Thursday, October 7
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

Migrants from Iraq, Afghanistan,
Syria and elsewhere are getting stranded in a freezing
forest between Poland and Belarus, writes Joy Neumeyer, a historian of
Russia and Eastern Europe, in an opinion essay for The New York Times
.  

President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus won't let them in: "In
retaliation for European Union sanctions against his regime, he
is reportedly luring
 people
to Minsk and then depositing them at the country's border with
Poland." And         "[t]he Polish government, presenting itself as
the nation's protector from invasion, has refused the migrants entry
- and, in some cases, actively pushed them back
 into
the woods." 

"[A]s more and more people displaced by armed conflict and climate
change are turned away by the world's richer nations, refugees are
left to languish in Europe's forests," Neumeyer writes. Pinned
against borders, "[t]heir fate feels like the dark premonition of a
future that is already here." 

Meanwhile, NYT's
 Isabella
Kwai reports that "Australia will stop processing asylum-seekers at
offshore detention centers in Papua New Guinea, which have been
criticized by human rights groups, but will continue handling them on
the island of Nauru." 

UNHCR High Commissioner Fillipo Grandi is
joining our annual convening, Leading the Way, later this month to
discuss global migration. Sign up for the virtual and free event here
. 

Welcome to Thursday'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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**'WE'RE READY FOR IT'** - Department of Homeland
Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday that the Biden
administration has learned from the Haitian migrant crisis "and is
prepared for the possibility of additional groups" arriving at the
border, Rebecca Morin reports for USA TODAY
. "[W]e have developed
plans that should something like that occur again, we're ready for
it," he said of the makeshift migrant camp in Del Rio, Texas. Still,
Rebecca Beitsch of The Hill
 reports that Mayorkas
"missed a self-imposed deadline to complete an investigation into
officers on horseback who dispersed Haitian migrants despite a pledge to
wrap the review within days, not weeks." In an op-ed for The
Washington Post,
 former
asylum officer Jesús G. Ruiz tells the important history of Haiti
as "a legal sanctuary of freedom for people across the Americas in the
19th century. In their search for survival and dignity, Haitians
themselves are now in need of similar protections." 

REUNITED - It took eight years. After fleeing the
Taliban and hopping around military bases and refugee
camps from Qatar to El Paso, Saeed Sharifi has finally been
granted humanitarian parole and reunited with
his family in Texas, reports Michael Williams of The Dallas
Morning News
. However,
Saeed is still waiting for his sister, a women's rights lawyer, who
is currently moving from safe house to safe house in
Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Jacob Thompson of WKBN 27
 tells
the story of Afghanistan veteran Rick Stockburger, who used social
media and Google Maps to get Afghan allies to safety. For more on
what the evacuation effort means for Stockburger and
others, read WFMJ 21's
 reporting and
watch their compelling TV report
.  

Today's sample of local stories:  

* San Diego County's Board of Supervisors "unanimously approved a
comprehensive plan for Afghan refugee housing and resettlement Tuesday."
(Elizabeth Ireland, Times of San Diego
) 

* Volunteers at Hometown Church in Bloomington, Minnesota, "are packing
parcels of hope" in the form of donations for Afghan
refugees housed at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. (Rich Reeve, KTSP 5
) 

* Oklahoma State University and Catholic Charities of Eastern Oklahoma
are collaborating to resettle 40 Afghan families in the state.
(Hicham Raache, KFOR
) 

* A VFW post in Falls Church, Virginia, "collected more than 6,000
pounds of donations, including clothing, hygiene products, blankets and
baby supplies" for Afghan refugees. (Mark Hand, Patch
) 

* Wyoming is the only state that has no refugee resettlement
program. Jim Shumard, the rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church in
Casper, wants to change that. (Karin Brulliard, The Washington Post
) 

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NOBEL PRIZE - Immigrants "have kept doing what they have done for
years -winning Nobel Prizes," Stuart Anderson of the National
Foundation for American Policy (NFAP) writes for Forbes
. Per
new NFAP research
, immigrants "have
been awarded 38%, or 40 of 104, of the Nobel Prizes won by Americans in
chemistry, medicine and physics since 2000," and three of the four U.S.
winners of the Nobel Prize this year in physics, chemistry and medicine
are immigrants. "The rise in immigrant Nobel Prize winners reflects an
overall increase in the reputation and capability of American
institutions and researchers post-1960, and a greater openness to
immigration has helped make the United States the leading global
destination for research in many different science and technology
fields," the study concludes. 

PICTURE BOOK DREAMS - Austin Wells of Blue Ribbon News
 tells
the story of Rosie Pova, a Bulgarian immigrant who now lives in
Rockwall, Texas and is a successful children's book author.  "I call
[picture books] little geniuses because they accomplish so much in not a
lot of pages," said Pova, whose latest book was included in a New
York Times
 list
of picture books about imagination and identity. "If I can accomplish
what I have accomplished - going from being an immigrant who
couldn't speak English correctly to a published author - [children]
can, too, no matter what their goals are or the obstacles they may
face." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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