NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) "put the ICE
union on notice" regarding last-minute agreements made with Trump
officials that allowed it to "indefinitely delay changes to immigration
enforcement policies and practices," reports
Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News
.  

DHS determined that one of the agreements "was not negotiated in the
interest of DHS and has been disapproved because it is not in accordance
with applicable law,' an agency spokesperson said in a statement." 

"DHS will make policy decisions in accordance with the law and based on
what's best for national security, public safety, and border security
while upholding our nation's values." 

Also happening this week: The Biden administration is preparing to
unveil sweeping immigration legislation that would provide a pathway to
citizenship for undocumented immigrants. When asked about his
immigration plans at a CNN town hall last night, President
Biden reiterated "that he wants a pathway to citizenship for
undocumented immigrants residing in the US but signaled willingness to
pass other immigration measures in the interim," CNN's
 Priscilla
Alvarez and Lauren Fox report. 

Welcome to Wednesday'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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**WORDS MATTER** - The Biden administration is urging government
officials to use more inclusive terms for immigrants, Stef W.
Kight reports for Axios
. Acting U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Tracy Renaud has issued a
memo instructing the agency to make changes that
include to replacing the word "alien" with "noncitizen," reports
Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News
. "When
we call people aliens we are depriving them of their sense of humanity.
Whenever someone uses the word alien it conjures up images of beings
that are out of this world," said Raymond Partolan, a green card
holder and paralegal from Atlanta. 

**'WE ARE DYING'** - Black lawmakers are urging the Biden
administration to stop the deportation of hundreds of
immigrants to countries like Haiti and Cameroon that are "engulfed in
political turmoil," report Maria Sacchetti and Arelis R. Hernández
of The Washington Post
. Said
one asylum seeker from Cameroon: "Please, I'm on my knees. Please
stop the deportations. We are dying." Meanwhile, Daniel Gonzalez at
the Arizona Republic
 reports
that Black immigrant advocates are praising the Biden administration
for reinstating Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberians who
fled the country's civil war. "This is going to mean the world to
people," said Lester Myers, president of the Liberian Association of
Arizona. "It's brought a lot of hope. It means that people's dreams are
going to be established." (For background, see our DED fact sheet
.) 

**VACCINATIONS** - Hardline immigration policies and rhetoric have
complicated vaccinate rollout in the South, Sarah Varney reports
for Kaiser Health News
,
noting that the "confluence of aggressive [anti-immigrant] attitudes
and a highly contagious virus has prompted concerns in some states that
lackluster vaccination of people in the country without legal permission
will short-circuit efforts to achieve herd immunity for the broader
community." The bottom line: Stoking fears of government and law
enforcement among undocumented communities doesn't make any of us
safer. "If they have to risk their immigration status to have the
covid vaccine, they will not have it. I don't blame them,"
said Helena Lobo, Hispanic outreach coordinator at Cherokee Health.
"They go by risk: 'What is my biggest risk? Being deported or to have
covid?'" 

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**REFUGEES AND RECOVERY** - In an op-ed for Business Insider
,
Gideon Maltz of the Tent Partnership for Refugees
 explains why Biden's plan to raise
the refugee admissions ceiling to 125,000 is good news for our
recovering economy. Maltz points out that refugees "earned more than
$77 billion in household income and paid almost $21 billion in taxes in
2015, according to NAE
.
And it will be good for businesses that will add employees with
resilience, dedication and loyalty." And ICYMI, refugee resettlement
and national security experts (including Forum senior advisor Elizabeth
Neumann) testified via a virtual hearing
 before the
U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom last week,
reports Ken Camp of The Baptist Standard
.  

**BLANK SPACES **- The Biden administration has ended a Trump-era
policy that allowed immigration officials to reject visa applications
with blank spaces "even if that space didn't apply to the
person - a policy that led to thousands of rejections for otherwise
qualified migrants," reports Austin Landis of Spectrum News
. An
attorney with the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project told Spectrum
that at least 12,000 U visas were rejected under the policy as of
last spring, and he estimates that thousands of asylum applications
faced a similar challenge. As Landis notes, the policy is "just one of
hundreds of little-noticed changes to immigration policy made under
Trump that will take time for the Biden administration to review." 

**AMERICAN DREAM **- The Winter 2021 issue of The Catalyst
, the
journal from the George W. Bush Institute, centers on a multi-part
feature titled State of The American Dream
.
The series takes readers through immigrants' stories - and lays a
groundwork for future opportunities. "It's not an easy conversation
but an important and often inspiring one," writes editor Brittney Bain.
"The essays are realistic about the challenges we face, but there is
also optimism about the future of our country." 

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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