Back in June, the Biden administration announced "a multi-agency plan to crack down on foreign tax havens, illicit financing and other overseas corruption," reports Rachel Scharf for Law360. One of the initiatives was the Anti-Corruption Task Force, a group of Department of Justice Criminal Division officials focused on El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Per a DOJ statement Friday, the task force has created a tip line for reports of individuals and corporations involved in illegal activities to combat Central American corruption — part of the administration’s larger goal to address the root causes of migration.
Kenneth A. Polite Jr., head of the DOJ Criminal Division, said, "As the vice president recognized during her visit to Guatemala earlier this year, corruption and impunity in the region undermine democracy, fuel irregular migration, and pose a threat to our national security because they sustain criminal organizations and transnational crime."
Meanwhile, migration pattern "flows have changed. They go much beyond the Northern Triangle. Now, that’s complicated the narrative and the response," Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute told CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez.
In fact, as Maria Abi-Habib and Ruth Graham report for The New York Times, incidents of kidnappings and ransoms have spiked in Haiti. In addition to a group of 16 American missionaries who were taken over the weekend, gangs are controlling much of Port-au-Prince, "kidnapping children on their way to school and pastors in the middle of delivering their services." As a reminder, last month, the U.S. removed thousands of Haitians from Del Rio, Texas, returning many of them to Haiti.
Finally, this morning we extend our deepest condolences to the family of General Colin Powell, son of Jamaican immigrants, who was the highest-ranking Black public official at the time when he was nominated to serve as Secretary of State in 2001. His passing is a loss for the nation.
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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‘DETAIN FIRST, ASK LATER’ — More than 4,500 people — all potential victims of trafficking — have been held in immigration detention in the UK before being released, per data released from the past five years, reports Haroon Siddique for The Guardian. "Aside from the moral imperative to make trafficking support more readily available to those who need it, it is clear that the government’s ‘detain first, ask later’ approach to immigration detention is completely obscuring the state’s ability to identify human trafficking, and is running counter to its goal of fighting modern slavery," said Maya Esslemont, the director of the charity After Exploitation, which obtained the data. After Exploitation and other charities are urging the government to curb the nationality and borders bill, which they say will make it more challenging to identify victims, notes Siddique.
‘SHOCKING’— For the first time in a decade, Domino’s U.S. same-store sales declined, falling 1.9% on a year-over-year
basis. Per Kevin Stankiewicz of CNBC, Domino’s Pizza CEO Ritch Allen told CNBC’s Jim Cramer: "In the U.S. with minimal population growth organically, we do — we need
immigration in our industry to continue to have enough team members." The next day, after what he called a "shocking" and "sobering" conversation, Cramer said, "We literally have to start thinking about an immigration policy that involves taking in people."
RECAPTURE — Multiple legislative proposals aim to recapture unused green cards as part of the Democrats’ budget package, which has earned "bipartisan attention," report Andrew Kreighbaum and Ellen M. Gilmer of Bloomberg Law. Green card recapture proposals wouldn’t require a new legalization program, said Kristie De Peña of the Niskanen Center. "It only affects the timing of adjustment as opposed to who is eligible to adjust their legal status." Meanwhile, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina), the sponsor of the Senate measure, told Bloomberg Government he’s confident the bill will advance this year, either through a fast-tracked Senate floor process or attached to other legislation.
MINA — "The State Department plans to resume regular evacuation flights from Afghanistan before the end of the year to help U.S. citizens, residents and some visa applicants leave the country," per a senior State Department official, reports Jessica Donati of The Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, Libby Cathey of ABC tells the story of "Mina," a university-educated and unmarried Afghan woman still in Afghanistan, who was separated from her immediate family living in New Jersey. "I’m not mentally good nowadays because this situation is a burden on me," she said, pleading for help on a recent call with
advocates trying to evacuate her. Thousands of Afghans like Mina face the same frightening challenges, Cathey notes.
In the U.S., local efforts of resettlement, aid and support continue:
- Zainab — who fled from Afghanistan just two years ago and is now a chef in Washington, D.C.’s Foodhini — is offering "‘welcome meals’ that are donated by customers to support newly arriving families." (Joel Rose, NPR)
- Ibrahim Bata of Zionsville High School in Indianapolis, son of a former Afghan refugee, "raised more than $11,000 to buy shoes and socks for young Afghan evacuees at Camp Atterbury." (Russ McQuaid, Fox 59)
- Spokane, Washington, Gonzaga Prep junior Neharika Sharma and a group of teenagers around the world recently founded a nonprofit called Youth Bringing Immigrants Together (YBIT) and are "looking for opportunities to help out Afghan refugees." (Sophia McFarland, The Spokesman-Review)
- Larry Hovis, executive coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina in Winston-Salem, and Chris Mitchell Hovis, an active member of Zebulon Baptist Church, drove 160 miles across the eastern part of the state over the weekend to "raise money and awareness for refugee housing needs in North Carolina as many Afghans continue to arrive over the next few weeks." (Laura Brache, The News & Observer)
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