NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

I don't think we acknowledge the stranglehold cartels and organized
crime have on the lives of Central American migrants. Migrants pay
"rent" to gangs in order to live their lives at home, pay smuggling
networks to get them away from the corruption, and pay cartels for
the opportunity to ask for asylum in the U.S. It is no mystery why they
will do anything they can to send their children to safety.   

Epifanio Diaz Suarez is the president of Zorros del Desierto (Desert
Foxes), a Mexico-based "nonprofit of citizens-band radio
aficionados" helping migrants stranded in the desert, reports Julian
Resendiz of Border Report
. "Sometimes
the smugglers leave them up in the mountain with no food or water, lost
with no sense of where to go or what to do next," Diaz Suarez said. The
nonprofit provides aid to the stranded migrants and has "participated
in searches for clandestine graves and bodies."  

Enrique Valenzuela, a Chihuahua state official in charge of Juarez's
Migrant Assistance Center, adds: "We encourage migrants not to be drawn
in by offers from smugglers to safely cross them to the other side. That
is a practice that puts them and their families at risk and in no way is
a guarantee they will safely reach their objective."  

Separately, the Associated Press
 reports
that U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen set an early April deadline for
lawyers on both sides to provide more information on the DACA case he is
presiding over.  

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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**CONTEXT** - As we are drawn into a debate about numbers on the
border, a couple step-back pieces. First things first, "[a]sylum is
not an open question," writes Felipe de la Hoz for The Baffler
. "While
the refugee definition itself is woefully outdated, the requirement to
verify whether people fit the rubric before sending them away is
absolute." If there's a crisis at the border, he writes, "it's
mainly one of poor advance planning, logistical failures, and bad policy
that have created the situation forcing thousands of people to leave
their countries of origin in the first place." The Washington Post
's Ishaan
Tharoor pulls together various threads to make the case that the
border situation is "one more of continuity than change" when you look
at factors in Central America and our inability to update our own
immigration systems. 

**BIG TECH** - H1-B visa bans are set to expire today - a big win
for tech companies, Jordan Fabian and Genevieve Douglas report
for Bloomberg
. The
news coincides with a new study
 from
the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University on the
value of work visas for U.S. companies. On average, the study
finds, skilled immigrants on temporary work visas have a wage
premium of 29.5% compared to similar native-born Americans. The study
suggests that the U.S. economy needs a greater number of skilled
workers than is currently available - and U.S. companies "are not
only willing, but already pay significant premiums to hire foreign
workers with the skills that they need."  

**DETENTION** - A new bipartisan bill approved in Washington state
would shut down one of the country's largest for-profit, privately
run immigration jails for good, reports Gene Johnson of the Associated
Press
. The
state Senate voted 28-21 Tuesday in favor of a measure that would ban
for-profit detention centers
 in
the state. "The only facility that meets that definition is the
Northwest detention center in Tacoma, a 1,575-bed immigration jail
operated by the GEO Group under a contract with U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement," notes Johnson. The bill would still allow GEO to
continue operating the jail until its contract with ICE expires in 2025.
The bill now moves to Washington Gov. Jay Inslee's desk.  

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**LEONARDO** - When 10-year-old Leonardo, got to the U.S.-Mexico
border with his aunt and cousin, the family was separated because
of the narrow definition of families under U.S. immigration law,
report Kristina Cooke and Mica Rosenberg of Reuters
. Under
a public health policy rule known as Title 42, implemented by Trump in
March 2020 and left largely intact under Biden, "U.S. authorities
separated Leonardo and sent him to a shelter in New York" and "expelled
his aunt Rosalina - eight months pregnant at the time - and his
cousin Marisol to Mexico," leaving Leonardo
to have his long-awaited reunion with his mother in
California alone. Estimates from nonprofit groups
indicate that 10-17% of unaccompanied children
in government custody were separated from relatives. As of March 28,
some 11,900 children were in Health and Human Services (HHS) shelters
and nearly 5,800 children were in Border Patrol custody. 

**YUMA** - The Yuma sector of the U.S.-Mexico border is
streamlining the process for asylum seekers through COVID-19
testing and connections to flights and buses to reunite migrants
with relatives around the U.S., reports Rafael Carranza of the
Arizona Republic
 [paywall]. Since
February, approximately 1,700 migrant families and adults that border
agents  apprehended in the Yuma sector have been released into nearby
communities under humanitarian parole as they await immigration court
hearings. While some politicians are using the situation at the
border to paint a picture of disarray, Carranza notes that on the ground
in Yuma (which has not been visited by state or congressional leaders
quick to point to challenges), nonprofits and community groups "have
developed an orderly system" to process and assist families. "We had to
really quick organize ourselves because we said, 'Yeah we're going
to assist the families, we'll do the testing,'" said Amanda Aguirre,
the president and CEO of the Regional Center for Border Health
. "And thanks to the goodness and heart of
other people in churches and entities and individuals who stepped up to
help." 

**COMPROMISE ON IMMIGRATION? **- In a piece for FiveThirtyEight
 taking us
through the history of immigration trends on both sides of the
political spectrum, Alex Samuels speaks to Veronica
Vargas Stidvent, executive director of the University of Texas at
Austin's Center for Women in Law and former assistant secretary at
the U.S. Department of Labor, who underscores a key point: "Anytime
you have competing factions, it can do one of two things: push people to
the middle to find compromise or result in a stalemate." While "House
Democrats passed two bills earlier this year that would offer legal
protections for millions of undocumented immigrants, including DACA
recipients," Samuels explains, "Senate Democrats, hamstrung by the
filibuster
,
might have to find middle ground on Republicans' demands for more
border enforcement if they want their bills
 to
get to Biden's desk."  

Thanks for reading, 

Ali  

 

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