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The pandemic-related slowdown in visa processing, coupled with tightened immigration policies, has led to a precipitous drop in the number of immigrants on H-1B visas holding high-tech jobs — and job openings in the industry have reached record highs.  

A Bloomberg News analysis of Department of Labor data found that "[f]oreign engineering and mathematics workers on H-1B visas fell 12.6% in the fiscal year ending September 2021 compared to the previous year," Bloomberg’s Linly Lin writes. Compared to the pre-COVID levels of 2019, "this year’s number of H-1B employment cases was down 19% for the engineering and mathematics job category."   

In September there were "a record 230,000 job openings in the information sector."   

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].  

PREGNANT DETAINEES — On Monday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued new guidelines "for the treatment of pregnant, postpartum, breastfeeding and infant detainees," reports Rafael Bernal of The Hill. A July report from the DHS Office of the Inspector General detailed CBP’s lack of care infrastructure, highlighting unsanitary and inhumane conditions for pregnant women in detention. The new memo lays out "a series of measures — from improving CBP installations to include changing stations to providing medical support — that field offices and Border Patrol stations will have to implement within 45 days," Bernal writes.  

POLITICS VS. REALITY — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) policy of arresting migrants trying to cross the southern border has led to dozens of people being locked up for weeks or months without seeing a judge, Jolie McCullough reports for The Texas Tribune. More than 90 of the men arrested on trespassing charges were scheduled to have their first court appearances this week — but two Kinney County officials tested positive for COVID-19, further delaying proceedings. Meanwhile, Abbott’s recent claims that South African migrants were crossing the border and spreading a new COVID-19 variant have been condemned as "misleading and dangerous," per Texas Public Radio’s Pablo De La Rosa. "What we have seen from Abbott is this use of a lot of white supremacist rhetoric around migrants who are coming," said Human Rights Watch researcher Ari Sawyer. "The sort of great replacement theory rhetoric that was used by the Texas Walmart shooter in El Paso. It’s very dangerous rhetoric." Related: Today we are releasing new resources on the Great Replacement Theory’s origins, its presence in the immigration debate, and how to combat it.  

LONG-TERM EFFECTS — A new study from Georgetown University and the University of Michigan finds that families forcibly separated at the U.S.-Mexico border  under Trump’s "zero-tolerance" policy experience long-term effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, and depression, reports Jordan Wilkerson of The Dallas Morning News. "These folks need long-term rehabilitation," said Dr. Ranit Mishori, senior author of the study. "It is unambiguous in my mind as a physician … that the government must provide for such resources and rehabilitation services for the foreseeable future." The Biden administration’s Family Reunification Task Force has yet to identify the parents of at least 1,700 children separated under the policy, Wilkinson notes.  

BAKE SALE — Seven-year-old Esther Hilsabeck’s great-grandparents fled Europe as refugees after surviving the Holocaust. And after hearing about the plight of Afghan refugees arriving in her hometown of Pittsburgh, she "paired up with a friend, 6-year-old Alphie Doller, and held a fundraising bake sale recently at the Squirrel Hill Farmers’ Market," Justin Vellucci writes for the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle. The pair raised more than $500 for Jewish Family and Community Services. "It’s so [the new refugees] could be just as comfortable here as they would be at their old homes," said Alphie.  

Ali