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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

 

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Congress should help our Afghan allies now in the United States
integrate successfully by passing a bill that would speed their path to
legal residency and eventual citizenship. 

(Forgive us if we repeat ourselves.) 

As thousands of our allies begin to get settled in communities after
moving off military bases, they also remain in legal limbo, as Esther
Eaton of WORLD magazine

reports. Most have humanitarian parole, which is temporary. Some have
opportunities to pursue other relief, but without a measure from
Congress, many would need to apply for asylum. 

And that's tedious: Think 500 or more pages of supporting evidence,
according to Shane Ellison, supervising attorney at Duke University's
immigration law clinic, who with students is helping 10 families apply
for asylum and writing document templates to speed up other
applications.  

An Afghan Adjustment Act

would give our allies a more certain route to legal status. "We
shouldn't penalize [our allies] for the hurried nature of the
evacuation," says Krish O'Mara Vignarajah, president of Lutheran
Immigration and Refugee Services. 

Welcome to Friday'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]
.   

ON THE LOCAL FRONT - Speaking of our Afghan allies, here are today's
stories of local welcome: 

* Affinia Healthcare and House of Goods
are among the organizations
welcoming Afghan evacuees to the St. Louis area and focusing on their
well-being, including behavioral health. (Justina Coronel, KSDK
) 

* An Aurora, Colorado, warehouse is packed with furniture bound for the
homes of newly resettled Afghans, and "an army of volunteers" has been
making deliveries. (Kevin Beaty, Denverite
) 

* "These Afghans were our partners," an Army veteran in Montana writes.
"They fought alongside Americans, gave us valuable information,
interpreted language and customs, and provided resources we needed to do
our jobs. ... [I]t is my duty, and the duty of this state with a love
for freedom, to assist in resettlement efforts for those who risked so
much to help us." (Op-ed by Chris Enget, The Missoulian
) 

**'SILVER BULLET'** - The restaurant industry in Texas is
experiencing severe labor shortages, and the drop in migration is part
of the problem, Maggie Glynn reports in Border Report
.
Migration to Texas decreased 50% from 2020 to 2021, census data show
.
Kelsey Erickson Streufert with the Texas Restaurant Association says
that the restaurant and hospitality industry is down about 70,000 jobs,
and that even before omicron, more than three-quarters of the state's
restaurant operators said they couldn't meet customer demand because
they had too few employees. What might help? "Immigration reform is
probably the closest thing to a silver bullet, because it gives us the
ability to bring a significant number of new employees online very
quickly," Streufert said. 

MORE ON DESANTIS - Earlier this week Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said
that comparing Operation Pedro Pan, during which Cuban families sent
their children alone to Florida in the 1960s, to unaccompanied migrant
children today was "disgusting." Yesterday Florida business and faith
leaders, and Pedro Pan children, pushed back, Carmen Sesin reports for
NBC News
.
"As we did before, this community should rise to the challenge and
recognize that every child is a child with dignity, deserving care,"
said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of the Archdiocese of Miami. "But that is
especially true for the most vulnerable among us, the unaccompanied
minors that travel through dangerous, very difficult paths to reach
freedom."  

ONE-WAY TICKET - Some migrants hoping to gain asylum in the U.S. are
bypassing dangerous land journeys and instead flying to Mexico, an
option that is especially appealing for those who hail from countries
from which Mexico does not require a visa, Elliot Spagat of the
Associated Press

reports. "Once arriving at a Mexican border city, they can walk across
the border in broad daylight and surrender to U.S. agents," Spagat
writes. "In doing so, they avoid the dangers of traversing Mexico and
other countries over land and circumvent sweeping U.S. asylum
restrictions." And migrants from countries such as Cuba and Venezuela
are expelled less often under the Title 42 public-health order because
of the cost of flying them to their countries of origin, or because of
strained relations between the U.S. and those countries. After pressure
from the U.S., Mexico is now adding countries to its visa-required
list. 

TOUGH CROWD - The Dignity Act, introduced Tuesday by Rep. María
Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) and six Republican co-sponsors, is taking flak
from other Republicans, Rafael Bernal and Mike Lillis report in The Hill
.
The proposal "is further exposing a split within the GOP between those
who want the party to lead on immigration reform and hard-liners
increasingly vocal against immigration as a whole," Bernal and Lillis
write. Says Mario H. López, president of the conservative Hispanic
Leadership Fund, "Until you fix the legal immigration system, then you
cannot have a secure border. I mean, they go hand in hand, whether one
likes it or not. For our part, we think Salazar's bill should be a
starting point

for consensus-based reforms. 

**DROP ON BY** - Something nice to start your weekend in case you are
in Amarillo, Texas: KFDA's

Earl Stoudemire reports that the Refugee Language Project's PLACE (a
"Place for Language, Art, Culture, and Economic growth") is opening to
serve the community today. Ryan Pennington, Executive Director of the
Refugee Language Project invites you to drop by and, "Be the one to
welcome people into the space and drink tea and practice English with
them." 

Thanks for reading, 
Ali 

 

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