Krish Vignarajah, president and CEO of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, said Afghan allies are feeling "fear and hope" as the U.S. prepares to complete its withdrawal of troops, Sinclair’s Elissa Salamy reports for ABC13 Lynchburg.

"That fear is growing with the Taliban's territorial gains," said Vignarajah. "For many of these Afghan allies and family members, they've been forced to go into hiding, because they are on the Taliban’s target list. And so there is a palpable sense of desperation."

"We've done military evacuations of allies before so I'm not worried about our military capabilities, but with a limited timeframe, we need to at least know that this is going to be spearheaded by a senior operational commander because it is going to be a large-scale interagency effort."

Welcome to Tuesday’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].

UNDER REVIEW — The Biden administration will begin reviewing thousands of cases of people who say they were unjustly deported in recent years, especially during the Trump era, The Marshall Project’s Julia Preston reports for Politico Magazine. Those being considered include military families and veterans, young immigrants excluded from Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and those like Cecilia González Carmona who have "close relatives who are American citizens and can show their families were severely harmed by the deportation of a parent or breadwinner who has strong ties to the U.S." Cecilia’s husband, Jason Rochester, said his wife’s deportation has felt like punishment for himself and their son: "We’re citizens, and we have to choose between our wife and mother or our country." For now, Preston notes, "only a very small fraction — perhaps thousands — of more than 900,000 formal deportations under Trump could be reversed." But if the new system proves effective, many more people could become eligible to apply.

UPROOTED — Venezuelan professionals — bankers, doctors, engineers — are arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in record numbers as they flee turmoil at home, Joshua Goodman reports for the Associated Press. Compared with other migrants, Goodman notes, Venezuelans garner certain privileges, a reflection of "their firmer financial standing, higher education levels and U.S. policies that have failed to remove Maduro but nonetheless made deportation all but impossible." Many Venezuelans coming to the U.S. have already migrated once before, settling in other Latin American countries until the pandemic spurred economic devastation across the region. Last month alone, Border Patrol agents encountered 7,484 Venezuelans along the border — more than all 14 years for which records exist. The record increase is "a harbinger of a new type of migration that has caught the Biden administration off guard: pandemic refugees."

TEXAS VS BIDEN — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and the Biden administration are battling over the state’s plan to close federal shelters that house some 4,500 unaccompanied migrant children, reports Adam Cancryn of Politico. Abbott plans to revoke the licenses of any shelter that continues to serve migrant kids beginning August 31 — a total of around 52 shelters statewide, notes Cancryn. Regarding Abbott’s plans, "[i]t’s very hard to see what’s accomplished," said Mark Greenberg, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute who led HHS’ Administration for Children and Families (the agency responsible for housing unaccompanied minors) under Obama. "There’s been broad agreement that it’s a good thing for children to be in licensed facilities — which are regulated and monitored — and this effort just makes that harder."

FLIP THE SCRIPT — As Democrats and moderate Republicans struggle to combat the weaponization of immigration by the right, how can President Biden flip the script on immigration? As I wrote for The xxxxxx, Democrats and Republicans first need to approach immigration as a way to build consensus — in other words, "not as a base-turnout wedge, but as an issue that allows those who were turned off by Trump’s immigration approach to find another in-group." Lawmakers need to make clear that a secure border, and a secure nation, depend on three things: a functioning immigration system, a sophisticated security approach, and solutions that address the root causes of migration through collaboration with government and civil society organizations in Mexico and Central America. For more on communicating solutions, Wendy Feliz and Suzette Brooks Masters of the Center for Inclusion and Belonging at the American Immigration Council offer five ways to have better conversations about immigration for Greater Good Magazine. It’s a must-read.

IN OHIO — Uma Acharya was born in a refugee camp in Nepal after her family fled government persecution in Bhutan, and for fifteen years experienced the trauma of poor living conditions and a lack of resources. Now, she’s using her experiences to help treat Columbus, Ohio’s Bhutanese-Nepali residents and refugees as a mental health counselor, Yilun Cheng reports for The Columbus Dispatch. She’s part of small team at the Center for New Americans, which recruits Nepali-speaking counselors, often refugees themselves, to provide culturally sensitive care. "[W]ith refugees, there are so many underlying traumas, so we have to keep approaching them until they say, ‘OK, let’s give this a try,’" said Acharya. Separately, a new Ohio State University law clinic starting in the fall will teach students how to represent immigrants in legal proceedings, The Dispatch’s Danae King reports. "[A] clinic like ours is really only beginning to scratch the surface of that unmet need in helping immigrants to stabilize their status, make more permanent plans regarding them and their families, and make things right with the law and existing structures," said Steven Huefner, a law professor and director of clinical programs at the Moritz College of Law.

Thanks for reading,

Ali