NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Mohammed Naiem Asadi is said to have killed more insurgents than anyone
else in the Afghan air force, and he protected the life of a downed
American pilot last year. Now, following threats on his life and a false
start in the fall, he and his family have arrived in the United
States. 

J.P. Lawrence of Stars and Stripes
 tells
the story of how Asadi had been approved for resettlement last fall,
only for the Department of Defense to withdraw approval at the last
minute. The family then went into hiding until they were "conditionally
approved for parole, a temporary status for noncitizens to come to
America."  

"I am glad that today it was proved once again that humanity knows no
boundaries and human beings can embrace each other with love in all
their differences," Asadi wrote before landing in the U.S. 

Welcome to Thursday's edition of Noorani's Notes. I'm Dan
Gordon, the Forum's strategic communications VP, and I'll be
filling in while Ali is out through next week. If you have a story to
share from your own community, please send it to me
at [email protected]
.    

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**LABOR SHORTAGE** - The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is calling
the U.S. labor shortage a "national economic emergency," per Grace
Dean of Business Insider
. According
to March data, there are only 1.4 available workers per job opening in
the U.S. - half the average over the past 20 years,
and continuing to decline. The shortage "poses an imminent threat to
our fragile recovery and America's great resurgence," Chamber president
and CEO Suzanne Clark said. Reforming the legal immigration system,
among other government investments in employer-led job education and
training programs, can "help employers meet demand for high-demand jobs
in labor-strapped sectors." (Did someone say reforming legal
immigration
?)  

**SPEAKING OF OPENINGS** - According to a National Foundation for
American Policy (NFAP) analysis
, job
vacancies in computer occupations exceed 1 million, NFAP Executive
Director Stuart Anderson writes for Forbes
. Yet
the number of H-1B visas is small given the U.S. population total,
he notes. Unless the U.S. State Department commits to new and revised
policies, "visa backlogs, including for H-1B and L-1 visa[s], will
continue to mount." Britta Glennon, an assistant professor at the
Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, adds:
"[A]ny policies that are motivated by concerns about the loss of native
jobs should consider that policies aimed at reducing immigration have
the unintended consequence of encouraging firms to offshore jobs
abroad."  

**SOME POTENTIAL HELP** - On Wednesday, Reps. Zoe Lofgren
(D-California) and John Curtis (R-Utah) introduced
bipartisan legislation
 that
would help businesses and their employees. The Equal Access to Green
cards for Legal Employment (EAGLE) Act of 2021 would phase out the 7%
per-country cap on employment-based immigrant visas and raise the
per-country cap on family-sponsored visas to 15%. A similar bill,
the Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act
, passed
with overwhelming bipartisan support last Congress, though the House and
Senate ran out of time to reconcile their different versions. Read our
statement on the new bill
.  

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**'AS ADVOCATES AND MOTHERS' **- On Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott ordered that licenses be taken away from facilities housing
unaccompanied migrant children, as Robert T. Garrett and Dianne Solis
reported in The Dallas Morning News
.
Compare that message and tone with this one: Guided by their
faith, many Texans are helping unaccompanied minors. "As advocates
and mothers, our hearts are drawn" to stories of migrant children, write
Brenda Kirk, a mobilizer with the National Immigration Forum, 
and Christine Sequenzia Titus, policy director at
the National Association of Evangelicals ,
in an op-ed for the Austin American-Statesmen
. "[T]he mission
of the church remains clear: Speak on behalf of the oppressed, show
mercy, and love your neighbor as yourself," they conclude. "Faithful
steps living out God's word help to honor the many daily sacrifices of
mothers everywhere." 

**BORDER VISIT** - Elsewhere in Texas, a bipartisan group of
senators visited the border on Wednesday - and said it's time to
reopen the international bridges, Allysa Cole reports for KRGV
. The
trade and traffic that cross those bridges are crucial to the
communities on both sides of the border, as Sen. John Cornyn
(R-Texas) said at a press conference. Joining him were Sen. Kyrsten
Sinema (R-Arizona) and Texas Reps. Henry Cuellar (D) and Tony Gonzalez
(R). The four lawmakers are co-sponsors of the Bipartisan Border
Solutions Act
,
introduced last month. 

**FIELD NOTES: UTAH** - For many immigrant communities, contact with
law enforcement is associated with discrimination, surveillance, and
risk of deportation. So for the final stop on our virtual road trip
through Utah, our new Only in America episode
 features an
in-depth conversation with Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike
Brown on how police can build a better relationship with their
communities. Trust is key, Chief Brown says. He discusses how his
department is building a pathway for a diverse range of young people,
including DACA recipients, to get involved in a career in law
enforcement. (Brown also recently penned an op-ed for the Deseret
News
 on
the need for immigration reforms.)  

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

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