Friday, January 21
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

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The Biden administration is unveiling a new plan

today to "retain international students who specialize in science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), as part of its effort to
counter China," Trevor Hunnicutt reports for Reuters
.
 

The changes, which include allowing STEM specialists to stay in the U.S.
for additional training and expanding the eligible fields of expertise,
are part of a joint initiative from the Departments of State and
Homeland Security. 

While the U.S. still hosts more international students than any other
country - around a million - the number has fallen

in recent years, Hunnicutt notes.  

In addition to the national security
benefits
of attracting and retaining STEM talent, education remains a
significant economic boon to the U.S. As of 2020
,
international students contributed $41 billion to the economy each year
(not including an additional $10 billion to the economy in spending
outside of tuition) and are responsible for supporting more
than 458,000 jobs. 

For more context, read Stuart Anderson in Forbes on the new guidance
overall

and on STEM Optional Practical Training specifically
. 

A reminder that at

**1 p.m. ET today**, we're partnering with Refugee Council USA
for a Facebook Live
about
refugee resettlement and related issues at the one-year mark of the
Biden administration. Earlier this week we posted a paper

about how the administration is doing on refugee resettlement and other
humanitarian concerns. 

Welcome to Friday's edition of Noorani's Notes. I'm Joanna
Taylor, communications manager at the Forum, filling in for Ali today.
If you have a story to share from your own community, please
send it to me at [email protected]
. 

[link removed]

**CAPTAIN KHOGYANI** - Decades after fleeing Afghanistan as a boy,
United Airlines pilot Zak Khogyani helped evacuate more than 1,000
Afghans last summer, in some cases traveling in the main cabin and
translating for families in flight, Caitlin O'Kane reports for CBS
News
.
"I knew I had to do something," Khogyani said. " ... I couldn't simply
just sit on the couch and watch it happen without doing something to
help the situation."   

On the local welcome front: 

* "We've come to believe that we are one world and everybody is our
neighbor, so we need to reach out and welcome our neighbors wherever
they're from and whoever they might be," said Ginny Close, leader of a
new interfaith group in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, hoping to help resettle
Afghan families in the area. (Eric Lindquist, The Leader-Telegram
) 

* As part of another interfaith effort in Sonoma County, California,
residents are helping two groups of recently resettled Afghans.
(Nashelly Chavez, The Press Democrat
) 

* Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services (LIRS) is seeking donations
for its new refugee resettlement office in Alexandria, Virginia. Since
November, staff members have helped 750 people. (Justin Hinton, ABC 7
News
)  

**IMMIGRATION COURTS** - Judges in the San Francisco Immigration Court
were eager to speed up the deportations of immigrants who failed to
appear after mail from the court didn't reach them, Tal Kopan reports
in the San Francisco Chronicle
.
Emails obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request revealed
"that the fast-track docket for immigrants with returned mail, which was
first reported by The San Francisco Chronicle last fall
,
was cheered at the highest levels of the courts and pursued with full
awareness that scores of immigrants would likely be ordered deported as
a result." Meanwhile, as Kopan previewed last week
,
lawmakers heard testimony Thursday about whether the immigration courts
should be independent rather than part of the Department of Justice,
Ellen M. Gilmer reports for Bloomberg Government
.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-California), chair of the House Judiciary
Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, is working on legislation
that would do just that.

[link removed]

**MIXED BAG** - A variety of challenges have limited President
Biden's Day One goals to remake immigration, Ted Hesson reports in
Reuters
.
They include "record-breaking border arrests, unfavorable court
decisions on immigration, Republican opposition in Congress and internal
divisions

between liberals and moderates within his own administration." In
contrast, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has touted his
department's progress on rebuilding "an immigration system that was
dismantled, virtually in its entirety, by the prior administration ...
We have had to rescind cruel policies, bring offices back to life, issue
new policies, and rebuild entire operations." Camilo Montoya-Galvez of
CBS News

has more on the mixed bag that was immigration during Biden's first
year (and more from Mayorkas).  

**HAITIANS** - Nicole Narea of Vox

reports that the U.S. has deported nearly 14,000 Haitians

to Mexico since September, per the UN's International Organization for
Migration. In 2021 alone, Mexico received more than 131,ooo asylum
applications, of which an estimated 45%
were
Haitians and their Chilean-born children. Haitians in Mexico "face
pervasive racism, and many are unable to work, have no access to medical
care, and are targets for criminals," Narea writes. At this point,
"Mexico is increasingly going to have to look like at least a long-term
stopover point, if not a forever place, because the last thing people
want to do is to head back to Haiti after they've been on the move for
so long," said Caitlyn Yates, a consultant for the Migration Policy
Institute and a University of British Columbia Ph.D. student studying
Haitian migration. 

**COVID-19 AND DETENTION** - The number of COVID-19 deaths in ICE
custody is far higher than what's been publicly reported, writes Layla
M. Razavi, interim co-executive director of Freedom for Immigrants, in
an op-ed for the San Diego Union-Tribune
.
"COVID-19 exacerbates the already unconscionable, life-endangering
medical neglect

immigrants face in detention," Razavi writes. "What's more, those in
detention are more isolated than ever as visitation from family members
and loved ones remains cut off
,
all the while oft-maskless prison guards

continue to introduce COVID-19 into prisons." As people in detention,
public health experts and advocates have called for releases, Razavi
writes, "[i]t's past time for this administration to reverse course
and begin to release immigrants back to the safety of their families and
communities."

Thanks for reading,

Joanna

 

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