Tuesday, February 1
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

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The Biden administration is struggling to accommodate the increase of
Venezuelan migrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border - so
it's "quietly" sending them to Colombia if they have lived there
before, reports Priscilla Alvarez of CNN
. 

Alvarez notes that White House officials have grown "increasingly
concerned" about the substantial number of single adults crossing the
southern border in search of asylum, "particularly from countries that
Mexico won't accept under a controversial Trump-era policy," Title 42,
per two sources familiar with the matter.  

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported
more than
13,000 single adult encounters at the border from Venezuela last
December, compared to just 96 encounters in December 2020. 

"While tens of thousands of migrants have been turned away at the
US-Mexico border, some, like South Americans, aren't accepted by
Mexico and therefore those nationals largely can't be expelled. Under
the public health authority, DHS has removed migrants to Guatemala,
Honduras, El Salvador and Brazil," writes Alvarez. 

Welcome to Tuesday'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]

REUNITED - Four years after being separated from her two daughters at
the southern border, Honduran Maria Hernandez finally reunited with them
last week, report Mica Rosenberg and Carlos Barria of Reuters
.
"I was far away but always thinking of you," Hernandez told her
daughters. They had originally sought asylum together, just days after
Christmas 2017. But once Maria was apprehended under the Trump
administration's "zero-tolerance" policy, authorities told her to make
"an impossible choice:" Be deported with her children or leave them
behind in the U.S. for their safety. When she chose the latter, her
children were taken to an unaccompanied minors' shelter in California
and eventually connected with their brother and sponsor, Maynor. "The
past is the past," her oldest daughter Michelle said. "Now that my mom
is here, I want to make new memories." 

**"THE DAMNED AND THE SAVED**" - George Packer's hard look at the
U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in The Atlantic

is a must-read. "The difference between the damned and the saved came
down to three factors," he writes. "The first was character -
resourcefulness, doggedness, will. The second was what Afghans call
wasita - connections. The third, and most important, was sheer luck."
Human Rights First estimates that 90% of Special Immigrant Visa
recipients, including some who had visas in their hands at the Kabul
airport gate, were still left behind with their families. State
Department official Mary Beth Goodman told Packer: "Bureaucracy is
killing more people than the Taliban." In some good news, Axios'

Zachary Basu reports this morning that Qatar has reached a deal with
the Taliban to resume evacuation flights out of Afghanistan.  

[link removed]

WISCONSIN WOES - Although hundreds of Afghan evacuees are calling
Wisconsin their new home, they're still working through a myriad of
challenges from housing to trauma, reports Marisa Wojcik of PBS
Wisconsin
.
Many Afghans who've already been welcomed to the U.S. continue
to fear for their loved ones left behind: "Johnny," a Special Immigrant
Visa recipient, fears for his young sisters who must evacuate alone to a
neighboring country for their own safety. "You know, we were promised
that we will be saved and our family will be saved," he said. In the
meanwhile, Johnny and other Afghans like him are stepping up by becoming
translators for newly arriving Afghans in the area. "I'm not done with
serving and I really want to be somewhere - so I can be proud of my
family and both of my countries," he added.  

Today's local welcome compilation (with one from Albania):  

* In North Carolina, 14-year-old Riverside Middle School student Eric
Chirolla has been assisting with Afghan donation and resettlement
efforts for his Eagle Scout project. On Monday, his Eagle Scout troop
helped move in two refugee families. (Matt Kaufax, FOX Carolina
) 

* In partnership with Neighborhood Family Practice, some clinical staff
members in Cleveland, Ohio, are volunteering extra time to provide
medical care for incoming Afghan refugees. (Anna Huntsman, ideastream
) 

* Marquette University Law students and faculty travelled to the Fort
McCoy, Wisconsin, military base over winter break to provide pro bono
legal services, including assistance with asylum applications, to Afghan
refugees. (Bailey Striepling, Marquette Wire
) 

* Two Afghan woman based in Albania have opened Ghezaye Afghani ("which
means Afghan cuisines in Dari, one of the Afghan languages") to offer a
piece of home to an estimated 1,200 Afghan refugees who have resettled
in Shengjin city. (Ruchi Kumar, Al Jazeera
) 

CULINARY SKILLS - Veteran journalist Lisa Ling is exploring different
Asian cuisines across America in her new series, Take Out With Lisa
Ling. "For me, one of the most exciting aspects of this was the
opportunity to just learn so much about this community whose stories
just haven't been told," Ling said in an interview with CNN
's
Catherine E. Shoichet. Meanwhile, NPR
's
Ian Brennan profiles pizza shop owner Ibrahim Songne, who immigrated
to Italy from Burkina Faso. Despite initially not feeling welcomed in
Italy, his pizzeria was just named one of the top 50 in the world
. "Big things
start little," Songne said. "If given enough care and value, food can
change the world. It's a bridge between people - a way to
pleasurably experience something new. That experience then can lead to
greater tolerance and understanding."

Thanks for reading,

Ali

 

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