NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

A supplemental spending bill from Senate Democrats would
include immigration provisions to protect Afghan allies as the
U.S. military completes its withdrawal from Afghanistan, reports
Caroline Simon of Roll Call
.  

Introduced Monday by Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick J. Leahy
(D-Vermont), the $3.7 billion Capitol security bill would
also "increase the number of authorized Afghan special immigrant visas
from 26,500 to 46,500" and "reduce the employment requirement for
eligibility from two years to one year, postpone the required medical
exam until the applicant reaches the United States, overhaul the appeal
process for denials and provide SIV status for family members of
murdered applicants, among other changes." 

With mounting threats from the Taliban, as Jeff Schogol writes
in Task and Purpose
, the
time for a plan to protect these allies was yesterday.  

Keep an eye out today for immigration-related details on Senate
Democrats' new
 budget reconciliation
package. Alan Fram at the Associated Press
 does
a great job breaking down the process and the politics. Kerri Talbot,
deputy director of the Immigration Hub, told Fram, "This is the chance
to finally get it done." 

Welcome to Wednesday's edition of Noorani's Notes. Big thank
you to our friends at Abara Frontiers who spent yesterday with me in
Ciudad Juárez. (More on the trip tomorrow.) If you have a story to
share from your own community, please send it to me
at [email protected]
.  

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**ICE VACCINATIONS** - To ramp up COVID-19 vaccination
efforts at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, the
Department of Homeland Security is administering the Johnson & Johnson
vaccine to immigrant detainees, reports Priscilla Alvarez of CNN
. A
nationwide distribution effort is underway with an initial allocation
of 10,000 doses, and will be replenished on a rolling basis, notes
Alvarez. The efforts come after three whistleblowers urged the Biden
administration
 to
do more to stop the spread of COVID-19 in ICE facilities. ICE
facilities "have wrestled with a growing number of positive cases,
totaling more than 19,879 confirmed cases and nine deaths," writes
Alvarez. As of July 9, there were more than 27,600 immigrants in ICE
custody. 

**DRIVER DATA** - In partnership with Univision and HuffPost,
Kimberly Cataudella and Alexia Fernández Campbell
report for the Center for Public Integrity
 that ICE is
using driver's license data to gain intel on undocumented
immigrants. Sixteen states, plus Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.,
allow undocumented immigrants to receive driver's licenses or driving
privilege cards. Expanding access to driver's licenses has been shown
to improve safety and decrease poverty, Cataudella and Fernández
Campbell write, and more states are considering similar measures. But
since January 2020, at least seven states have
shared drivers' personal information with ICE, and only four
states require a court order or warrant before providing the info (two
more, California and Hawaii, have laws that prohibit sharing information
"solely related to immigration enforcement" with ICE). Said Mayra
Cedano, executive director of Utah's Comunidades Unidas
: "A lot of folks in our communities said,
'I won't risk it. I won't renew to risk being deported just to
drive.'" 

**DACA BACKLOG **- To address a growing backlog, the Biden
administration is assigning more immigration officers to
review DACA applications, Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News
 reports. U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) "is also increasing public
outreach efforts to ensure that immigrant communities across the country
have access to information on how to apply for benefits for which they
may be eligible," said USCIS spokesperson Victoria Palmer. By the end
of June, the backlog of pending first-time DACA applications had
reached 81,000 petitions - a 48% increase
 from
late March. 

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**BORDER FACTS** - "Republicans are better than Democrats at border
theater, utilizing immigration to cudgel their opponents, and setting
the terms of the debate," author and Northwestern
University professor Geraldo Cadava writes in an op-ed for Slate
. " By
cherry-picking facts surrounding the border and hiding truths that
give perspective to the border narrative, he writes, the GOP is
building a story of problems at the border that only they can
solve. "Republican and Democratic voters alike should demand from their
leaders the whole truth about immigration, even if it doesn't support
their party's line," he concludes. This is not an abstract debate:
Jake Bleiber and Elliot Spagat report for the Associated Press
 that
the CDC "will issue an order this week about how migrant
children are treated under a public health order that has prevented
people from seeking asylum at the nation's borders."  

**REFUGEE PARALYMPIAN** - Abbas Karimi
 was born without
arms and fled his home country of Afghanistan at only 16.
Now, he'll be competing at the Paralympics in Tokyo this summer
as a butterfly swimmer, Don Gonyea and Allison Hagan report for WBUR
News
. Karimi is part
of the Paralympic Refugee Team
, a group of six
refugee athletes who represent more than 80 million displaced
people worldwide, including 12 million who currently live with a
disability. Karimi says the team hopes to "make the world a better
place" for everyone, and that he's honored to represent other
displaced people. "We all want to do something positive," he said. "And
sport can build friendships ... and we can create peace through
sport." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

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