NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Yesterday Attorney General Merrick Garland reversed a Trump-era
order that barred immigration judges from pausing
cases they deemed to be low-priority and removing them from their
docket, reports Julia Ainsley of NBC News
. The
move allows judges to focus on higher-priority cases, and will "cut
down on the ballooning backlog of immigration cases in the U.S., now
surpassing 1.3 million." 

From our perspective, this is a positive step that significantly
impacts how immigration judges are able to manage their own
dockets.  

Welcome to Friday'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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**SHERIFF GONZALEZ** - In a Senate confirmation hearing
 yesterday
for his nomination to lead U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) yesterday, Harris County, Texas Sheriff and Law Enforcement
Immigration Task Force  Co-chair Ed
Gonzalez pledged to uphold the agency's agreements with local law
enforcement, reports Rebecca Beitsch of The Hill
."I
had to consider obviously the local realities as well and the importance
of local law enforcement also working with a diverse immigrant
community," said Gonzalez. "I also wanted to make sure that we
continued to remain focused on having the avenues necessary to arrest
serious offenders in our community ... Public safety is always my
North Star." More than 60 law enforcement leaders signed a letter
 this
week urging Gonzalez's swift confirmation. 

**ASYLUM** - "God opened the door," Honduran Nelson Membreño said
as he left a crowded Tijuana border camp after his family was selected
to seek asylum in the U.S. With thousands of vulnerable families
waiting for the same opportunity, however, the question is why he
specifically was picked, Elliot Spagat reports for the Associated
Press
. "His
confusion speaks to an opaque - if temporary - system the Biden
administration has assembled that task immigration advocates with
choosing which migrants get a limited number of slots to come to the
U.S. to claim asylum," writes Spagat. "Final decisions on asylum rest
with U.S. authorities, who don't disclose their criteria or say how
many people are admitted to the country."  

**ROOTING OUT CORRUPTION **- The Biden administration has
significantly expanded its fight against Central American
corruption, producing a "list of officials too disreputable to deal
with" that could be a "potentially significant blow" to corruption in
the region, Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times
 reports. The
list was drafted by the State Department and includes former
presidents, current lawmakers and other officials from El Salvador,
Guatemala and Honduras. Officials on the list are barred from
travelling to the U.S., among other limitations. "Corruption and
attacks on democracy are viewed as some of the most important
root causes of irregular migration from Central America,"
said Ricardo Zúñiga, special envoy for the Northern Triangle
countries. "They hobble governance, they distort markets, they undercut
development efforts, and ultimately, they demoralize a population that
decides to embark on a very dangerous irregular migration to Mexico and
the United States because they don't believe they can build their
futures at home."   

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**FAMILY, FRIEND, NEIGHBOR** - In collaboration with NBC News
 and The
Fuller Project, Jessica Washington reports that many Spanish-speaking
immigrant childcare providers - who often cannot afford a license
or regulated equipment - feel left out
of federal childcare relief efforts.
They're typically considered family, friend and neighbor
 (FFN)
caregivers who don't get paid on a regular basis. Despite caring
for about 7 million children under age 6
, representing
the most common form of childcare, FFNs - who are disproportionately
women of color - "remain nearly invisible to policymakers, leaving
many of them in dire economic straits as more money has moved across
the child care infrastructure during the Biden administration,"
Washington notes. Only a few states  have offered services to help
FFNs get the licensing, funds, or resources they need. "More than
anything, I wish that the government would recognize what I'm doing,"
said Minneapolis caregiver Baxin Pucheta.  

**RELIGIOUS REFUGEES** - When their son was diagnosed with cancer,
the Polevyches  found faith and comfort in the Pentecostal church.
But their new faith made them targets for discrimination in their home
country of Ukraine, leading them to flee as religious refugees,
reports Joel Burgess of the Asheville Citizen Times
. After
a two-year vetting process, they arrived in Western North Carolina in
2019. "It was such a pleasure, you know, in my heart, how people who
don't know you will take care of you and look out for you,"
said Valentyna Polevych. Given federal and local changes to the
refugee resettlement process since the start of the Biden
administration, an increase of refugees from Eastern Europe (and
elsewhere) arriving in the region is possible, notes Burgess.
The opening of a local resettlement sub-office in Buncombe County,
where the Polevyches live, could mean an increase from an average of
about 75 refugees per year to 150, adding to a "thriving but often
unseen" immigrant community.  

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

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