The White House released a fact sheet Tuesday on how the administration, through a partnership between Operation Allies Welcome and the private sector, is spearheading "a whole-of-America approach to safely, securely and effectively welcoming our Afghan allies and Afghans at-risk." Together, their efforts will "equip [Afghans] for success as they rebuild their lives."
Companies involved include airlines like United, American, Delta, and JetBlue; Airbnb; Chamber of Commerce; CVS; JP Morgan Chase; Starbucks; Trip Advisor; Google; Etsy; Walmart and many others.
On Day One of Leading the Way 2021, we dove into the Afghanistan situation with Reps. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) and Jason Crow (D-Colorado). And on Day Two, we talked about how immigration reform can help shape the workforce of the future with Tom Linebarger, CEO of Cummins Inc., and Portia Wu, Managing Director of U.S. Public Policy at Microsoft. If you missed LTW, full videos will be available soon. We’ll keep you posted.
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].
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AFGHAN SISTERS — Libby Cathey of ABC News tells the story of sisters Amina and Zahra, who were living in India but traveled home to Afghanistan this summer to visit family — a decision they call the "worst mistake of our lives," as they now hide out from the Taliban. An ad-hoc group of volunteers, dubbed "Team 13,"
helped get their older sister out of the country. Now, they’re doing their best to save the rest of the family.
Here’s today’s collection of local stories:
- The Tampa Bay, Florida, non-profit Save Settle Support Initiative or S3I — founded by an Air Force veteran who served in Afghanistan — is helping Afghans evacuate and resettle in the U.S. (Vanessa Araiza, ABC Action News)
- With the help of local volunteers including a former colleague, Afghan evacuee Edris has become the first refugee to resettle in Muncie, Indiana. (Courtney Spinelli, FOX 59)
- White Rock Presbyterian Church in White Rock, New Mexico, raised over $1,000 for Afghan resettlement in the area and is collaborating with other local churches to sponsor at least one Afghan family who will resettle in Sante Fe soon. (Los Alamos Reporter)
IMMIGRATION PIECES — Democrats are quietly scrambling to include immigration provisions in their social spending bill, Sean Sullivan and Marianna Sotomayor report in The Washington Post. Options on the table include a "plan to provide protected status that stops short of a path to citizenship," and "a proposal that would enable immigrants who arrived in the United States before 2010 to apply for a green card." Meanwhile, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) told The Cedar Rapids Gazette’s Adam Sullivan: "Right now, I’m not seeing a willingness to tackle [comprehensive immigration reform] in a bipartisan fashion. I do see willingness to tackle these small parts." Miller-Meeks is sponsoring the Preserving Employment Visas Act, which would roll over unused visas from the past two fiscal years.
‘PRISON STATE’ — More than thirty thousand Haitians, as well as other migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, are effectively being detained in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula Joe Penney writes for . "About 800 migrants are being held in the notorious Siglo XXI detention center, but most of them are in an open-air prison bound by the city limits: Migrants must be granted refugee status in Mexico to leave Tapachula, and that onerous process can take months," Penney writes. Per Andrés Ramírez, the head of Mexico’s refugee agency, Haitians have made up 88 percent of new refugee applications in Mexico over the last few weeks. "U.S policy has forced Mexico to use Tapachula as a prison state, caging migrants and creating a bottleneck where they’re barely surviving," said Haitian Bridge Alliance co-founder and
executive director Guerline Jozef (who was named the 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award Laureate yesterday).
LABOR SHORTAGES — Across the country, pandemic-related visa processing delays mean "[h]undreds of thousands of foreign workers have gone missing from the labor market ... leaving holes in white-collar professions," reports Jeanna Smialek for The New York Times. "Fewer immigrants means fewer future workers." Vox’s Nicole Narea points to a proposed solution: Reform our visa system and bring in more foreign workers to fix the U.S. labor shortage. Immigration is key to addressing our nation’s demographic and labor challenges: As Natalie Walters writes for , the only reason Texas isn't facing bigger demographic issues amid a declining birth rate is its net migration.
DÍA DE LOS MUERTOS — For Día de los Muertos, celebrated Nov. 1 and 2, the Los Angeles Times created a communal digital altar to honor and celebrate loved
ones who have passed away. Participants can choose a decorative template and upload a photo of a loved one in memory of them as an ofrenda, or offering. Highly recommend spending some time with this moving collection of stories in Spanish and English paired with personal photos.
Ali
P.S. A new exhibition at Austin College from artist and activist Scott Nicol, "Ladders and Walls," consists of 14 makeshift ladders migrants have used in attempts to reach the U.S., Michael Marks reports for The Texas Standard. "There are people who are trying to survive and we need to see what we, as a nation, can do to help them, not try to militarize the border, not destroy the environment along the border, not do damage to border communities, but think of it rationally and compassionately and address it in that manner," Nicol said of the project.
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