Thursday, December 16
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

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Afghan families are finding "a warm welcome" in their resettlement
across small-town America, reports Nina Strochlic for the National
Geographic
.  

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, "a quaint town of brick row homes with painted
shutters, hosts the second-highest ratio of refugees in America,
surpassed only by Clarkston, Georgia, and trailed by Bowling Green,
Kentucky," writes Strochlic. While big multicultural cities like New
York and Minneapolis may have taken in more refugees total, she
adds, these three towns have "take[n] in more refugees per capita than
anywhere else in the country," per APM Research Lab'
s latest
data. 

At the same time, for refugees resettling in small towns, navigating
unfamiliar places is made more complicated as resettlement agencies
and volunteers face limited housing options, reports Miriam
Jordan of The New York Times
.  

Still, community leaders like Diana Ford are getting creative in
Owensboro, Kentucky, "[tapping] business and faith leaders and local
foundations to help find Afghans housing, cover their
motel rooms and feed them." 

"Investing in someone new is a low investment," added Marjan Nadir, a
former Afghan refugee who now works with Clarkston's Refugee Women's
Network, in the National Geographic
 piece.
"And the next thing you know, they are the resources.
Tomorrow, those individuals and their children are the talent pool
that takes the community further." 

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]
.  

[link removed]

NEW BEDFORD - In partnership with El País and The New Bedford
Light, The Marshall Project's
 Julia
Preston and Ariel Goodman tell the story of dozens of New Bedford,
Massachusetts, tenants - many of them Mayan immigrants from
Guatemala employed at the city's seafood packing plants
- who were displaced after their apartment building caught
fire. The community's challenges were compounded by their exclusion
from most federal pandemic relief, which "meant that aid did not
reach an especially vulnerable group of Americans: their children, most
of whom are citizens because they were born in the United States,"
explain Preston and Goodman. "Since we don't have papers, we can't
just go ask for any kind of aid," said T.S., who asked that her full
name not be published due to her immigration status. "Thank God, I went
back to work again." This story brings back a lot of memories: I first
met Preston in New Bedford when she was with The New York
Times in the aftermath of a massive March of 2007 immigration
raid that I wrote about in the Boston Globe
.
New Bedford is a special community. 

'THE FUTURE WILL BE OK' - Catholic Charities caseworker
Sarwar Hawez is often the first (and most frequent) person greeting
new Afghan arrivals at Nashville International Airport before taking
them to a hotel and then on a quick grocery run, Brad Schmitt
reports for The 
Tennessean
,
with photos by Stephanie Amador. As an Iraqi American who fled Iraqi
Kurdistan in the 1990s, "I know how they're feeling, even the angry
ones," said Hawaz, 64. "They come in here scared, and that's part
of my job, part of my commitment to tell them the future will be
OK. Don't be scared, you are in a safe place."  

More on local welcome: 

* Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, Indiana, is raising
funds at its 15th annual Christmas Sing-Along to help permanently
resettle Afghans currently living at Camp Atterbury. (Carol
Kugler, The Herald-Times
) 

* With help from a local fabric store, Janeane Vickers of Mount Vernon,
Indiana, and others donated 100 hand-sewn prayer rugs and
headscarves to 180 Afghan refugees in Owensboro, Kentucky. (Nathan
Havenner, Messenger-Inquirer
) 

TEXAS AND LOUISIANA - Advocates and civil rights groups are calling
on the Department of Justice to investigate Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's
(R) border enforcement operation, "alleging the program is
discriminatory and fuels anti-immigrant hatred," reports Arelis R.
Hernández of The Washington Post
. "Virtually
all if not all of those arrested to date are Latinx and Black men and
are migrants. And the nature of the program - state-sanctioned
targeting of immigrants - has further fueled racist, anti-immigrant
rhetoric and action ..." the complaint reads. Separately,
an investigation reveals that DHS twice this
year recommended ICE stop sending migrants to Louisiana's Winn
Correctional Center, citing "a culture and conditions that can lead
to abuse, mistreatment, and discrimination," per
Hamed Aleaziz of BuzzFeed News
. 

[link removed]

ALTERNATIVES TO DENTENTION - The Biden administration will no
longer hold undocumented families in detention centers, shifting
instead to "remote tracking technology such as ankle bracelets as
alternatives," Stef W. Kight reports for Axios
. "As
of Friday, the U.S. had zero migrant families in detention facilities,
according to internal government data obtained by Axios - with the
last and largest facility used for the practice now being slated to hold
only single adults," writes Kight. As of Monday, per DHS data, there
were about 150,000 migrants enrolled in alternatives to detention
 (ATDs).  

GLOBAL OPINION

** **- A global survey conducted by YouGov and Global
Progress reveals that immigration continues to be a contentious issue
around the world, John Halpin writes for The Liberal Patriot
. "Most
citizens in 20 leading democratic countries believe that the number of
immigrants coming into their country is too high. ... Consequently,
people in different national contexts express a strong desire for
clear and consistent rules about who is allowed to enter the country and
what immigrants must do once they arrive," Halpin explains. "People
across the world are open to humane immigration policies but clearly
want well-managed systems and stronger border enforcement above all
else." 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali  

 

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