NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

On Wednesday, the Biden administration officially
revoked the visa ban
 issued
by Trump in 2020, saying the ban "not only hurts would-be visa
beneficiaries, but also 'harms the United States'
itself," Chantal Da Silva reports for Forbes
. 

Under the ban, initially implemented last April, "tens of thousands of
would-be visa holders perceived as posing a 'risk to the U.S. labor
market' during the country's economic recovery from the Covid-19
pandemic have been blocked from entering America." 

Ending the ban is a huge step - but with a visa backlog now in the
hundreds of thousands, the Biden administration has their work cut out
for them.  

On another note, today 300 evangelical leaders from 40 states,
representing 70 congressional offices, are participating in
a "Virtual Hill Day
" hosted
by The Evangelical Immigration Table to "petition lawmakers for smart,
bipartisan immigration reform." For context: 

* A recent national Morning Consult/POLITICO poll
 found
that 55% of evangelicals support the 8-year path to citizenship
proposed in President Biden's immigration bill
 -
more than double the number opposing (26%).  

* For a historical perspective (and more data) on why a pathway to
citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants is a "no-brainer,"
read A. K. Sandoval-Strausz' piece for The Washington Post
. 

Welcome to Thursday's
edition of Noorani's Notes. I'm Joanna Taylor,
communications manager at the Forum and your guest host for the next few
NN editions. If you have a story to share from your own community,
please send it to me at [email protected]
. 

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**MILLER** - Former Trump adviser and notorious immigration
hardliner Stephen Miller discussed President Biden's immigration
overhaul with Republican House members at a meeting yesterday,
Meridith McGraw and Gabby Orr reported for POLITICO
 earlier
this week. Miller - "whose opposition to nearly all forms of
immigration earned him the admiration of Trump and the enmity of many
others" - discussed the issue
with the Republican Study Committee as they organize their opposition
to Biden's immigration plans. Todd Schulte,  president of FWD.us, put
things in perspective: "There is absolutely no public opinion in the
world that says Stephen Miller and Donald Trump's immigration plans
are a net positive for the Republican Party. The human consequences of
those policies have been terrible and the political consequences for
the [R]epublican [P]arty have been flat out terrible." (Case in
point: At the meeting, Rep. María Elvira Salazar
(R-Florida) challenged Miller "on how Republicans can attract Latino
voters given the ultraconservative policies he is advocating,"
per POLITICO
's Olivia Beavers
and Melanie Zanona.) 

**BORDER CHALLENGES** - The Biden administration is facing dual
challenges as it deals with an increase of migrants at the
border while simultaneously untangling Trump's draconian policies, The
Washington Post
's Maria
Sacchetti and Nick Miroff report. "[B]ecause the Trump administration
issued a public-health order effectively blocking migrants from crossing
into the United States, Biden inherited an infrastructure ill-prepared
to handle a big influx in the middle of the pandemic," they
write. "Federal agents have taken into custody more than 70,000
migrants a month for each of the past four months, the most for that
period in at least 10 years." Additionally, "the number of minors in
federal custody has more than tripled to 7,000, prompting officials to
reopen an overflow shelter in Texas to house them - even though the
shelter is not state-licensed, as required - until officials can place
them with a parent or guardian in the United States." (More on that
below.) 

**'KIDS IN CAGES'** - With President Biden reopening holding
facilities for child migrants, the terms being used to describe the
practice (i.e. the accuracy of "kids in cages") are being
challenged on both sides of the political spectrum, reports Aaron Blake
of The Washington Post
. Blake emphasizes
an important distinction: "Trump's policy on children at the border
wasn't controversial merely because it resulted in children being held
at the border, which is a long-standing reality and is what will happen
at this facility. It was controversial because it forced children to be
separated from their parents." In contrast, Blake writes, the Biden
administration isn't forcing separations, and "whatever one thinks
about how these children are handled once they're taken into custody
... it bears little resemblance to what happened under
Trump." Something to keep in mind: As the Post's Silvia Foster-Frau
reported earlier this week, questions over transparency remain, and
"people should take note of how these emergency shelters are often
located in far-flung locations away from public view." (Aura Bogado's
 reporting on this is a
must-read.) 

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**SPEAKING OF SEPARATION** - As the debate over child detention
continues, the parents of 506 children separated under Trump's
"zero-tolerance" policy have yet to be found. But Julia Ainsley and
Jacob Soboroff NBC News
 report
some good news: The pro-bono lawyers and immigration advocates
spearheading family reunification efforts reported Wednesday that in
the past month, they've located the parents of 105 separated
children. However, "lawyers said the parents of about 322 of the 506
children are believed to have been deported, making it more difficult to
find them." ACLU Immigrant Rights Project Deputy Director Lee Gelernt,
who represents the separated families, said the Biden
administration's recently formed reunification task force "should
commit to bring the deported parents back to the U.S. under special
protections to reunite with their children." 

**COMBATTING MISINFORMATION** - This week on Only in America
,
Ali talks to Valentina Pereda, a communications expert and documentary
filmmaker based in Los Angeles. Valentina is currently working
to tracks and combat misinformation in the Latino community,
particularly around COVID-19. Be sure to take a listen, and consider
sharing the vaccine PSAs
 Valentina
helped produce.  

Thanks for reading,  

Joanna

 

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