Tuesday, November 2
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

Philip Bump of The Washington Post
 takes
us through the history of the national security debate, pointing to new
polling from PRRI
 on
American values including race and immigration.  

In answering the question, "What makes someone 'truly
American'?," both Democrats and Republicans agreed that "accepting
people of diverse racial and religious backgrounds" was important. But
as Bump notes, "that's different than saying that diversity of race
and religion are important to the country."  

Moreover, the poll found that most Republicans think being "truly
American" means speaking English, being born in the U.S., and
believing in God. And over the past decade, the number of Republicans
who say that newcomers to the nation strengthen the
country has dropped - from 39% to 28%.  

"America does not look the way it used to and, in fact, America's
discussion of its past has often been willfully or inadvertently
incomplete," Bump concludes. "As we collectively assess both of those
issues, though, it's useful to recognize that some of the reaction
to them is rooted in insecurity about what each means and in the fact
that each can be seen as threatening or discomforting ... we should
also recognize that the discomfort provides an opportunity for
exploitation." 

Welcome to Tuesday'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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**GREEN CARD RECAPTURE** - My new op-ed for The Hill
 lays
out why recapturing green cards is good for our economy and our
security. Today, the U.S. green card application backlog is some 5
million and counting
,
in large part due to the loss of green cards that go unused each
year because of processing delays. Through budget reconciliation,
Congress could essentially "recapture hundreds of thousands of green
cards that have gone unused over several decades." This is particularly
important in the global competition for talent that drives everything
from micro chip design to AI development. The bottom line:
"Immigration is the United States' competitive advantage over China
and much of the world. Our failure to reform the system is weakening our
hand." Over at Forbes
,
our friend Stuart Anderson goes into more detail on the issue. For more
on how budget reconciliation could positively impact more than 7
million undocumented immigrants, see Jasmine Aguilera's piece
in TIME Magazine
. 

**IN ABSENTIA** - Advocates say the San Francisco Immigration Court
is rushing deportation orders for immigrants who are not able to
make their case to stay in the country, Tal Kopan and Deepa Fernandes
report in the San Francisco Chronicle
. The
court appears to be scheduling hearings "for immigrants whose mail was
being returned as undeliverable" - and sending notices of the hearings
to the same incorrect addresses. Up to 173 people got deportation
orders in such proceedings in August and September after only
20 similar orders were issued from January through July, the Chronicle
found. "It's especially problematic that the San Francisco
Immigration Court is spending significant time and resources to obtain
so many removal orders through a special docket in cases where they know
people will not be able to appear for their hearings," said Sean
Riordan, an attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. 

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'ROOM FOR NUANCE' - In an interview with Manuel
Roig-Franzia for The Washington Post Magazine
,
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas relays how a UCLA
seminar he took on propaganda in the late 1970s shaped his views and
approach to politics. "In a sense, he is the one now holding a seminar
on language - but for an entire nation knotted in an intractable
immigration fight that stretches back decades," writes Roig-Franzia. To
further illustrate the "the power of words," Mayorkas breaks down his
conversation with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) on "rounding
up" immigrants at the border. In reality, what Secretary Mayorkas "is
looking for, what he struggles to explain in a political environment
pulled taut from the poles, is room for nuance." The key
question: "Can his moderate path fix an intractable crisis?" 

HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS - More than 100 humanitarian groups are urging
President Biden to do more to evacuate at-risk Afghans left behind after
the U.S. military withdrawal in August, Joseph Clark reports for The
Washington Times
.
Last week, leaders from international development, humanitarian, and
immigration organizations sent a letter to National Security Adviser
Jake Sullivan: "These individuals played key roles in efforts to
strengthen Afghanistan's government, judiciary, civil society, and
media and to protect human rights. For their work, many now face the
threat of violent retaliation at the hands of [the] de facto
authorities." Moreover, "[t]he evacuation of these individuals should be
seen as no less significant than any other priority evacuees, given
their work advancing democracy, human rights, and human dignity and
level of risk." 

Here's today's list of local (and international) stories of
welcome:  

* Greater Cincinnati groups like Catholic Charities Southwestern Ohio
 and Kentucky Refugee Ministries
 are partnering up to welcome Afghan refugees across
the city. (Cincinnati Public Radio
)  

* The 42-member University of Wisconsin-Stout Veterans Club
has launched a donation drive to help Afghan refugees temporarily
resettled at Fort McCoy military base. (Jimmie Kaska, WEAU
) 

* Mark Hill, a veteran from North Yorkshire, England, has created a
digital "Buddy Box" - a "free online resource [which] uses text,
pictures and audio to translate Afghan languages Dari and Pashto into
English," for Afghan refugee children, now being used in more
than 50 schools across the UK and Europe. (BBC News
) 

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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