NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

I recommend starting your week with a French taco, as reported by
the New Yorker's
 Lauren
Collins: "A flour tortilla, slathered with condiments, piled with meat
(usually halal) and other things (usually French fries), doused in
cheese sauce, folded into a rectangular packet, and then toasted on a
grill."  

Now to business ... 

According to a new report
 by the International
Rescue Committee, President Biden is on track to
accept fewer refugees this year than any other modern
president, reports Amy B Wang of the Washington Post
.  

Although he signed an executive order
 two
months ago "to rebuild and enhance federal programs to resettle
refugees" and reportedly proposed
 raising this
fiscal year's resettlement cap from 15,000 to 62,500, "Biden has
yet to do one thing that would make all of those changes official: sign
what is known as a presidential determination." 

At the halfway point of the fiscal year, the number of admitted refugees
stood at 2,050. UNHCR, the U.N. Refugee Agency, reports
 that
1.4 million refugees urgently need resettlement this year. That's
out of more than 26 million refugees total
.  

Evangelical women are among those urging President Biden to raise the
refugee admissions ceiling now: About 3,500 have signed a petition
 via We Welcome
Refugees , "a grassroots community
of women committed to living out Christlike hospitality for all God's
children."  

Welcome to Monday'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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**MARIE AND BRIYANNE** - For years, Marie Martine
and Briyanne Jeanniton were on parallel journeys to the U.S. after
fleeing Haiti. In March, they surrendered to Border Patrol agents in
two different parts of Texas and "met remarkably different
fates," reports Lauren Villagran of El Paso Times
. While
Jeanniton was given a "credible fear" screening that put her on a legal
pathway to seek asylum, Martine, 49, and her husband were told to return
to Mexico. "They're being left with a risky decision on the off chance
they will go the right (border) sector at the right time, and we have no
explanation for who gets in and why," said Linda Rivas, executive
director of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.
  

**BORDER DEVELOPMENTS **- President Biden has officially ended
all funding for the border wall from the discretionary funding request
of fiscal 2022, report Rafael Bernal and Rebecca Beitsch of The Hill
. The
budget request asks for $4.3 billion in funding for the Office of
Refugee Resettlement (ORR) - "a substantial increase from the $2.5
billion former President Trump requested for ORR for the 2021 fiscal
year, of which $2 billion was channeled to unaccompanied minors as
Trump slashed the refugee program," they note. In related news, the
Biden administration's southern border coordinator, Roberta Jacobson,
is set to retire at the end of April, at a time where the increase in
migrants and unaccompanied minors "shows no sign of stopping," reports
Stef W. Kight of Axios
. 

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**'NO WONDER'** - Most migrants coming to the border are
there out of desperation, explains Linda Chavez in a powerful
piece for The xxxxxx
. She recently visited the border
and writes about the temporary safety migrants find through the Kino
Border Initiative  (KIBO).
"Most [migrants] are fleeing gangs, cartels, and extreme poverty in
their homeland, hopeful that they might build new lives in the United
States," she writes. And when parents are often "[f]aced with a choice
between leaving their children to face starvation in Guatemalan
villages, or in southern Mexico where both drug cartels and anti-drug
armed defense patrols
 are
enlisting even 8-year-olds to join, many parents choose the
unthinkable." No spoilers, but don't miss the last few lines. 

**VACCINE ID** - A lack of formal identification is beginning to stand
in the way of some immigrants being able to access COVID-19
vaccines. Akilah Johnson reports in the Washington Post
 that
many vaccination sites are asking for driver's licenses, Social
Security numbers or health insurance cards, "specific documentation not
mandated by states or the federal government," leading many to seek
vaccinations at community organizations such as the Brazilian Worker
Center  in Boston. "If it was not for the
center, we wouldn't take the vaccine," says one immigrant whose
family emigrated from Brazil a year and a half ago. 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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