Monday, September 27
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

From conversations on pathways to citizenship for Dreamers,
farmworkers, and Temporary Protected Status holders; to tens of
thousands of Afghans fleeing repression; to influxes of Central
American, Haitian and Cuban migrants - the immigration stories and
issues are overwhelming.  

Every piece is connected by one crucial thread: How will America
react? I wrote a bit about this over on Medium
.  

Meanwhile, Josh Campbell, Dakin Andone and Conor Powell of CNN
 report
that by Friday afternoon, the makeshift migrant camp under the bridge
in Del Rio, Texas, was cleared. Of the Haitians who had been living at
the camp, more than 12,000 were released into the U.S. to request
asylum, around 8,000 returned to Mexico voluntarily, and as of
Friday 2,000 had been expelled to Haiti, per Homeland Security
Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who defended deportations on
NBC's Meet the Press
. "We're in
the midst of a pandemic and the Centers for Disease Control has a Title
42 authority that we exercise to protect the migrants themselves, to
protect the local communities, our personnel and the American
public," Mayorkas said.  

In Mexico, Reuters
 reports
that the government will resume voluntary flights for Haitian migrants
who want to return to their home country starting next week (USA
TODAY's
 Chelsey
Cox has a great explainer on the difference between deportation,
expulsion and repatriation of Haitian migrants). 

As the policy debates continue, this story remains one of human beings
in search of a better life. David C. Adams at Univision
 shares
the "9,000-mile perilous odyssey" that Haitian migrant Casto Gustin
and his family undertook to seek asylum in the U.S.   

Welcome to Monday'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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**DACA **- The Biden administration is moving forward today with a
proposal to re-create Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
through a formal regulation, Michelle Hackman at The Wall Street Journal

reports. While the updated, formalized version "would operate largely
the same as the original created by the Obama administration in
2012," it would also attempt to address the concerns raised in ongoing
legal challenges
 over
DACA.  

**AFGHANS LEFT BEHIND** - Jonathan Blitzer of The New Yorker
tells
the story of 'Shah,' who began aiding the U.S. military in Afghanistan
as a translator in 2007 and almost immediately began receiving death
threats from the Taliban. Shah has since applied for a Special Immigrant
Visa (SIV) four times - and is still waiting to obtain one for himself
and his family. "I say, 'This is just temporary.' This is what I've been
telling them for years and years. I've made a lot of promises to my
kids." Meanwhile, NPR's

Elisa Oddone reports that Afghan refugees are among the thousands of
migrants hoping to immigrate to Europe via Serbia. "Migration has always
been here, will always be here," European Commissioner Ylva Johansson
told NPR last week. "Of course, we have challenges, but they are
manageable. And if you start panicking and being afraid of migration,
then you will not be able to manage in a humane and orderly way."

**'RESPOND WITH LOVE'** - The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB) and Catholic Charities agencies across the nation will welcome
up to 7,500 Afghan refugees in the coming months, Autumn Jones reports
for the National Catholic Register
.
"There's a lot of opportunity for us to embrace, to respond to the call,
to respond with love," said Rachel Pollock, director of resettlement
services for the USCCB Office of Migration and Refugee Services.

Here's today's roundup of local stories:

* Airbnb announced Thursday that it hopes to double the amount of Afghan
evacuees offered temporary housing, from 20,000 to 40,000. (Rachel
Tillman, Spectrum News
)

* At Liberty Village, a makeshift camp temporarily housing thousands of
Afghans at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, local
organizations are welcoming residents with music and cookouts. (Tracey
Tully, The New York Times
)

* "The way I look at it is, we're just helping our friends and
neighbors," said U.S. Air Force veteran Pat Jopling, who is helping
Afghans resettle in San Antonio, Texas, alongside other volunteers with
Soldiers' Angels . (Zack Briggs, KENS 5
)

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ABOUT OUR REFUGEE RESPONSE... - Afghan refugees, Haitian migrants
and vulnerable groups from Central America are fleeing their
countries for similar reasons - but are treated very differently
on U.S. soil, Nicole Narea writes for Vox
. "Afghan
refugees deserve protection. But so do the other vulnerable populations
arriving at America's doorstep," writes Narea. "... Just as America
bears responsibility for the crisis that Afghans are fleeing, it has
also played a well-documented - but often-overlooked - role in
creating the conditions that are driving people to make the journey to
the U.S. southern border." For more perspective on our response to
refugees worldwide, KK Ottesen interviews David Miliband, president
and chief executive of the International Rescue Committee, for The
Washington Post
. 
 

IMMIGRATION COURTS - Top immigration judge David Neal - who
stepped down during the Trump era - has now been appointed by the
Biden administration
 to
lead the Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR), which is
responsible for the nation's immigration courts, reports
Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News
. In
the past few years, many judges left EOIR "due to concerns about how
the Trump administration had reshaped the work the court was
doing," Aleaziz notes, and Neal will take over the agency "as
President Joe Biden is dealing with increasing numbers of immigrants
arriving at the southern border and a persisting court backlog." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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