Wednesday, August 11
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard and U.S. Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, among others, vowed to expand bilateral
cooperation to address immigration at a Tuesday meeting in Mexico
City, per Reuters
. 

"The delegations agreed to expand cooperation in order to manage
orderly, safe and regular migration flows with respect for the human
rights of migrants and asylum seekers," said the Mexican foreign
ministry via statement. 

This follows a Monday meeting between Mexican President Andrés
Manuel López Obrador and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, in which
they discussed "migration, the fight against COVID-19 and the need to
strengthen Central American economies."  

Welcome to Wednesday'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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COLLABORATION - On Monday, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS) announced
 an
update to the application process: Immigrants applying for legal
permanent residence, or green cards, will now be able to apply for
their Social Security number at the same time to avoid a
dual process, reports Daniel Shoer Roth of the Miami Herald
. "Eliminating unnecessary
bureaucracy and optimizing collaboration across public-serving agencies
is a key priority for this agency and the Biden-Harris
administration," said newly appointed USCIS director Ur M. Jaddou. 

SAVING AFGHANS - For The New Yorker
, Kirk
Wallace Johnson tells the story of two American Foreign Service
officers who "risked their careers to save Vietnamese imperiled by a
slow-moving bureaucracy" in 1975, and how
the Biden administration could save tens of thousands of Afghan
allies now facing a similar situation. Johnson points back to a
recommendation from a 2010 testimony
:
"the Guam Option, using military planes to evacuate high-priority
individuals, could save lives without jeopardizing
security." The administration is still figuring out how to carry
out Operation Allies Refuge
 - or
better yet, how to vastly expand its operations to include more
Afghans. The longer these logistical questions go unanswered, Johnson
writes, the more the evacuation effort "veers into the terrain of a
public-relations stunt: a few planes taxiing in front of cameras before
taking off with a lucky few Afghans while the rest are left to fend for
themselves." 

'PANDEMIC OF THE UNVACCINATED' - "Is this the pandemic of the
migrants? No. This is the pandemic of the unvaccinated," said Dr. Ivan
Melendez, chief medical advisor for the Hidalgo County Medical
Authority in an Aug. 4 news conference, per Dianne
Solis and Allie Morris at The Dallas Morning News
. In
an explainer debunking the myth that migration is fueling a COVID-19
surge, Solis and Morris point out that except for those
expelled under Title 42 restrictions, all
migrants get tested for COVID-19, and Border
Patrol provides them with masks "the moment they are taken into
custody," per an agency spokesperson. "It is professionally
irresponsible to equate crossing the border with having disease,"
said John Mckiernan-González, a history professor at Texas State
University. Regardless of its truthfulness, this myth is a powerful
tool for anti-immigrant politicians - including the chairman of
the Senate Republican Conference, who has
used Facebook ads to "raise money by associating migrants with the
surge of coronavirus infections in the southern United
States," as The Washington Post's
 Isaac
Stanley-Becker writes. 

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STAY OR LEAVE - For generations, the people of Quejá - a small
community in the mountains of Guatemala - have scraped out a living
farming coffee, corn, cardamom, and beans. But in 2020, the
community "was wiped out in minutes" by a massive mudslide caused
by Hurricane Eta, Alberto Arce and Rodrigo Abd report for
a series
 in the Associated
Press
 with
the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Faced with few choices,
many residents tried to rebuild. But for others like Victor Cal,
the only choice seemed to be migrating to the U.S. "If I had a
choice, I wouldn't go," said Victor. "I will be back as soon as
possible." 

THE 

**COVERAGE** - A content analysis
 by
Internews reveals "shortcomings and opportunities in U.S. immigration
coverage." The analysis looked at more than 4,500 news stories
covering immigration during the Trump era that were included in
the Migratory Notes
 newsletter. According to the
research, "coverage focused on illegality and storylines where migrants
lack agency, reporting overemphasized the southern U.S. border region, a
relatively small group of journalists dominated immigration coverage,
and national news outlets based in major media centers dominated." As a
result, "Internews recommends expanding geographic scope of immigration
coverage, investing in partnerships between mainstream and
immigrant-serving media outlets, broadening the scope of immigration
coverage, and creating global knowledge-sharing networks for immigration
coverage." 

**RECONCILIATION** - There is an "opportunity now to end the
precarity that so many immigrants experience daily by passing a
budget-reconciliation package
 that
includes citizenship for [the] undocumented," our
friend Lorella Praeli, co-president of Community Change Action and a
co-chair of the We Are Home campaign; and Hina Naveed, a registered
nurse who works with the New York Immigration Coalition; write in an
op-ed for The New York Times
. "We believe
that this is our year... to transform an outdated and cruel immigration
system into one that is humane and functional, and one that finally
creates a real, navigable path to citizenship." Early this morning, on
a 50-49 vote
,
the Senate passed a budget resolution that opened the door to possible
legalization of undocumented immigrants through
reconciliation - a legislative process that will wind through the
next several weeks. 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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