaccination center at a refugee camp, Arab
News  reports. About
2,000 residents of the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees have signed
up so far. Jordan currently hosts 663,000 Syrian refugees registered
with the UN. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is working to raise
the U.S. annual refugee resettlement cap from the Trump
administration's historic low of 15,000. From a more local
perspective, Leah Shields of First Coast News
 reports
on how an increase would impact Jacksonville, Florida, resettlement
organizations. "This nation was founded as a nation of refugees and
migrants as we all know," Catholic Charities of Jacksonville Associate
Director Matt Schmitt told First Coast. "This is just a continuing
trend of allowing people who are looking for a fresh start. They are
looking for freedoms that they have not been awarded in their native
countries." 

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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