As the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments this week regarding the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, Jonathan Blitzer at The New Yorker examines the policy’s legal vulnerabilities and the White House’s “evolving” arguments to rip protections away from hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

Ted Olson, an attorney arguing on behalf of DACA recipients, is reportedly ready “with a range of arguments, from a defense of the lawfulness of DACA to an indictment of how the Administration tried to end it. … The DACA case ‘is a rule-of-law case,’ he added, ‘a rule-of-law case involving hundreds of thousands of individuals who will be hurt by an abrupt and unexplained and unjustified change in policy.’”

Happy Veteran’s Day and welcome to Monday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes.

Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

FORGOTTEN FILIPINO VETERANS – Stef Kight at Axios outlines the administration’s treatment of foreign-born service members and veterans, pointing out that 17.3% of immigrant veterans were born in the Philippines — second only to Mexico at 17.5%. Meanwhile, Tony Taguba, a retired U.S. Army major general and chairman of the Filipino Veterans Recognition and Education Project, calls on the White House to halt its plans to eliminate the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole Program in an op-ed for The Hill. “The policy enabled elderly Filipino World War II veterans to have their family members join them in the United States to provide care and support, and it has had a profound impact on the veterans and their families who are now together and able to care for one another and provide support on a daily basis.”

NEW FEES – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Friday that it will impose significant new fees on immigrants seeking to stay and work in the United States — including asylum seekers, Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports for CBS News. “The proposal would impose a $50 application fee for affirmative asylum applications and a $490 work permit fee for all asylum seekers. Fees for citizenship petitions would also increase from $750 to $1,170, and the amount could be higher for some immigrants.” The U.S. will join just three other countries — Iran, Fiji and Australia — that charge fees to asylum seekers.

KURDISH TITANS – Nashville’s Kurdish immigrant community — made up mostly of families who fled Iraq in the 1990s — has created a new generation of “die-hard” football fandom for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, Priya Krishna writes for The New York Times. 23-year-old Fatima Kucher told the Times: “There is a misconception that just because we come from a different background, we can’t like the same things other Americans like. … But I’ve been in America for so long. It’s hard not to adapt to the culture. Football is a big part of American culture.”

IDAHO – Rep. Mike Simpson, a Republican from Idaho, writes in the Idaho Press about the urgent need to pass the House’s bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act to provide struggling farmers with the necessary immigrant workforce. “The lack of a stable workforce to meet the growing demand for Idaho’s products, and a flawed process to grow our workforce, has created a labor crisis for Idaho’s agriculture community.”

CATHOLIC LEADERSHIP – Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, an immigrant from Mexico, is poised to make history as the first Hispanic president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, reports David Crary at the Associated Press. “In terms of doctrine, Gomez is considered a practical-minded conservative, but he is an outspoken advocate of a welcoming immigration policy that would include a path to citizenship for many immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.”

CALLS FOR RESTITUTION – A coalition of more than 80 evangelical leaders and organizations — led by the Evangelical Immigration Table — are calling for restitution-based immigration reform that would allow undocumented immigrants to become legal residents after paying a series of fines, Samuel Smith at the Christian Post reports. The coalition’s announcement coincided with the Forum’s Leading the Way summit last week. “An evangelical Christian who despises immigrants is an evangelical who is self-defeating and self-loathing. Most of the body of Christ on earth now, not to mention in Heaven, is not white, is not middle-class, is not American and doesn’t speak English,” said Russell Moore, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, during one of our panels.

Thanks for reading,

Ali