With the Trump administration planning to increase the U.S. citizenship application fee to a staggering $1,170, citizenship applicants are facing a 61% hike in costs, Christopher Ingraham reports for The Washington Post.
“In real terms, the proposed changes would make the citizenship application fee equivalent of nearly 2 percent of the median household income — or about one week’s pay for the typical American household — its highest level on record. Had the application fee risen with the pace of inflation, it would be $85 today.”
Ingraham reminds us that in the U.S., “the native-born birth rate is low and falling,” and “Without immigration, the U.S. population would be in decline.”
From brisk Boston, welcome to Thursday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes.
Have a story you’d like to include? Email me at [email protected].
CHICAGO IS #1 – According to the latest “Cities Index” released by the bipartisan research group New American Economy, Chicago has been named the most immigrant-friendly city in the U.S., Grace Hauck writes in USA Today. “The group's annual index uses 51 factors to determine how well cities are creating environments that help immigrants succeed, including a city's language access policies, employment and homeownership rates and more. … In 2016, immigrants held nearly a quarter of the spending power among the city’s residents, earned nearly $17 billion in household income, and paid $6 billion in taxes in 2016. That year, nearly 20,000 DACA-eligible individuals were living in Chicago.”
CUCCINELLI IS #2 – Immigration hardliner Ken Cuccinelli was appointed as acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday — the #2 spot at the powerful agency, Camilo Montoya-Galvez at CBS News reports. “In his new role, Cuccinelli will continue to push the administration's controversial policies designed to deter unauthorized immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border and to severely restrict legal immigration.”
FALSE DATES – U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) is offering its first explanation of why many migrants who have already completed their court cases have been sent back to Mexico with documents pointing to non-existent future court dates. Gustavo Solis writes in the San Diego Union-Tribune that according to a CBP statement, “the date on the tear sheet is not an actual court hearing, but rather the date in which asylum seekers can check the status of an appeal. … San Diego-based lawyer Bashir Ghazialam pointed out that tear sheets themselves do not support CBP’s statement. The documents do not mention or reference an appeal, nor do they provide instructions for how to check the status of an appeal.”
“BOLOGNA SANDWICHES” – As California’s generation of Dust Bowl-era migrants — or “Okies” — ages, they’re being replaced in many farming communities by a new wave of Latino immigrants with many historic similarities. In Weedpatch, California, “It’s hard to ignore the parallels between the Okies and the pickers in the fields surrounding Weedpatch today. They’re almost all Latinos, often lumped together under one label, spat out by anti-immigration hardliners: Mexicans,” Hailey Branson-Potts reports for the Los Angeles Times. At Weedpatch’s annual Dust Bowl Festival, Luis Barron, a 53-year-old Mexican American who came to the region in the 1960s, said he identifies with the Okies: “No matter your skin color, economically, we’re all the same … We all eat bologna sandwiches. We eat the beans, like everyone else.”
A LINE BIRDS CANNOT SEE – A new animated short film, “A Line Birds Cannot See” by Austin-based filmmaker Amy Bench, explores the difficult journey of a young girl from Guatemala traveling to the U.S. border, writes Sarah Larson in The New Yorker. “I wanted to tell an immigration story from a female perspective,” said Bench. “We’ve barely scratched the surface of exploring the richness and complexity in women’s lives. Even talking about what it means to be a woman has been so buried.”
INSTRUMENTS OF CHANGE – For this week’s episode of “Only in America,” I talked to Joe Troop, a fiddler from North Carolina with a passion for Appalachian bluegrass music. After moving to Argentina 10 years ago, Joe founded a “Latin-grass” band, Che Apalache, which boasts members from Argentina, Mexico and the U.S. The band has written songs about social and political issues, including Dreamers and the border wall — take a listen to hear our conversation on bluegrass and advocacy, plus a clip of their song “The Dreamer.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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