NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Yesterday, the Council on National Security and Immigration
(CNSI) sent a letter
 to President
Biden urging the administration to "devise a plan to evacuate the
18,000 Afghan SIV applicants, their family members, and any additional
Afghan allies who would be eligible for humanitarian protection."  

Newly reintroduced in the House is the bipartisan Afghan Allies
Protection Act,
 which
would make an additional 4,000 Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) slots
available for eligible applicants from Afghanistan. Our statement on
the situation here.
 The
bottom line: This bill is a critical step, but it will not be enough
without action from President Biden. 

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley told Tara Copp of Defense One,
 "There
are plans being developed very, very rapidly here, for not just the
interpreters but a lot of other people that have worked with the United
States. ... Part of it is the Special Immigrant Visa program, but
that's not all of it. The State Department is working
through that and we are in support of that and we are going to do
whatever the leadership decides to execute."   

CNSI is hosting a press call this afternoon at 2 p.m. ET with Rick
"Ozzie" Nelson, Afghanistan veteran and former director of the Office of
Combatting Terrorism, National Security Council Staff under President
George W. Bush; and Elizabeth Neumann, former Assistant Secretary of
Counterterrorism and Threat Prevention for the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security; regarding the national security implications if
the administration fails to act. For more information contact Stacey
Hutchinson  or Jill Jackson
. 

Welcome to Thursday'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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**ESTELA** - Even as the Biden administration winds down the Trump
administration's "Remain in Mexico" policy, many asylum-seekers are
still facing injustices from the policy, reports Elliot Spagat of
the Associated Press
.
Estela Lazo and her family, from Honduras, had their initial asylum
case dismissed due to government missteps and were rescheduled for
another hearing a month later. But when the family arrived at a border
crossing for the follow-up hearing, U.S. officials denied them entry
because their initial case had been closed. "Lazo's inability to have
her claim even considered on its merits is one of many anomalies of the
policy known as 'Remain in Mexico,' an effort so unusual that it
often ran afoul of fundamental principles of justice - such as the
right to a day in court," writes Spagat. According to data from
Syracuse University, there are about 6,700 asylum-seekers in similar
situations to Lazo. 

**HEARTLAND** - According to a new report by Heartland Forward
, more foreign-born immigrants are
moving to the center of the U.S. than previous years, Worth Sparkman
and Linh Ta report for Axios
. As U.S.
population growth has slowed significantly, immigrants across the
U.S. have helped fill the labor shortages in both high-skilled and
low-skilled industries
.
"This could be part of the formula for fostering stronger job creation
and growth overall in heartland communities," said Ross DeVol,
president and CEO of Heartland Forward. Last year The New York Times
 reported
that many states' populations would be shrinking if not for immigrants,
and Alexandre Tanzi at Bloomberg
 the fastest-growing
foreign-born populations in the U.S. include "heartland cities"
like  Columbus, Ohio, and Des Moines, Iowa.  

**FLORIDA** - Participants in a bipartisan virtual panel
 hosted
by the American Business Immigration Coalition
 and IMPAC Fund
 urged Republican Florida Sens. Rick Scott and
Marco Rubio to back immigration bills that would boost the economy for
tourism, reports Lisa Maria Garza of the Orlando Sentinel
 -
namely, legislation that would provide recipients of Deferred Action
for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status
(TPS) with an earned pathway to citizenship. As Axios
'
Ben Montgomery reports, such legislation would permanently
protect some 490,000 immigrants in Central Florida alone. When it
comes to passing permanent solutions in Congress, "Florida is a key
state," said Al Cárdenas, IMPAC Fund's co-chair and former chairman
of the Florida Republican Party. "If [Scott and Rubio] put their
signature on the line in sponsoring these bills, they're going to
happen."   

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**GREATER RISKS** - New data and analysis show that strict border
enforcement policies, including Title 42, continue to put migrants
in danger, Andrew R. Calderón and Isabela Dias report for The
Marshall Project
 in
partnership with Mother Jones. "Because these [Title 42] expulsions
don't trigger prosecution for illegal reentry, migrants
are attempting multiple crossings
,
seeking out more remote and perilous sections of the border," they
note. While the number of encounters at the border dropped by half in
fiscal year 2020 compared to the previous year, the number of
encounters that required a rescue operation doubled to a 10-year
high - and the death rate nearly doubled. "History shows us that
increased enforcement leads to greater risk taking, and greater risk
taking leads to increased death," said Bradford Jones, a professor of
political science at UC Davis. "It's a simple equation. That's the
legacy,"  

**UTAH** - Utah's changing demographics have presented new
challenges and opportunities for the state - and while federal and
state-level immigration policies are key to these changes, local
approaches are a critical part of the conversation. For our latest Only
in America episode
, I
spoke with Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson
 about fostering inclusivity
and welcome at the local level - and, critically, how to put those
values into action. 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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