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]. 

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.  

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