Thursday, March 10
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

Yesterday Blaine Bookey, Legal Director of the Center for Gender and
Refugee Studies at UC Hastings, tweeted
, "I'm at
the San Ysidro port of entry and CBP will not allow a Ukrainian family
seek asylum. Outrageous. ... Stop the cruelty. End Title 42." 

Around the same time, Reuters'

Ted Hesson reported that the Biden administration "is leaning toward
ending a COVID-era order that has blocked more than a million migrants
at the U.S.-Mexico border," otherwise known as Title 42. Officials told
Hesson a decision could come within weeks, "though the outcome was not
yet clear." 

For more on Title 42's real-world impacts, read about Sásabe, Sonora,
along Mexico's border with Arizona. In Sásabe, population 1,200, the
Casa de la Esperanza migrant shelter has been helping about 1,200 people
per month who have been expelled from the U.S. under Title 42, Melissa
Del Bosque reports in The Border Chronicle
.
"Our mission is to restore some of their dignity with a hot meal and a
little hope," said Dora Rodriguez, who co-founded Casa de la Esperanza
last year. 

Just end the program already, Mr. President. 

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] .
And if you know others who'd like to receive the Notes, please spread
the word. They can subscribe here.
  

**PREPARING TO WELCOME** - Good on Gov. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) for
convening a March 17 summit in Northeast Ohio to prepare for the
potential arrival of Ukrainian refugees, as Fox19's

Brian Planalp reports. "While we do not yet know what role Ohio will
play in helping these families, I want us to be prepared when the time
does come," DeWine said. Meanwhile, in Poland, mothers are leaving
strollers on train platforms for Ukrainian families, as Washington Post

columnist Monica Hesse writes: "Typically the leaders who start and end
wars are not in a position to understand that prams are war supplies
too. And yet mothers would know to ask this. Every mother would know." 

**MEANWHILE** - Bureaucracies and politics stand in the way of
Ukrainians hoping to secure a visa to the U.S. Roll Call's

Suzanne Monyak found that in the region, "wait times for temporary visas
have grown, with some stretching to nearly a year - if appointments
are available at all." Also on the room-for-improvement list has been
the U.K. While the European Union has waived visas for all Ukrainian
refugees for up to three years, the Brits continue to require security
checks and visas. The BBC's
Doug Faulkner reports that "The Home Office has come under pressure to
speed up visa processing." 

**HAITIAN ODYSSEY** - In a year with plenty of dramatic immigration
stories, one standout was the arrival of 16,000 Haitians in Del Rio,
Texas, last fall. The Houston Chronicle's

Elizabeth Trovall and Marie D. De Jesús are out with an amazing
three-chapter description of what, for many, was a 10-year journey from
Haiti to Brazil to Chile, and eventually to the U.S. To give you a sense
of the magnitude, Trovall and De Jesús found that "[t]he some 100,000
making this journey in 2021 are nearly three times the number of people
that made the same odyssey during the entire previous decade." Our
treatment of Haitian refugees fleeing violence, poverty and natural
disaster offers a stark contrast to the outpouring of support for
Ukrainians now.  

**FLORIDA** - The Sunshine State's legislature continues to do
everything it can to be more anti-immigrant than its counterparts in
Texas. On Wednesday, the Florida House passed legislation "targeting
transportation companies that bring undocumented immigrants into the
state and expanding a 2019 law that sought to ban so-called 'sanctuary
cities,'" according to News Service of Florida's

Dara Kam. The legislation now heads to the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis
(R), who is also working to "shutter shelters that provide housing and
other services to unaccompanied children whose immigration or refugee
status is being processed after they enter the country." The Forum has
posted an explainer about the legislation
. 

**WORKFORCE ISSUE** - "If we want to save our local economies, we must
open our doors to the world," Tod Bowen, managing director of external
affairs and government relations at the Ohio Restaurant Association,
writes on Cleveland.com
.
More than 3,000 Ohio restaurants have closed since the start of the
pandemic, Bowen notes, and labor shortages are a big reason why.
"[I]mmigration is a workforce issue, not just a border issue," he
writes. "Immigrants fill crucial job openings that would otherwise go
unfilled, help businesses expand, and allow consumers to get the goods
and services they need without delay. Immigrants could literally save
Ohio's restaurant industry." 

**ARRIVAL CENTER** - A temporary facility in Northern Virginia has
welcomed its first newly arrived Afghan evacuees, reports Ben Fox of the
Associated Press
.
The National Conference Center in Leesburg replaces military bases as
refugees' temporary home until resettlement agencies can find more
permanent housing. The arrivals include people who escaped Afghanistan
after the U.S. withdrawal and have passed medical and security screening
elsewhere. 

Meanwhile, on the local-welcome front: 

* "It's been a huge outpouring and we're so glad to be a part of
it," said Mark Meadows, a member of the Warsaw (Indiana) Afghan Help
Group. Donations for Afghan refugees have surpassed the group's
expectations. (David Slone, Warsaw Times-Union
) 

* In Pennsylvania, the Afghan Sponsor Circle of Greater Reading plans to
help an Afghan family resettling in the area - and raised $8,000 via a
fundraiser Tuesday at the Wyomissing Restaurant and Bakery. (Jack
Reinhard, WFMZ
) 

* A couple of weeks ago we shared the story of Wali
,
an Afghan translator who resettled in Austin, Texas, seven years ago.
The story elicited an outpouring of community support, in the form of
donated goods and more than $5,000 in two days. The big remaining
challenge: finding permanent housing in a tight market. (Jenni Lee, KVUE
)  

Thanks for reading, 
Ali

 

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