Tuesday, March 22
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NOORANI'S NOTES

 

This story is incredible. 

In just three days, Harvard students Avi Schiffmann and Marco Burstein
launched Ukraine Take Shelter to
help Ukrainians connect with host families offering refuge, reports Alaa
Elassar of CNN
. 

After launching March 3, within a week more than 4,000 people listed
their homes to support Ukrainian refugees in need. 

"For me, I'm behind a computer across the world, which is what I'm
good at, but it's very disconnected sometimes," Schiffmann said. "To
see so many people from countries in every corner of the world doing
something to help these refugees, who need and deserve safety, is really
inspiring." 

There are currently over one million users on the platform, which now
includes over 25,000 listings, notes Elassar. 

For another remarkable story
,
see Jeff Gammage's piece on New Jersey resident Dharmik Sheth, who
dropped everything to go to Poland and support Ukrainian refugees. 

Over in Europe, Liz Alderman and Patricia Cohen of The New York Times

report that Ukrainian refugees are being offered fast-track access to
protection and employment - which is "happening with a speed and
scope that is rare for the European Union
." 

I hope the U.S. can work on a similar approach for Ukrainians and other
displaced people around the world soon. 

For MSNBC
,
Lauren Leader of All In Together and Michelle Nunn of Care wrote a
powerful op-ed on how Ukrainian women are the face of the current
refugee crisis. Putting a finer point on the level of support for
refugees, The New York Times

published letters to the editor urging the U.S. to let more Ukrainians
in. 

Welcome to Tuesday's edition of Noorani's Notes. Don't miss
our latest statement

on Sen. Dick Durbin's (D-Illinois) recent response to the need for
immigration reforms. 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
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MPP

**DATA** - Per Homeland Security data, Migrant Protection Protocols
(MPP) a.k.a. "Remain in Mexico" enrollments more than doubled in
February to 897, compared to 399 in January, reports Julian Resendiz
of Border Report
.
Still, the number of migrants expelled to Mexico to await asylum
hearings are "nowhere near Trump-era program volumes," Resendiz notes.
"By contrast, nearly 3,000 foreign nationals
 were
placed in 'Remain in Mexico' during the first two full months of the
program in 2019 in El Paso alone." Meanwhile, on Monday former Obama
appointees including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and U.S.
Ambassador to Mexico Roberta Jacobson urged the Supreme Court to end the
policy, per Law360
's
Max Jaeger. 

'TRYING TO GET REELECTED' - Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has
falsely touted the success of his border crackdown, dubbed Operation
Lone Star (OLS), report Lomi Kriel and Perla Trevizo of ProPublica and
The Texas Tribune, in partnership with Andrew Rodriguez Calderón and
Keri Blakinger of The Marshall Project
.
Abbott's claim of success "has been based on shifting metrics that
included crimes with no connection to the border, work conducted by
troopers stationed in targeted counties prior to the operation, and
arrest and drug seizure efforts that do not clearly distinguish [the
Department of Public Safety's] role from that of other agencies," per
their investigation. Command Sgt. Maj. Jason Featherston, a Texas Army
National Guard veteran who helped oversee deployment to the border under
OLS until his retirement in November, said he recalls commanders saying
things like, "We're going back to the border, the governor is trying
to get reelected." 

**ROHINGYA REFUGEES** - On Monday, the U.S. called the violent
repression of Rohingya refugees, the largely Muslim ethnic group in
Myanmar, a genocide. The more than one million Rohingya refugees in
Bangladesh welcomed the determination, Julhas Alam reports for the
Associated Press
.
"It has been 60 years starting from 1962 that the Myanmar government has
been torturing us and many other communities including Rohingya," said
Sala Uddin, who lives in Bangladesh's Kutupalong camp. While the
declaration is a step in the right direction, it's premature to tell
if the development will "ensure the recognition of the Rohingya
refugees, who have long been denied citizenship in Myanmar," said Imtiaz
Ahmed, director of the Centre for Genocide Studies at the University of
Dhaka.  

**AFGHANS LEFT BEHIND** - Rachel Martin of NPR News
recently spoke to "Khan," a
former Afghan interpreter still stuck in the country, and Matt Zeller, a
U.S. veteran who is still working to evacuate Afghan allies like him.
Khan had originally applied for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) in 2014.
It took six years for Khan to get through the mountain of paperwork
after applying for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) - but he never got
his visa or a call from the government to leave, underscoring the
bureaucratic red tape of the system. "I heard nothing ... That makes you
feel you will be shot and dead every day you're living in Kandahar,
where all the Taliban's around you. That makes you feel you have no
hope," said Khan. ICYMI: The Washington Post
's
Greg Jaffe profiles Afghanistan's last finance minister, Khalid
Payenda, who is now an Uber driver in the D.C. area. 

Meanwhile, on local welcome: 

* Local schools in the Seattle area are "hiring or expanding the work of
Pashto and Dari interpreters, adding after-school and other
extended-learning programs for refugees, buddying new Afghan students
with ones who have lived here for a while," and more. (Nina Shapiro,
Seattle Times
) 

* Vermont's Bennington County Open Arms has worked hard to welcome
and resettle Afghan refugees. "You can do all the forms, and you get
them to dental appointments and stuff like that, but making them feel at
home is what [the volunteers have] really done," said coordinator Grace
Winslow. (Lex Merrell, Bennington Banner
) 

* Hundreds of Afghans gathered in traditional attire at Reedy Creek Park
in Charlotte, North Carolina, to celebrate Nowruz, the Afghan New Year,
on Sunday - for most, it's the first time celebrating away from
home. (Sydney Heiberger, Queen City News
) 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali 

 

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