NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

The nation's slowing population growth, confirmed by the
latest the Census Bureau report
, is
a "a blinking light about the path ahead," Dan Balz writes
for The Washington Post
. 

"The need for new immigration policy may become clearer because of these
demographic trends, but the politics of it is very difficult and it
requires one or both of the parties to get off of where they're dug in
currently," Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the Center for American
Progress , told the Post.  

And your Monday morning reminder that immigrants are good for
America: Las Vegas special education teacher and bilingual
educator Juliana Urtubey, who was born in Colombia, was named 2021
National Teacher of the Year last week, reports Madeline
Will of EducationWeek
.
"I'm really grateful to lean into this idea that teachers are leaders
from their classroom," Urtubey said.  

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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**ENTREPRENEURS** - In its closing days, the Obama
administration proposed the International Entrepreneur Rule
, "the
only immigration path that is tailored specifically to startup
founders." And while the Trump administration never officially
eliminated the program, it opposed the policy and declined to utilize
it. Yuliya Chernova and Michelle Hackman at The Wall Street Journal
 report
that President Biden aims to revive the program, with the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) estimating that as many as 3,000 foreign
entrepreneurs would qualify a year - potentially bringing thousands
of American jobs with them. "It shouldn't be controversial that we
want the most talented entrepreneurs to start and grow their companies
and create jobs here, not somewhere else," said Doug Rand, who helped
create the program while advising at the Obama White House. 

**SELF-SEPARATION** - Because of a court ruling in November 2020,
unaccompanied children are exempted from Title 42, the pandemic-era
policy under which the Biden administration can expel adults and
families at the U.S. border without the opportunity to apply for asylum.
One apparent result: Since President Biden took office, Border Patrol
agents have encountered more than 2,100 unaccompanied children "who
are believed to have left their families voluntarily in order to seek
asylum in the U.S.," report Nicole Sganga and Camilo Montoya-Galvez
of CBS News
.  DHS
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the agency is "looking very carefully"
at reports of self-separation. 

**BIOMETRICS **- The Biden administration is abandoning its
predecessor's proposal to vastly expand the collection of biometric
data from immigrants, Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News
reports. A
proposed Trump-era rule issued in September 2020 would have broadened
the kinds of data the government would have collected, how often, and
from whom - U.S. citizen sponsors associated with immigrants also
would have been subject to the data collection, as
would immigrants younger than 14. "The proposed policy never
took effect, but would have represented a massive shift in the
Department of Homeland Security's collection of personal information
from immigrants and U.S. citizens and caused concern among privacy and
immigrant advocates," Aleaziz writes. 

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**NO CLEAR STRATEGY **- U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) has reported more than 13,000 COVID-19 cases in its
detention facilities, and several related deaths, since the onset of
the pandemic. In Texas, the infection rate for detainees is 44
times higher than that of the general population. Yet ICE still has
"no clear vaccine strategy" for those in its custody, reports Elizabeth
Trovall of Houston Public Media
. Instead, ICE
has insisted that access to vaccines in their detention centers is up
to state and local governments - and in Texas, state health
officials have "punted the responsibility to vaccinate detainees back
to ICE," saying health care in federal facilities is a federal
responsibility. ICE's approach (or lack thereof) to vaccines is part
of a pattern of poor health care in immigration detention facilities,
Trovall reports, and contrasts starkly with the approach in U.S.
prisons: The Bureau of Prisons has administered more than 160,000
doses  to those in
custody.  

**IOWA** - In response to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynold's comment
that
caring for unaccompanied migrant children "is the president's
problem," Valerie Stokes - an Orange City, Iowa, resident and
parent to two undocumented, unaccompanied
children - writes in a Des Moines Register
 op-ed: "We
have the potential to provide safe, loving homes for children who have
been traumatized by their journey and in Customs and Border Protection
custody in overcrowded facilities. We do not need Iowa to create
facilities; we just need Iowa families to open their hearts and homes."
Highlighting organizations like  Bethany Christian Services
, in addition to her own experiences caring for
unaccompanied migrant children, Stokes writes: "I believe that there
are many other Iowans who would do the same if given the opportunity.
But this decision was taken away from us."   

**BIPARTISAN BILLS** - "If comprehensive reform is impossible,
piecemeal improvements are better than nothing," Forum Senior Fellow
Linda Chavez writes in a column for The xxxxxx
. "But legislation
that helps address the current influx of children and families at the
southern border is a necessary first step." Nicholas Larsen, cofounder
of the sustainably family-run NK Lago Farms
 on Lake Okeechobee, Florida, 
couldn't agree more: "It's time for Congress to work in a
bipartisan manner to pass these overwhelmingly popular bills," he writes
in an op-ed for The Palm Beach Post
. "It
should be an easy decision to support legislation that will help our
economy grow and businesses succeed. I urge Senators Marco Rubio and
Rick Scott to partner with their colleagues on both sides of the aisle
and get this done without delay." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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