NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

 

William Hanrahan, the former managing judge of the San Francisco
immigration court, retired after only 14 months on the job, "saying the
courts are run by a 'soul-crushing bureaucracy' that needs
'wholesale reform,'" reports Tal Kopan of the San Francisco
Chronicl
e.   

As manager, he oversaw 25 immigration judges and dozens
of staff. Immigration courts are run by the Department of Justice,
and Hanrahan was "subject to its political whims, a top-down management
style that throttled innovation and slow-walked modernizing reforms, and
a disconcerting proximity to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement
attorneys who act as the court's prosecutors." 

"I just thought I was going to actually be a judge," Hanrahan said.
"They're not real courts. When I first started, I truly felt like a
stranger in a strange land. ... It was not consistent with my training
and experience as a judge." 

Across the nearly 70 immigration courts nationwide, the case
backlog surpasses 1.3 million, according to Syracuse University's
TRAC database
. San
Francisco alone has more than 70,000 cases in the pipeline.  

Welcome to Tuesday'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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**PANDEMIC REFUGEES** - The New York Times'
 Miriam
Jordan tells the story of migrants fleeing from Venezuela, India and
other "virus-devastated economies" in hopes of finding jobs in the
U.S. This new category of "pandemic refugees" are "arriving in ever
greater numbers from far-flung countries where the coronavirus has
caused unimaginable levels of illness and death and decimated economies
and livelihoods," explains Jordan. Economists say the COVID-19
pandemic has disproportionately affected developing countries, where its
impact "could set back decades of progress." My take
: This is
pandemic-driven migration that will increase around the world. Unless
nations bind together to manage flows of people, authoritarians will
weaponize migration to further undermine democracies. Just
as Hungary's Viktor Orbán weaponized Syrian refugees, creating
space for the UK's Nigel Farage - and Donald Trump. 

**ADMISSIONS CAP** - While refugee advocates are grateful that
the Biden administration has raised the admissions  ceiling to
62,500, they say actual admissions this fiscal year are unlikely to
exceed the Trump's record-low cap of 15,000, report Julie Watson and
Matthew Lee of the Associated Press
.
"About 10,000 to 15,000 is what we're expecting," said Jenny Yang
of World Relief , adding that the Biden
administration's initial delay in raising the cap "meant not being
able to process refugee applications for four months. We weren't able
to rebuild for four months, so it really was unfortunate." Watson and
Lee explain that because of the narrow eligibility requirements
established under the Trump administration, thousands
of already-vetted refugees were disqualified. On top of that,
resettlement agencies say that Biden's delay in expanding eligibility
caused some paperwork to become invalid. With fewer than five months
left in the fiscal year, only 2,500 or so refugees have been
admitted to the U.S.   

**DREAMER LEGISLATION** - Dreamers need a permanent solution from
Congress, writes South Dakotan preschool teacher and DACA
recipient Karen Benitez-Lopez in an op-ed for Aberdeen News
. With DACA's
work authorization and protection from deportation, Karen was
able to pursue her passion for early childhood education - but
because of her limited status, she cannot access federal aid to advance
her career. "We continue to fight to prove that we are doing right by
this country - our home - yet we miss out on growth opportunities,
with the required renewal of our protections every two years leaving us
feeling like our time here is fleeting," she writes. "I was born a
Dreamer and raised a fighter. I pray this is the year I will finally
feel secure in the place I call home." 

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**DETENTION **- In what may be an important case, the private prison
corporation GEO Group has sued Washington state, "saying a new law
mandating the closure of the immigrant detention center [GEO] operates
in Tacoma would unconstitutionally subvert federal authority,"
the Associated Press
reports. The
struggle over the detention center "follows years of criticism by
activists and human-rights advocates saying immigrants held there are
given inadequate food and medical care, and spend much longer on
average in solitary confinement than at other such institutions." Oh,
by the way, Washington's State Attorney General Bob Ferguson
is additionally suing GEO for "allegedly violating minimum-wage laws
by paying detainees $1 a day to work there."  

**STRANDED** - U.S. citizens and permanent residents can travel
freely in and out of the country. But under pandemic-era travel
restrictions that advocates say are unevenly applied,
people with certain nonimmigrant visas cannot re-enter the country
even if they have been vaccinated, quarantined or tested. Aishvarya
Kavi at The New York Times
 tells
the story of Payal Raj, who traveled to India in April to renew her
H-4 visa. "But the visa itself would soon strand her in India
indefinitely, separating her from her husband and daughter in
Hendersonville, [Tennessee]." Immigration attorney Gregory
Siskind said the State Department needs to change its  procedures in
order to process emergency applications during the pandemic: "They
have, for example, not switched to video interviewing, which is
something that they have the statutory authority to do," he said.  

**INNOVATION **- A new Senate bill
,
the Endless Frontier Act, aims to help U.S. companies compete against
China. But National Foundation for American Policy
 Executive Director Stuart Anderson writes
in Reason
 that the bill doesn't
consider the most important part of global competitiveness -
foreign talent. In recent years, foreign nationals have accounted for
70 to 80%
 of
the full-time graduate students at U.S. universities
in computer science and electrical engineering, Anderson
notes, adding that the National Security Commission on
Artificial Intelligence has also advocated for expanding pathways for
"high-skilled" immigrants.  Anderson concludes that "[n]o legislation
is likely to help American companies outcompete their Chinese
counterparts if Congress and the executive branch fail to enact more
welcoming policies - or worse, impose new immigration
restrictions." In other words, it is an economic and a national
security imperative to have a functioning immigration system.  

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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