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].

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."

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