NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

After visiting the southern border this week, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West
Virginia), a critical Democratic vote for reforms, said "[i]t is beyond
time, past time, to do immigration reform. Immigration reform should be
a pathway to citizenship,"  The Hill's
 Jordain
Carney reports.   

Meanwhile, the Biden administration announced Thursday that U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) "will not automatically
reject certain applications for asylum or immigration benefits when a
blank space is left on the forms, a reversal from a Trump-era policy
that critics said was a blatant attempt to further crack down on legal
immigration," report Geneva Sands and Priscilla Alvarez of CNN
. (Good
news for applicants - and immigration lawyers
 who stan
Taylor Swift.)  

The policy increased the likelihood of rejections -
sometimes for blank spaces on fields that did not apply to the
applicant, such as a "Middle name" or "Other names used," according
to the American Immigration Lawyers Association
. 

According to government documents obtained by BuzzFeed News
, USCIS officials also plan
to remove references to immigrants as "aliens" in the agency's policy
manual to "create a less adversarial tone." 

Welcome to Friday's edition of Noorani's Notes. Hope you
have a good Easter weekend and don't become so bored and irrelevant
that you pore through years of old tweets like this guy
 did. If
you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to
me at [email protected]
. 

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**ENDING CORRUPTION** - Vice President Kamala Harris will address
the root causes of Central American migration by pinpointing "crooked
governments that can't be relied upon to implement reforms that would
improve the conditions that cause people to depart," writes The
Washington Post
's
Editorial Board. Unlike former President Donald Trump, the Biden
administration will not "mak[e] the problem worse by ignoring corrupt
and anti-democratic behavior by Central American leaders in exchange for
crackdowns on migrants." Instead, "Ms. Harris must ensure that stopgap
measures do not again divert the administration from pressing for deeper
reforms. Those can start with some simple principles - such as no more
tolerance for drug traffickers in a president's office."  

**GLORIETA CAMPS** - A new private Christian camp in New
Mexico "is looking for volunteers and donations as it prepares for the
potential arrival of immigrant children from the U.S.-Mexico border as
federal holding facilities become more crowded," reports Susan Montoya
Bryan of the Associated Press
.
According to a page on the Glorieta Camps website, "the organization
was asked by the White House and U.S. Health and Human Services
Department to house and feed potentially 2,400 unaccompanied children at
its property near Santa Fe."  The camp "is prepared to take children
as soon as Thursday but that it could only do so for 60 days to avoid
having to cancel its own summer programs." New Mexico Gov. Michelle
Lujan Grisham's office said it was aware only that the Biden
administration was seeking temporary sites for unaccompanied children,
but didn't have any details on which facilities were being
considered. Aaron Morales, a spokesman for New Mexico Sen. Martin
Heinrich, "said it was the office's understanding that the Health and
Human Services Department doesn't have plans to open a shelter in New
Mexico at this time." 

**COMMUNITY AMBASSADORS** - Refugee resettlement organizations and
the communities they serve were hit especially hard under the Trump
administration - and few moreso than those working in smaller
cities and towns, like World Relief's offices in eastern Washington
and southern Idaho, writes Daniel Walters for The Pacific
Northwest Inlander
. Faced
with a shrinking budget and growing need as the only refugee
resettlement agency remaining open in Spokane, the city's World
Relief office put together a "community ambassadors" program, "a team
of 'trusted messengers who are already leaders within several ethnic
communities' to help local refugees and immigrants with tasks like
finding rental assistance." The program has been particularly effective
in helping refugees access COVID-19 information.  

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**TODDLERS** - U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
officials said
 two
toddlers from Ecuador were rescued after smugglers dropped them from
a 14-foot New Mexico border barrier Tuesday night, per Phil Helsel
of NBC News
. "We
are currently working with our law enforcement partners in Mexico and
attempting to identify these ruthless human smugglers so as to hold
them accountable to the fullest extent of the law," El Paso Sector
Chief Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez said in a
statement. Fortunately the girls, ages three and five, have
been medically cleared. For more on what happens to migrant children
at the border, see Elliot Spagat and Nomaan Merchant's new explainer
for the Associated Press
 where
they provide some of their takeaways after visiting CBP's main
holding facility in Donna, Texas, this week.  

**INSPECTION** - Attorneys who inspected two emergency
holding facilities in Texas  say children have limited access to
case managers, phone calls to family, outside recreation and education,
reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News.
"However,
the attorneys said the two makeshift shelters overseen by the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Dallas and Midland, Texas, are
safe and sanitary, and are much better settings for migrant children
than overcrowded, jail-like Border Patrol facilities." Carlos Holguín,
one of the lead lawyers representing migrant children in the federal
court case over the landmark Flores Agreement, told CBS News that
access to case management services "is the most important
issue because it minimizes the time children are there. We understand
the federal government is contending with a difficult situation, but
they need to minimize the amount of time the children spend in this type
of facility." HHS stressed that their main objective is getting
minors out of Border Patrol facilities, which were holding nearly
5,000 unaccompanied children as of Thursday morning, Montoya notes. 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali  

 

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