NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

The Census Bureau reports that over the past decade, the
U.S. population grew at the second slowest rate since the government
started counting in 1790.  

According to demographers, the "lower birthrate, combined with the
decline in inflows of immigrants and shifting age demographics -
there are now more Americans 80 and older than 2 or younger - means
the United States may be entering an era of substantially lower
population growth," report Sabrina Tavernise and
Robert Gebeloff of The New York Times,
 

Moreover, the changes to the nation's political map
 following
the 2020 census mean the Northeast and the Midwest will
lose seats - and political power - in the next Congress. 

As we predicted back in June of 2019,
 President
Trump's (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts to include a citizenship
question in the census ended up hurting red states. Todd J. Gillman
of the Dallas Morning News
 reports that
both Texas and Florida received "a smaller apportionment bounty than
projected," pointing out that both states have "significant Hispanic
populations" that may have been turned off by the administration's
efforts to document citizenship.  

Welcome to Tuesday's edition of Noorani's Notes. As we
approach President Biden's 100th day in office, check out our
new Score Card
 evaluating
the administration's progress on the list of immigration priorities
 we
laid out in November. If you have a story to share from your own
community, please send it to me at [email protected]
.      

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**THAT'S A LOT OF ASPARAGUS** - "We can't get the labor," said
Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, a family farm growing asparagus in
Idaho and Oregon, in a recent video viewed 2.7 million times. "What
we usually do is bring people on an H-2A visa, but the border is
so freakin' screwed up that they can't get people across, so
we're 30 days late. They're telling us another 30 to 45 days before
we have any laborers to pick this crop." To avoid wasting 350,000
pounds of food, Myers ultimately invited video viewers to come to the
farm and take up to 100 pounds of asparagus for free, Orion
Donovan-Smith reports for The Spokesman-Review
. There's
a potential bipartisan solution to avoid situations like Owyhee's in
the future: the Farm Workforce Modernization Act
,
which passed the House in March and is now in the hands of the
Senate. (If you have a second, tell your senator
 to support solutions like these.) 

**DEALMAKING** - Mike Allen spoke to Frank Luntz for  Axios
 about Luntz's recent
polling, which "honed a one-two punch for a doable immigration deal:
Give Democratic lawmakers a real path to citizenship for Dreamers,
and give Republicans tight border security that's more realistic than a
wall." Luntz emphasized that "[t]he pathway to an agreement is to
give both sides what they want most." FYI, Politico Huddle
 reports
that Luntz is due to discuss "messaging guidance on hot topics" at
the House GOP retreat today. Speaking of bipartisan deals,
the Forum's Senior Policy & Advocacy Associate, Danilo Zak, is out
with an analysis of The Bipartisan Border Solutions Act
.  

**TEXAS LAWSUIT **- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a
Texas-led lawsuit that "seeks to revive a Trump-era 'public charge'
immigration rule, stating they need an opinion from a lower court
first," reports Bryan Mena of The Texas Tribune
. In
2019, the Trump administration sought to broaden the definition
 of
'public charge' in order to limit visa and green card eligibility
for immigrants who receive (or are likely to receive) government
assistance. The rule "was not in keeping with our nation's values,"
said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. "It penalized
those who access health benefits and other government services available
to them."  

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**GUATEMALA** - The U.S. has agreed to train members
of Guatemala's border protection task force following a Monday
video call between Vice President Kamala Harris and Guatemalan President
Alejandro Giammattei, report Sonia Pérez D. and Gisela Salomon of
the Associated Press
. The
U.S. will send 16 employees of the Department of Homeland Security to
aid in the effort, and "will also help Guatemala to build shelters for
returned migrants and help the migrants transition back to life in their
home communities." Said Vice President Harris in her opening
remarks: "We want to work with you to address both the acute causes as
well as the root causes, in a way that will bring hope to the people of
Guatemala that there will be an opportunity for them if they stay at
home." President Giammattei told Harris that his country's
government would like to be a "partner" to the U.S. to address "not only
poverty, but so many evils that affect us." 

**SHELTER UPDATE** - The Department of Health and Human
Services has doubled its capacity in the past month by adding more
than 14,000 emergency intake shelter beds, CNN's
 Priscilla
Alvarez and Kristen Holmes report. In addition to issues finding
adequate space, staffing remains a challenge, with FEMA and USCIS
personnel providing assistance. While the government has made strides
in terms of reducing the time children spend in Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) facilities, the National Security Council's
Transborder Security Director Andrea Flores said what the
administration "want[s] to build towards is making sure that every
child is first reunited with family in the United States, but second, as
they wait to be reunited, they are in the safest shelter
possible." Per Hamed Aleaziz
, the
number of children currently in CBP custody is around
1,400 - down from 5,300 in March. 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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