NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Some good news: A bipartisan group of senators have introduced
legislation "that would recapture 40,000 unused immigrant visas for
doctors and nurses, a move they say would provide a temporary stopgap to
the United States' shortage of health care professionals," reports
Alyssa Aquino of Law360
. 

According to a Friday statement from the six senators responsible for
the bill, the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would provide
permanent status for 25,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors, as well
as their family members - a boost to the health care workforce
that was much-needed even prior to the pandemic.   

"COVID-19 has exacerbated the shortage of doctors and nurses our nation
was already facing," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine). "By issuing
unused employment-based visas to immigrant medical professionals, this
bipartisan legislation would help strengthen our health care workforce
and preserve access to care, particularly in rural and underserved
communities in Maine and across our country." 

I'm Joanna Taylor, Forum communications manager
and your NN host today. If you have a story to share from your own
community, please send it to me at [email protected]
.    

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**BORDER BACKDROP **- Arizona Daily Star
 columnist
Tim Steller talked to Arizona border community residents and
immigration experts to lend some perspective to the current
situation along the U.S.-Mexico border (and the political rhetoric
surrounding it). His takeaway: While it may benefit politicians to
paint the current border situation as an unprecedented
crisis, it's more accurate to describe what's happening at our
border as the latest symptom of an outdated, somewhat myopic approach
to border security and asylum policy - a symptom that won't be
fully resolved until we modernize our immigration laws, strengthen our
asylum system and address the reasons people leave their home
countries.  FWD.us Communications Director Peter Boogaard's op-ed
for USA Today
 points out
the practical (and moral) imperative for a humane
approach: "Families and children fleeing violence and persecution are
not overrunning the border; they are largely presenting themselves to
border patrol agents to claim asylum. The wealthiest and most powerful
country on earth can treat people fleeing for their lives with care and
dignity while also keeping our families and communities
safe." (Additional context: Vox
' s
Nicole Narea has published an explainer that delves into key questions
around the border, Biden's policies and what's happening to
migrants once they arrive.)  

**SHELTER I **- In addition to caring for two children of her
own, Nora Sandigo is currently the legal guardian of more than 1,000
children whose parents fear deportation. As Monique O. Madan writes for
the Miami Herald
,
Sandigo works "under a gray zone of family and immigration law," with
undocumented parents  granting her power of attorney to act as
an "emergency backup" if they're deported - in other
words, "filling a gap in a social safety net that does little to help
families, many living in South Florida, that federal agents could
potentially break apart at any time." On top of the children under her
guardianship, Sandigo also tirelessly advocates for children who
recently crossed the border unaccompanied or were separated from
relatives: Each week, she fields hundreds of desperate calls from
parents trying to locate their children in the immigration detention
system.  

**SHELTER II **- On Saturday, officials unveiled a new facility
at the San Diego Convention Center for "orphans, girls who were
separated from their families and those who were sent to the U.S. by
parents with hopes of delivering them to safety away from violence or
extreme poverty in their home country," per Matt Meyer at Border
Report
.
Approximately 500 teen girls have already arrived at the shelter, which
is expected to eventually house up to 1,450. (Other facilities for
migrant children are opening in Texas at Fort Bliss
 and Joint
Base San Antonio Lackland
 in
addition to the Carrizo Springs Influx Care Facility.) As more
infrastructure falls into place at the border, it's important to pay
attention to how long children are in Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) custody and then Health and Human Services (HHS care) - and
under what conditions. 

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**5-STEP PLAN** - In an op-ed for The Hill
, former
Obama advisor and National Security Council member Dan Restrepo
outlines "five immediate steps" that Vice President Kamala Harris
can take as lead for migration management at the border. To do that,
Restrepo writes, the U.S. must "confront despair." His
recommendations?  

* Large-scale food assistance for Central American countries suffering
the impacts of back-to-back hurricanes in November.  

* Immediate employment opportunities for those same communities,
including "[f]ast disbursing, cash-based programs."  

* Prioritizing Central America and the Caribbean for distribution of
excess U.S. vaccine doses (Mexico and Canada are already at the top of
the list). 

* "Regional protection mechanisms; robust family reunification parole
programs; and enhanced temporary labor mechanisms" to provide would-be
migrants with "alternatives to the dangerous, disordered journey
north." 

* A clear break with "the region's corrupt, predatory elites that
treat their fellow citizens as export commodities." 

**VACCINATION **- Minnesota's efforts to vaccinate its
food-processing workforce - many of whom are undocumented - have
been remarkably successful, Joey Peters reports for the Sahan Journal
. The
key to their success? Ensuring workers are not required to provide an
ID or personal information. "The number one concern we're hearing is,
'What's going to happen with my information? Will I have to show an
ID? Will I have to explain why my name doesn't match my employer's
records?'" said Edwin Torres, a vaccine outreach director with the
Minnesota Department of Health. For a deeper dive into the barriers
to vaccine access faced by immigrant communities, check out Amy
Schoenfeld Walker, Lauren Leatherby and Yuriria Avila's New York
Times
 piece
on the Hispanic vaccination gap.  

**COLORADO FARMERS **- The Farm Workforce Modernization Act
 represents
a straightforward solution for Colorado's farmers as they struggle
with labor shortages and an inefficient guestworker program, Cathy
Shull writes in an op-ed for the Fort Morgan Times
. Pointing
out the decline in farmworkers across the region (a 37% drop in
Colorado, Nevada and Utah from 2002-2014), Shull writes that the
bill would replace the current guest worker program, considered costly
and inefficient, with a more user-friendly one that "would give
farmers and their workers real stability." Her message to
Congress: "Let's give our farmers the support they deserve: policies
that provide enough hands to bring in the fruits of their hard work." 

Thanks for reading, 

Joanna  

 

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