Friday, September 10
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

A commercial flight with an estimated 200 evacuees, including
Americans, left Kabul on Thursday - "the first such large-scale
departure since U.S. forces completed their frantic withdrawal over a
week ago," reports Kathy Gannon of the Associated Press
. 

The Biden administration is also seeking a law to provide green cards
to Afghan refugees on humanitarian parole
, Michelle
Hackman and Siobhan Hughes report for The Wall Street Journal
. 

This is welcome news - especially now.  

According to a new NPR/Ipsos poll
,
more than seven out of 10 Americans - including strong majorities of
Republicans, white and rural voters - support resettling Afghans who
worked with the U.S. government or military, Joel Rose reports
for NPR
. "[Afghans who
opposed the Taliban] love America. They fought for us. They were with us
the whole time. True allies to the West," said poll respondent
Francesco Logreco, a Republican from Michigan.  

"There's almost this ability to separate duty to help those in
Afghanistan who helped our military - separating that from how you
feel about immigration and welcoming migrants, full stop," Mallory
Newall, a vice president at Ipsos, told Rose. "... welcoming those who
are fleeing violence in other areas of the world, namely Syria and
Libya, the African continent and Central America - that's not a
priority." 

My question: What is the new story about immigration that we can tell
after Afghanistan?  

Here's today's sampling of important local stories of welcome
and support: 

* Along with a network of people from the local sewing community, women
in Madison, Wisconsin, raised $8,000 in less than a week and donated
a 'mountain' of fabric for Afghan refugees to sew traditional
clothes. (Emily Hamer, Wisconsin State Journal
) 

* A group of North Dakota airmen, nicknamed the Happy Hooligans, are
providing base operational support and other supplementary services to
Afghans temporarily located in Wisconsin and New Jersey. (David
Olsen, Grand Forks Herald
) 

* The Student Veterans Association at Virginia Commonwealth
University have started a campaign to gather donations
for Afghan refugees. (Joan Tupponce, VCU News
) 

A reminder for your calendar: Today at 2 p.m. ET, we'll be hosting
a Facebook Live
 with Dreamers,
TPS holders, and farmworkers to discuss the realities of living without
permanent status - and what Congress can do about it.  

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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SAYED AND KAREEM - Katie Strick of the Evening Standard
 spoke with
an Afghan family who resettled in Britain but is struggling to get
the support they need. "We were promised pocket money, kids'
activities, identity cards and information on what happens next," said
Sayed Hashemi, a lawyer and former CEO for the Afghanistan Chamber of
Commerce and Investment who arrived in the U.K. with his family three
weeks ago. "Without ID or a credit card, we can't apply for jobs,
drive or open a bank account ... We may be safe from the Taliban, but
without more support from the government, I don't know what we're
going to do." Meanwhile, Catholic News Agency's
 Shannon
Mullen tells the story of Kareem, an Afghan Christian who worked
with the U.S. government but did not meet the one year of service time
required to be eligible for an SIV
. "Please
help me," he wrote to CNA via WhatsApp. "I have no one without you. You
are my last hope." REMEMBERANCE - In the wake of the chaos and
devastation of Sept. 11 in New York, immigrant cleanup workers were an
indispensable part of the city's recovery. But language barriers and
immigration status left many of these workers, who often face
significant health complications, with limited access to relief programs
or reluctant to seek care, Claudia Torrens writes for the Associated
Press
.
While Sept. 11 responders and cleanup workers "have long asked to obtain
legal immigration status in the U.S. as a way to compensate" for their
work, nearly 20 years later they still have no fast track to legal
status. "We were all immigrants who contributed to the U.S. We worked
hard there, paid taxes, grew old there," said Luis Soriano, an
Ecuadorian-born cleanup worker. "We should all be remembered for what we
did." For more reflections on how 9/11 impacted immigration,
see César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández's Washington Post
 feature
and Meena Venkataraman's deep dive in The Los Angeles Times
. 

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CHANGING COMMUNITIES - There's been an interesting smatter of
local news stories on the country's changing demographics. In
Erie County, Pennsylvania, an increase in immigrants and refugees
offset a slide in population, Matthew Rink writes for the Erie
Times-News
. 
The Indianapolis Star's
 Natalia
E. Contreras looks at the data to see how the Hoosier State is
changing. And in a new study, the University of Nebraska Omaha
, found that in
2019, immigrant spending resulted in $2.4 billion worth of total
production of goods and services in the Omaha-Council Bluffs
Metropolitan Statistical Area - "$1.0 billion more than the entire
Gross Domestic Product of the restaurant industry ($1.4 billion)" in the
region. 

MAKING A DIFFERENCE - There are ways for us to help unaccompanied
children in our communities and even in our own homes, writes Maria
Quintero, board chair of Bethany Christian Services in Florida, in an
op-ed for The Orlando Sentinel
. She and
her family "made 100 travel pouches with various items we
could donate and I quickly realized that every person has the power
to make a lasting impact on a child waiting to be reunited with their
family. ... Every action, no matter how small, helps care for these
children and makes a tremendous difference in their lives." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

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