Thursday, November 18
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

On Oct. 28, city officials and police in Tijuana cleared the "highly
visible" makeshift migrant camp which once held some 2,000 people. Yet
amid the uncertainty surrounding U.S. immigration policies, such camps
are springing up along the Mexico side of the border, Elliot Spagat of
the Associated Press
 reports. 

"The camps, full of young children, are a product of policies that force
migrants to wait in Mexico for hearings in U.S. immigration court or
prohibit them from seeking asylum under pandemic-related public health
powers," Spagat writes. "Uncertainty about U.S. asylum policies has
also contributed to growing migrant populations in Mexican border
cities, creating conditions for more camps."  

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera
 reports
that Mexico "has granted documents to allow more than 1,500 migrants
and asylum seekers who began marching in a north-bound caravan
 last
month to stay and work in the country."  

Solutions will be hard to come by given that "U.S. officials say
border policy won't be focus of talks with Mexico at [a] three-way
summit [beginning today], despite lingering issues," per CBS News'
 Camilo
Montoya-Galvez and Fin Gómez. 

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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RESETTLEMENT PROGRESS - On Wednesday, the Biden administration shut
down the "first temporary housing site for Afghan evacuees as
resettlement accelerates," reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News
. Per
the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the last group of Afghan
families temporarily housed at the Fort Lee, Virginia, military base
left on Wednesday. The latest DHS data indicates over 25,000
Afghans who relocated to the U.S. have left the military bases, while
another 45,000 evacuees from Afghanistan remain at temporary housing
sites across "seven military installations in Indiana, New Jersey, New
Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin," Montoya-Galvez notes. Over at Vox
,
Nicole Narea takes a broad look at not just Afghan resettlement
- but "[w]hy Biden is struggling to revive the U.S. refugee
program" in the aftermath of the Trump era. Well worth the read.  

Here is today's catalog of local stories in support of Afghan
refugees: 

* For this week's new episode of Only In America
, I spoke with Matt
Carpenter and Rick Stockburger, Ohio veterans of the war in
Afghanistan, who talked to me about the importance of evacuating Afghan
allies. This is an episode you don't want to miss. 

* The Columbus City Council approved a new initiative called the "Afghan
Neighbors Rental Assistance Fund, [which] will set aside $50,000 to
cover rent costs for Afghan families should they default." (Yilun
Cheng, The Columbus Dispatch
)

* Pershing Charitable Trust recently provided the International
Institute of St. Louis with a $1.5 million grant "to increase refugee
resettlement funds as well as funding for its Immigrant Career Pathways
and Immigrant Loan Support programs." (Diana Barr, St. Louis Business
Journal
) 

* Jewish Family & Children's Services of Southern Arizona
has relaunched its Refugee Resettlement Services program, including
placement and assistant efforts for Afghan evacuees. (Victoria
Moses, Arizona Jewish Post
) 

'

**WARM SOUP AND WARM MEALS'** - Tomasz Miskiewicz, the mufti who
heads Poland's Muslim community, is doing his part to help
migrants who cross from Belarus find refuge, reports Felix Hoske
of Reuters
. He is
collaborating with "Lipka Tatars in eastern Poland, a group of around
2,000 people who are part of one of the oldest Muslim communities in
Europe, " Hoske writes. "Whether a person has the right to stay legally
in Poland or not, every person has the right to a roof over their head,
to a warm place to stay, to a plate with warm soup and warm meals in
general, to decent clothing," Miskiewicz said. In a powerful op-ed for
the Guardian
,
Anna Iasmi Vallianatou, academy fellow of Europe Programme of
Chatham House, details how "Europe's transactional migration
policies" have exacted a human price and toll. Meanwhile, for NPR
,
Marco Storel compiles even more compelling photos of the escalating
situation along the Poland-Belarus border, with text by Rob Schmitz. 

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JAPAN'S MAJOR SHIFT

** **- A justice ministry announced today that Japan is looking to
accept "foreigners in certain blue-collar jobs to stay indefinitely
starting as early as the 2022 fiscal year," per Reuters
. In
2019, a law took effect in Japan that granted visas
to a category of "specified skilled workers" in 14 sectors, including
farming and nursing - for only five years. This category didn't
apply to all their family members. "If the revision takes effect, such
workers - many from Vietnam and China - would be allowed to
renew their visas indefinitely and bring their families with
them," Reuters reports. "As the shrinking population becomes a more
serious problem and if Japan wants to be seen as a good option for
overseas workers, it needs to communicate that it has the proper
structure in place to welcome them," said Toshihiro Menju, managing
director of Japan Center for International Exchange.  

KENTWOOD WELCOME - Brian McVicar of MLive
 tells
the story of Phauda Kark, a former Nepali refugee, who is the
owner of JP International Grocery Store in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He
resettled to Kentwood in 2014, southeast of Grand Rapids, and now
"spends his days providing customers with a taste of Himalayan food and
culture." Kentwood "saw its Asian population climb to 6,119 in 2020,
up 90 percent from a decade ago," per new census data - and in
part due to an increased arrival of refugees, McVicar adds. "The
world has come to Kentwood," said Kentwood Mayor Stephen Kepley. "When
you're out and about in Kentwood, you see the world." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

**P.S.** For KENS 5
, Anastasiya
Bolton tells a touching story on how a former unaccompanied teen
from Honduras "endured [a journey to the U.S.] and reunited with his
mother 10 years later."  

 

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