After spending much of the last year targeting foreign aid to Central America, two weeks ago President Trump announced that he would restore some assistance to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador as the countries agreed to accept U.S. asylum seekers.

Now, the White House is close to finalizing an agreement to begin “sending asylum seekers from the U.S. border to Guatemala, implementing a deal the two countries reached in July,” Nick Miroff reports in The Washington Post. “Critics of the accords say it is unrealistic to expect weak Central American governments to safely resettle vulnerable groups when they already struggle with widespread poverty and some of the world’s highest homicide rates.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has extended the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program for Salvadorans, Stef W. Kight reports in Axios. Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan signed a deal with El Salvador that gives approximately 200,000 Salvadorans living in the U.S. a one-year extension for their work permits. “In return, El Salvador will work with U.S. immigration officials to bolster their own border and immigration enforcement efforts in an attempt to slow the flow of migrants heading to the U.S.”

Of the many concerns we have regarding the consequences of these tradeoffs, one that is unreported is the lack of legal immigration pathways open to Central Americans. I would argue that the administration’s efforts to cut legal immigration overall will undermine the long-term economic health of the U.S. and Central America.

Per usual, we are enforcing our way to new problems.

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

FACILITIES PART I – Homestead, once the nation’s largest for-profit detention center for unaccompanied migrant children, will be closing on Nov. 30, Lisette Voytko reports in Forbes. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will not renew the Florida-based Homestead’s federal contract once recommended for closure by Amnesty International. In addition, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has requested an internal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) investigation into the conditions at Otero County Processing Center in southern New Mexico, reports the Associated Press.

FACILITIES PART II – Migrants detained by ICE in a Georgia detention facility have filed a lawsuit against the agency for violating their human rights, reports Nick Wooten in the Ledger-Enquirer. The lawsuit, written by the detained men, was filed with the help of Project South, the Southern Poverty Law Center, Detention Watch Network, and Georgia Detention Watch. “We are desperate,” The complaint reads. “Many of us came in search of freedom, fleeing persecution and torture by dictators in countries like Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba. And we find all these abuses that cause us to suffer even more.”

BIPARTISAN AGRICULTURE – Over the course of several months, a bipartisan immigration reform effort focusing on the agricultural sector has taken shape. While the effort has garnered support from over 20 House Republicans, Emma Dumain and Michael Wilner write in McClatchy that the White House is still unsure how to proceed. In exchange for mandatory E-Verify in the agricultural sector, the proposed Farm Workforce Modernization Act “would provide a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants who have already been working in the farm and agriculture industry for at least two years and plan to continue in this sector.”

THE PROMISE OF LEWISTON – In 2003, the city of Lewiston, Maine, saw the arrival of more than 1,400 refugees — many of African Muslim descent, Cynthia Anderson writes for the Christian Science Monitor. Once a “postindustrial city in slow fade,” Anderson describes how immigrants and refugees helped revitalize her city: “You can view the arrival of Muslim and other African newcomers as part of Lewiston’s struggles. Or you can see them as the closest thing the city has to a solution.” Another example of how immigrants and refugees are reviving cities and towns.

GONE FISHING – One morning on the Schuylkill River that runs through Philadelphia, two unlikely friends — Mohaned Al-Obaidi, an Iraqi refugee, and Gin McGill-Prather, a veteran who had served in Iraq — decided to go fishing. As described by Juliana Feliciano Reyes in the Philadelphia Inquirer, they had met the night before at a dinner of U.S. veterans and Iraqi immigrants, convened by Michael Rakowitz, a Chicago-based Iraqi American artist. Through the dinner, the shared art and now fishing, the two have become part of “an unexpected community of artists and storytellers linked by war, and trauma, in the Middle East who have found each other in Philadelphia.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali