Wednesday, October 6
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

For Axios
, Marina
E. Franco of Noticias Telemundo sheds light on drug cartels'
booming business of kidnappings and extortions, driven by the supply of
vulnerable migrants "stranded from express
 deportations
and quickly rejected
 asylum
claims."   

"Kidnapping families, torturing kids for information on whom to ask for
ransom, and dismembering those that don't pay: This is how cartels and
local gangs operate as they have diversified their business from drug
trafficking to extortion."  

According to Human Rights First
, at
least 6,356 migrants headed to the U.S. were victims of kidnappings and
related abuses from January until August. Per interviews
, cartels
and other organized crime groups in Mexico can make between $600 and
$20,000 from each ransom. 

Meanwhile, eight Republican governors are traveling to Mission,
Texas, this week to release their 10-point plan
 for
border security, the Associated Press
 reports.
The cartels must be thrilled: Nine of
the plan's 10 proposals would merely push migrants out of the
already-elusive legal path to entry and into the hands of smugglers,
coyotes and kidnappers.   

Through their inaction, Congress has outsourced our nation's
immigration system to the cartels. Organized crime, not our government,
is determining who can enter the U.S.  

Additionally, a new report from the Migration Policy
Institute concludes that the Department of Homeland Security "could
create a more efficient, humane and reliable immigration system through
better agency collaboration and integration," reports
Elizabeth Trovall of The Houston Chronicle
. 

For your calendar: Join us at our annual Leading the
Way 2021 convening for critical conversations on common
sense immigration solutions on Oct. 25 and 26. Sign up here
 (it's free and
online).  

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]
.

[link removed]

'THE LORD'S WORK' - The New York Times
'
Natalie Kitroeff  tells the story of two brothers in Matamoros,
Mexico - one who kicked out 200 migrants from his
church, and the other who stepped in to support them. Local pastor
Víctor Barrientos had invited dozens of asylum seekers to stay in
his church, Kitroeff writes. But by June, he lost his
patience: "I'm not receiving any help from the state
or [Mexican] federal government," Barrientos said. "This is just a
church, not a place to shelter people." Now, many of the migrants are
packed in his brother Joel's one-bedroom apartment, where his family
has created an extra bedroom and placed tents on their roof. "We
love the Lord's work," Joel said.  

RESETTLEMENT CHALLENGES - Resettling Afghan refugees for the next
few months is going to be a challenge for a number of reasons,
said Matt Soerens, U.S. Director of Church Mobilization & Advocacy for
World Relief, in an interview with Kent Annan for Christianity
Today
. "World
Relief is anticipating resettling roughly as many individuals in the
next three months as we have in the past three years ... [but] new
funds ... don't turn into fully trained staff (caseworkers, volunteer
coordinators, mental health counselors and all the other roles we need
to fill) overnight." 

Here is today's selection of local, national and global stories
of support: 

* Dr. Saleema Rehman, a gynecologist serving displaced Afghan women
in Pakistan (and the first female refugee doctor from Afghanistan's
Turkmen ethnic group), "won UNHCR's regional Nansen Refugee Award
,
an annual prize given to individuals doing outstanding work for
displaced people." To support recently displaced Afghans in
Pakistan, she'll be "delivering babies and saving
mothers." (Ruchi Kumar, NPR
) 

* Literacy Together
 of
Asheville, North Carolina, is looking for volunteers to help tutor
incoming Afghan refugees. (ABC 13
) 

* Adamstown Uniting Church in Australia has been collecting gift cards
for major stores in an effort to help Northern Settlement Services
resettle newly arriving Afghans. (Helen Gregory, Newcastle Herald
) 

[link removed]

DETENTION CENTERS - A federal appeals court on
Tuesday blocked a California law banning privately run immigration
detention centers, report Maura Dolan and Andrea Castillo of The Los
Angeles Times
.
"California is not simply exercising its traditional police powers,"
wrote 9th Circuit Judge Kenneth K. Lee, a Trump appointee, "but rather
impeding federal immigration policy." Gov. Gavin
Newsom (D) first signed the measure into law in 2019
, and
it previously "had been largely upheld by a district court judge
,"
they note. California Attorney General Rob Bonta "indicated in a
statement that the state was likely to appeal." 

**FOR IMMIGRANT FATHERS** - For Hispanic Heritage
month, writer Rosa Gómez penned a beautiful letter of gratitude
for immigrant fathers, published in University of Wisconsin-Eau
Claire's The Spectator
. She
recalls childhood memories of her own father, a Honduran
immigrant, "coming to read in his broken English to my fourth-grade
class about Celia Cruz, volunteering during lunch and watching me in
the school choir." Her father's immigration story, "similar to so
many other young people who risk their lives for a chance in
'el norte,' is one that deserves to be remembered and honored," she
writes. "His story is what makes my family what it is. It is why we are
strong, hard-working and a beautiful representation of the heritage that
we proudly carry." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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