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 Chronicle.

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].

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."

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