NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

USA Today's
 Rebecca
Morin summarizes Vice President Kamala Harris' trip to El
Paso last week, which included a tour of a Customs and Border Patrol
processing center, a visit to the Paso del Norte port of entry, and
a meeting with a group of young unaccompanied girls as well
as local community and faith advocates.  

Rhina Guidos at Catholic News Service
 highlights
the exchange between Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso (a Forum board
member) and the Vice President, where he asked her "to see the
foreboding walls of steel that mark the southern boundary of this
borderland community. And to see, beyond them, the suffering and
aspirations that motivate people to leave family and homeland."  

The latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll
 indicates
that Texas voters consider immigration and border security the most
important problems facing the state, reports Heidi
Pérez-Moreno for The Texas Tribune
. The
poll found that 34% of all Texas voters, and 59% of Republican
voters, considered these topics to be the top concerns for the state. 

Speaking of Republican voters: Former President Trump is headed to
Edinburg, Texas, on Wednesday
 for
a Fox News town hall with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Sean Hannity. 

The Washington Post
's
Paul Waldman notes that new polling
 "finds that
even though immigration policies favored by Democrats are overwhelmingly
popular, President Biden's approval on immigration is pretty poor:
just 36 percent approve of his performance on the issue, while 57
percent disapprove." 

To fill the vacuum and get on offense, advocates are urging Democrats
to champion a pathway to citizenship as a way to "seize control of the
debate, because it's supported by around 70 percent of voters."  

Welcome to Monday'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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**ABBOTT AT THE BORDER** - Ahead of Gov. Abbott's
Edinburg trip this week, his office "issued a statewide call for
jailers to assist border sheriffs who could anticipate an increase in
the arrests of undocumented immigrants," per Border Report
's Fernie Ortiz. Always
ready to spend taxpayer dollars, Abbott also urged counties "to submit
a two-year projected budget for possible reimbursements for expenses
related to the migrant surge, money state lawmakers would be asked to
approve." In response, the ACLU of Texas has advised local law
enforcement not to participate in federal enforcement, noting that
noncitizens "have the legal right to seek asylum and other protections,
adding that arresting and detaining immigrants due to their immigration
status is unconstitutional." 

**EVACUATION** - Time is of essence to evacuate Afghan allies and
their families: Washington Post
 columnist
Ishaan Tharoor cites a U.S. intelligence assessment
 suggesting
the Afghan government could fall within six months of the U.S.
military withdrawal. "We risked our lives, but the U.S. government
played with us, and played with our lives," Nazir Nazari, an Afghan
interpreter still waiting for his Special Immigrant Visa (SIV),
told Scott Peterson and Hidayatullah Noorzai of The Christian
Science Monitor
.
"I will never forgive myself for endangering my family's lives." 

**JACKSONVILLE **- With the Biden administration changing
immigration policies and relaxing some travel restrictions, refugee
resettlement agencies in Florida are preparing for an increase in new
arrivals - including Afghan allies like Hedayatullah Akbari and his
family, reports Katherine Lewin of the Florida Times-Union
. After
six years working for NATO, Akbari and most of his family were granted
humanitarian parole through the SIV program. "I'm hopeful that more
people from Afghanistan and more refugees from all other countries will
be able to come to the United States and live a safe life here," he
said. Because of Trump-era cuts to refugee resettlement, as of June
2, Catholic Charities Jacksonville had only settled 24 total refugees
since October 2019 - and only nine this year, including Akbari's
family. The organization typically helps resettle several hundred people
per year. 

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**MILITARY FAMILIES** - Juana Flores, a U.S. military mother and
Mexican citizen, was finally able to reunite with her family in
California after more than two years of forced exile, reports Maria
Sacchetti of The Washington Post
. A
visit to her sick mother in Mexico in the 1990s made Flores
ineligible for legal residency in the U.S. despite her husband's U.S.
citizenship. "Officials referred Juana Flores to deportation
proceedings, and days before [her son's] July 2018 wedding,
immigration officials said she had to go." She was deported in
2019. President Biden has since committed to reversing deportations
of veterans and families of service members, but officials have yet to
announce how many cases are under review or how many veterans and their
relatives have been returned to the U.S., Sacchetti notes. "I feel
bad. There are a lot of people who are waiting," Flores said. "It's
so sad for the others. It's been a long time." 

**VACCINATION** - Dallas-area churches, hospitals, and schools are
collaborating to vaccinate hard-to-reach residents in working-class
immigrant, Black and Latino communities, reports Dianne Solis of The
Dallas Morning News
.
Language barriers, work schedules, or mistrust in the vaccine have made
some of these populations hard to reach, Solis explains, and pop-up
vaccination sites have been essential to combating some of these
challenges. "We have seen people die in our community. So, it is not a
strange story from a different planet," said Francis Basebang, a nurse
practitioner who helped organize a pop-up clinic in St. Pius X Catholic
Church. On one Saturday this month, nearly 200 people stopped at the
clinic to get their free vaccination. 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

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