The House Oversight and Reform Committee plans to subpoena U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) acting Director Ken Cuccinelli and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting Director Matthew Albence on Oct. 17 “over the temporary end to a policy that allowed some immigrants with severe health issues to remain in the U.S.,” Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands report for CNN. According to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), the administration has refused to answer questions about why the change happened, who oversaw the decision, and how deferred action will be carried out moving forward.
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“DRAMATIC, HEARTBREAKING” – Evangelicals might be the bedrock of President Trump’s base, “but many of them are decidedly not on board with his recent decision to cap the number of refugees resettled in the U.S. in 2020 at 18,000,” writes Jeff Brumley in Baptist News Global. Galen Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals described the president’s decision as “dramatic and heartbreaking.” And in an opinion piece for Religion News Service, Chris Chancey writes about moving to Clarkston, a community outside Atlanta, which has welcomed thousands of refugees: “They looked different from us and cherished different faiths, but their stories were fundamentally human. In showing me the world through their eyes, they freed me from my fear.”
WORKAROUNDS – Earlier this year, the State Department rolled out new limits on the diversity visa lottery — but the proposal didn’t go anywhere. “So the administration tried something different: It's restricting who can apply for the diversity visa, in a way that advocates say will make it much harder for low income immigrants to apply,” writes Joel Rose in NPR. Indeed, the administration has used various “workarounds” — rules, regulations, proclamations, and more — “to make sweeping changes to the legal immigration system without approval or input from Congress.”
STUDENTS IN NASHVILLE – In an action that alarmed advocates and local officials, ICE agents “showed up at a Nashville elementary school last month asking for student records,” Steven Hale reports in the Nashville Scene. School officials at Una Elementary School, which has a significant immigrant population, did not release the information. Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition praised the school’s response: “Our schools should be a safe space for all children — a place to be able to grow and learn without fear they could be separated from their families. That’s why it is outrageous and deeply troubling that ICE agents felt emboldened enough to visit an elementary school and request student information.”
SENIORS IN NEW YORK – New York City’s non-citizen seniors are underutilizing public benefits available to them because of the Trump administration’s proposed “public charge” rule, reports Roshan Abraham in Citylimits.org. The pending changes, which go into effect October 15 (if lawsuits don’t upend them) are already having a real impact, and the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs “has been trying to address misinformation around the rule through a public information campaign, including flyers and town halls, it is conducting along with community-based organizations.”
CROSSING CLOSED – Matamoros, Mexico, is one of the most dangerous places for a migrant to be stranded (Here’s an important Twitter thread from FWD.us President Todd Schulte, who recently visited). Yesterday, hundreds of migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. — who are cramped in the dangerous Mexican border town because of the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy — “occupied a bridge to Brownsville, Texas on Thursday, leading U.S. authorities to close the crossing,” Veronica G. Cardenas reports for Reuters. Men, women and children have been sleeping for weeks on the Matamoros side of the bridge, a “city known for gang violence and for cartels that control human trafficking.” Some asylum seekers said they were frustrated that their court dates in the U.S. continue to be pushed back.
LANGUAGE MATTERS – Reflecting on dehumanizing language like “illegal immigrant” and “alien,” Jen Budd, a former senior Border Patrol agent, writes in an op-ed for the Louisville Courier-Journal: “When we use this language about migrants, we are telling ourselves that they are less than human.” It’s precisely this language — which Budd herself admits to using in the past — that has an intended purpose: “Dehumanizing immigrants is a step in the process of enabling agents to cram human beings into filthy detention cells, to take their children, to give them rotten food and to deny them medical care.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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