NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Former President Donald Trump, along with House Republicans who
visited the border yesterday and a few Republican governors, "are
loudly signaling [the GOP's] conviction that immigration will be a
potent political weapon ahead of the midterm elections and presidential
primary in 2024," David Siders writes in Politico
.  

"In a Harvard CAPS-Harris poll this month
,
voters rated immigration just behind the economy and jobs on issues of
importance," Siders notes. The poll puts Biden's approval rating on
immigration at 52% - "a weaker endorsement of Biden than on any other
subject measured, from the economy to crime and response to the
coronavirus." 

Immigration is "off the Richter scale in terms of importance for the
Republican electorate," said Republican strategist John Thomas. "It
transcends jurisdictions. So, it goes from the suburbs of Orange County
to statewide in Nevada ..." 

As for 2022, NPR
's
Danielle Kurtzleben breaks down Pew Research Center's validated
voters' report
, released
yesterday, which examines the 2020 electorate and Biden's path to
victory. 

Welcome to Thursday'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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**VACCINES** - A new report
 from
the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies (IFRC) finds that refugees and migrants continue to
face barriers to equitable COVID-19 vaccine access, reports Teresa
Welsh of Devex
.
Ninety percent of IFRC societies surveyed said that limited
information or awareness about how to get vaccinated prevented
refugees and migrants from receiving shots, while 67% cited language
barriers. Administrative barriers such as legal documentation,
difficult or time-consuming registration processes, and
limited appointment times are also preventing these
populations from accessing vaccines. A reminder that health care
inequities make all of us less safe: "If we don't reach everyone in
the community or provide access to everyone in the community to
vaccines, then we have the risk of further mutations of the virus, and
the protection for the rest of the population through vaccines not being
as effective," said Ezekiel Simperingham, global migration and
displacement lead at IFRC. 

**COURTS** - The Justice Department has officially dropped its
opposition to reviving a union for immigration judges, per
the Associated Press
. The
announcement comes after the Trump administration stripped the union of
its authority and imposed measures on judges that included completing
700 cases a year. In other legal news, on Tuesday the Supreme court
ruled that the government can "indefinitely detain certain immigrants
who say they will face persecution or torture if they are deported to
their native countries," AP
's Mark
Sherman reports. Said Justice Stephen Breyer in his dissent: "[W]hy
would Congress want to deny a bond hearing to individuals who reasonably
fear persecution or torture, and who, as a result, face proceedings that
may last for many months or years...? I can find no satisfactory answer
to this question." 

**HEATWAVE** - Migrant farmworkers have always faced tough working
conditions, but this year's historic heat wave in the Pacific
Northwest makes the work extra challenging, Lauren Kaori
Gurley reports for VICE
. Adequate shade,
breaks, water, and workload guidelines are not guaranteed since
"[a]gricultural workers-with the exception of those in a few
states-are also exempt from union rights
 and child
labor laws." But the extreme weather also means workers are scrambling
to harvest crops before they die in the heat, Gurley notes. "A lot of
people who don't feel well keep working so as not to lose money for
lunch or rent," said a cherry picker in Yakima County, Washington,
where temperatures have recently exceeded 100 degrees for three
days straight. "People endure a lot to finish. They give more than
they are able to."  

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**GAME, SET, MATCH** - Frances Tiafoe's father left Sierra Leone
in 1988, eventually immigrating to the U.S. in 1993 and settling down
in Hyattsville, Maryland, where he worked at the Junior Tennis Champions
Center. Back in 2014, Liz Clarke of The Washington Post
 told the
story of Frances's journey from sleeping in the Center's spare room
to becoming a tennis prodigy. Now, Clarke's reporting
 on Frances' first
victory over a top-five tennis player this week - on
Wimbledon's No. 1 Court. "I was a kid that obviously didn't come
from much," said Tiafoe. "I set out a goal from a super young age of
using the game of tennis to be able to put myself and my family in
positions to live the way I personally think we deserve, with all
the hard work they put in, and so did I."  

**BLESSING** - ICYMI: Father Franciscus Asisi Eka Yuantoro of
St. Joseph Catholic Church in Donna, Texas, was first welcomed in
June into a government facility for unaccompanied minors to
celebrate Mass in-person, reports John Lavenburg of Crux
.
Yuantoro, together with Sister Norma Pimentel, the executive director
of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, was able to "help the
children understand the situation and how to pray," leading two
Masses each attended by around 300 children. "The children were very
happy to have Mass and to pray together because they're hungry for
that," Yuantoro said. "They're hungry for the spirit. They're
hungry to have somebody to support a spiritual side and they want to
know God and to continue." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

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