A recent Wharton School of Business study found that the data does not support the argument that more restrictive immigration laws benefit U.S. workers. In 2004, the number of available H-1B immigrant visas was greatly reduced, and researchers found that “there was a considerable surge in foreign employment after the H-1B rules were tightened.” In other words, in response to limitations on the number of foreign workers they could bring into the U.S., companies “weren't turning to the domestic labor market to find the talent they needed, or indeed investing in training local workers, but instead offshoring to where the talent already was,” writes Adi Gaskell in Forbes Magazine.

This Friday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes comes to you from the University of New Hampshire School of Law.

Have a story you’d like to include? Email me at [email protected].
DHS ACCOUNTABILITY 1/2 – A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report, written by a group of officials organized by recently departed acting secretary Kevin McAleenan, found that border officials have tried to prevent migrants from making protection claims at the border with asylum officers — and pressured the officers to deny migrants entry into the U.S. altogether, Hamed Aleaziz reports in BuzzFeed News. “The big takeaway from it is that MPP is not working,” said a former DHS official.

DHS ACCOUNTABILITY 2/2 – President Trump’s immigration policies have taken a toll on officers tasked with carrying them out, according to a Senate report released Thursday that compiles whistleblower accounts, Priscilla Alvarez reports for CNN. Sen. Jeff Merkley’s (D-Oregon) report “emphasizes the frustrations held by some officials in the administration who are responsible for carrying out its policies and raises alarm over departmental actions that it alleges exacerbated the crisis at the southern border.”

DECLARATION OF TAKING – The Trump administration is filing paperwork in court to begin buying privately owned land to build the border wall, Courtney Kube and Julia Ainsley report for NBC News. Typically, in most eminent domain cases, the government would agree on a price with the owners before it seizes the land. However, if the government files under the Declaration of Taking Act, the titles would automatically transfer to the government and negotiations on price don’t happen until after the land is taken. There’s currently “hundreds if not close to one thousand landowners in Texas who own land in the path of plans for a border wall.”

COUNTY CLERKS – Following the passage of the Green Light Law in New York, which allows undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses, some county clerks in conservative areas of upstate New York say they will refuse to issue licenses to people without documentation — or even go so far as to report these applicants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), reports Christina Goldbaum in The New York Times. “...many of these clerks still hope that they can temporarily halt the law through the federal courts, where they have argued that the Green Light Law conflicts with federal laws that prohibit assisting anyone who is suspected of being in the country illegally.”
CORPORATE PRESSURE – GitHub, a company acquired by Microsoft last year, is in hot water with its own employees after they discovered the company’s $200,000 contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Rosalie Chan reports for Business Insider. Janus Rose and Lauren Kaori Gurley at Vice report that in an email to staff, CEO Nat Friedman wrote: “While ICE does manage immigration law enforcement, including the policies that both GitHub and Microsoft are on record strongly opposing, they are also on the front lines of fighting human trafficking, child exploitation, terrorism and transnational crime.”

ACROSS THE POND – The issues animating our politics are not unique to our country: U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will seek to reduce unskilled migration if his party wins the upcoming election, BBC News reports. Johnson reiterated a plan for a “‘points-based’ immigration system, which would apply to EU and non-EU migrants.” Meanwhile in Scotland, Douglas Fraser writes for BBC News, there is broad consensus “that immigration is an important part of the answer to Scotland's demographic challenge.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali