NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Lots of news today. But first, congratulations are in order for new
graduates of our English at Work
 program.  

Over the past four months, we trained 54 frontline incumbent workers at
Whole Foods Market who enrolled in English classes contextualized for
the retail industry. This is the Forum's fifth year partnering with
Whole Foods to deliver the program, through which more than 500 workers
with limited English proficiency have worked to improve their language
skills - and with them, their job performance and career advancement
opportunities.  

During the training, learners worked on improving their interaction with
customers, building new vocabulary and competencies relevant to their
jobs, understanding and following safety guidelines, and navigating
technology in the store. By building increased skills and confidence,
English at Work has led to reduced employee turnover, better customer
service and increased productivity. 

The need for this kind of training is great, as Olga Khazan wrote Friday
in The Atlantic
.
Today we're so glad to be able to say to our newest
graduates: Well done! 

Welcome to Tuesday'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 this week. If you have a story to share from your
own community, please send it to me at [email protected]
.   

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**FAMILY SEPARATION** - The Biden administration's Family
Reunification Task Force released its initial report
 this
morning, and the numbers are stark. The task force found that at least
3,900 children were separated from families under President
Donald Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy, reports Myah Ward
of Politico
.
The report concludes that there were 5,636 family-child separations from
July 2017 through January 2021, but that only 3,913 children fell under
the task force's scope. Cases for the other 1,723 children remain
under review, per a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) senior
official. The task force lacks a record of reunification for more than
2,100 families, and a senior DHS official "said that upon the review
of thousands of files, the task force found incorrect names, repeated
cases or mismatched families - a 'reflection of a lack of
tracking [and] record-keeping at the time.'" 

**LATEST ON TEXAS** - On Monday the Biden administration said it
would sue Texas if Gov. Greg Abbott (R) follows through on plans
 to pull
state licenses from shelters that house migrant children,
reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News
. The
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a letter
 to
Abbott explaining that such a move would break federal law, giving
the governor until Friday to clarify his intent. As Catherine
Rampell opines in The Washington Post
, the
administration's shelter system has faced some deserved
criticism - but the effect of Abbott's move would be to force more
children into unacceptable conditions. Faith-based organizations are
frustrated that their ability to act on their beliefs would be
restricted, she notes: "As a follower of Jesus, I take seriously his
admonition that we demonstrate how much we love God by how we treat
'the least of these,'" said Marv Knox, a coordinator at Fellowship
Southwest. 

**TPS DECISION** - A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that
Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients are not eligible for green
cards or other legal status if they entered the country without
authorization, reports John Fritze of USA Today
.
A New Jersey couple from El Salvador had argued that they should be
eligible to legalize, but the Trump and Biden administrations
disagreed. The ruling does not change the status of anyone who has TPS,
and it's worth noting that the American Dream and Promise Act
,
which passed the House with bipartisan support in March, would protect
all current TPS holders and provide them with a pathway to earn
permanent legal status.  

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**LIVES ON THE LINE** - Secretary of State Antony Blinken
said Monday that the Biden administration is looking "at every
possible contingency" to assist Afghans who helped the U.S.,
report Kylie Atwood, Nicole Gaouette and Michael Conte for CNN
. Blinken did not
directly address the idea of evacuating the thousands of Afghans
waiting for Special Immigrant Visas to another country while they wait.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post
,
Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president and chief executive of the
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, urges swift action: "As the
clock on withdrawal winds down, the stakes could not be clearer: Our
Afghan allies' lives, as well as our nation's legacy, are on the
line."  

**TRIP IN PROGRESS** - Vice President Kamala Harris is in Mexico
today following her visit to Guatemala yesterday, per Alexandra Jaffe at
the Associated Press
.
"I want to emphasize that the goal of our work is to help Guatemalans
find hope at home," Harris said after meeting with Guatemalan President
Alejandro Giammattei. She also gave a clear message to migrants who
would consider traveling to the U.S.-Mexico border: "Do not come, do not
come." Giammattei said the two nations will collaborate on channeling
"regular migration" through a visa-based process and will prioritize
family reunifications. In tandem with Harris' trip, the administration
announced plans for an anti-corruption task force and another task force
"to combat human trafficking and drug smuggling in the region," among
other initiatives. The border will remain central today, when Harris is
scheduled to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López
Obrador. 

**ARELI** - Growing up, DACA recipient and bilingual educator Areli
Morales could not find any picture books that addressed being
undocumented. So she wrote one. "Areli Is a Dreamer: A True Story,
" out today, "depicts
the author's early childhood in Puebla, Mexico, where she was born, and
in New York City, where she grew up," reports Pamela Avila of USA
Today
. "We
need to start these conversations at a young age because children might
be dealing with this, they might have family members who are
undocumented, who might find themselves in situations like that," said
Morales. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan

 

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