Wednesday, February 9
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

 

NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

If you haven't already, please let us know if you want to continue
receiving Noorani's Notes by clicking this link
, or any other link in this e-mail.
Thanks!

** **Last night, the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration
announced that the
U.S. resettled only 1,094 refugees in January, a decline
from 1,227 in December.  Our policy and advocacy manager Danilo
Zak notes

that this is the third straight month of declining numbers, underscoring
a troubling lack of progress in rebuilding the refugee resettlement
system.  

A third of the way into the fiscal year, the Biden administration is
on track to resettle only 13,086 refugees for FY 2022 if current trends
hold. And we're not remotely close to the refugee ceiling set
at 125,000.  

So, what should the U.S. government do?  

Danilo and Dan Kosten, another Forum policy expert, have a proposal
:
The U.S. should set an annual baseline for refugee admissions at 10% of
UNHCR's Refugees in Need of Resettlement (RINOR) number - the
estimated population of forcibly displaced people who are most in need
of permanent resettlement each year. 

"This method would live up to the purpose of the refugee admissions
program as enumerated in the Refugee Act of 1980," Danilo and Dan write.
"It would 'respond to the urgent needs of persons subject to
persecution;' it would create a 'systematic and permanent
procedure' for doing so; and it would recognize the 'historic
policy' of the U.S. to serve as a place of welcome and a beacon of
freedom to those throughout the world."  

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]
.  

MISSION POSSIBLE - Remember when President Trump, Stephen Miller et
al. changed the mission statement of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS) to remove the phrase "nation of immigrants" and instead
focus on "safeguarding its integrity" and "securing the
homeland"? CNN's

Geneva Sands reports that this morning, under the leadership of Director
Ur M. Jaddou, USCIS announced a new mission statement that captures the
possibility of the United States: "USCIS upholds America's promise as
a nation of welcome and possibility with fairness, integrity, and
respect for all we serve." Love it.  

PIPELINE - The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it is
setting up an expedited processing hub in Qatar to fast-track the
evacuation and resettlement process for some at-risk Afghans, Camilo
Montoya-Galvez reports for CBS News
.
The new program would allow these refugees to enter the U.S. after they
have completed (or are near completion of) their refugee or Special
Immigrant Visa (SIVs) application without further processing at U.S.
military bases, notes Montoya-Galvez. "The goal is both to minimize the
use of [humanitarian] parole so that people come in with a more durable
immigration status, but at the same time, if we're able to complete
the assurance process overseas, people may be able to travel directly to
their new communities in the United States," per a senior
administration official. 

DIGNITY ACT - On Tuesday, Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R)
officially introduced

an immigration reform bill called the Dignity Act. The bill includes
"measures to increase border security, an expedited process for asylum
seekers and a new program to provide a path to legal residency for
undocumented immigrants already in the country," reports Bryan Lowry of
the Miami Herald .
The program would also require qualified undocumented immigrants to pay
$10,000 in restitution to the government over ten years. "You can come
out of the shadows and live a dignified life," Salazar told reporters in
a phone call Tuesday morning. While there are opportunities for
improving this bill, our take

is that it's a good first step towards the immigration reforms we
need. 

COURT CRITICISM - After a Feb. 1 San Diego court hearing on the
Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), a.k.a. "Remain in Mexico," attorney
Monika Langarica tweeted some observations from it. The next day, the
Justice Department requested that she delete the tweets, "[claiming] she
violated a policy against making a record of immigration court
proceedings and [threatening] potential criminal penalties if she
committed 'further violations,'" reports Tal Kopan of the San
Francisco Chronicle
.
Only after The Chronicle inquired about the threat did the DOJ retract
their request and issue an apology to Langarica. Kopan notes that the
DOJ's mistake raises concerns around the First Amendment, transparency
in immigration courts, and the controversial MPP policy itself.  

**THE SAYYIDS** - Abdul, a former Afghan refugee himself, is now a
caseworker with Jewish Child & Family Services Chicago helping Afghan
evacuees like the "Sayyids" family resettle in the area, reports Joshua
Flanders of Forward
.
Abdul - and a network of staff and volunteers from various synagogues
- are currently working on raising "$10,000 needed to cover rent and
other indirect support, to find and furnish the apartment with help from
the Chicago Furniture Bank, as well as arranging tutoring and mentoring
to help the family acclimate to America."  

More local welcome: 

* When Rabbi Adam Raskin and his congregants at Congregation Har Shalom
in Potomac, Maryland, saw the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan unfold,
they decided to sponsor an Afghan refugee family. To "demonstrate to the
family what kind of country they've relocated to," he connected with
St. Francis Episcopal Church and the Islamic Community Center of Potomac
to create an interfaith initiative to help integrate the family into the
community. (Sydney Page, The Washington Post
) 

* As a former attorney in Afghanistan and now a cross cultural
navigator with Refugee Connections Spokane in Washington, advocate Atia
Iqbal "takes new [Afghan] arrivals to appointments, translates their
mail and helps them apply for food stamps or rental assistance." (Dhivya
Sridar, The Spokesman-Review
) 

* A group of San Juan County, New Mexico, residents have joined
together to become part of the local Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans
"to provide financial, logistical, moral and other support" for a newly
arrived family. (Mike Easterling, Farmington Daily Times
) 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

DONATE

 

**Follow Us**

 

[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]

National Immigration Forum

10 G Street NE, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20002

www.immigrationforum.org

 

Unsubscribe from Noorani's Notes

or opt-out from all Forum emails.

 

                                               
           
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

National Immigration Forum, 10 G St NE, Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20002, United States