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The Biden administration formally announced yesterday that it would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees fleeing their home country and employ "the full range of legal pathways" for their entry, per a team at CNN. The administration also published a fact sheet on ways to bolster "Humanitarian, Development, and Democracy Assistance" to Ukraine and its surrounding region.

A new AP-NORC poll found that 67% of Americans favor accepting refugees from Ukraine, while 82% favor strong humanitarian support, reports Paulina Firozi of The Washington Post. (Texas organizations are already gearing up to welcome an estimated 12,000 Ukrainian refugees to the state, reports WFAA’s Adriana De Alba.)

This is the kind of global leadership on mass migration the U.S. and Americans need to show — for Ukrainians and for others.

"The announcement that the U.S. will welcome Ukrainian refugees demonstrates America’s humanitarian leadership to the world. It should be a first step as we re-establish our refugee resettlement system more broadly," said Stewart Verdery, a Council on National Security and Immigration (CNSI) leader and CEO of Monument Advocacy, via a statement.

Meanwhile, Srdjan Nedeljkovic and David Keyton of the Associated Press share powerful perspectives from Ukrainian refugees themselves, whose hopes of returning home are dimming. "Why is [Putin] bombing peaceful homes? Why there are so many victims, blood, and killed children, body parts everywhere?" said Natalia Lutsenko, from the bombed-out town of Chernihiv. "It is horrible. Sleepless nights. Parents are crying, there are no children anymore."

Welcome to Friday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. I’m Joanna Taylor, filling in for Ali today. 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.

TITLE 42 — There’s been a sharp increase of Colombians arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border this month — and the Biden administration has expelled several hundred of them under the pandemic-related Title 42 policy, reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News. The expulsions represent a "marked increase" from the 20 expelled to Colombia in February under the policy, and most Colombian migrants previously were allowed to enter the U.S. and seek asylum. "The Biden administration is so determined to keep expelling migrants without giving them an opportunity to ask for protection in the United States that they’re paying several hundred dollars per person to put them on planes back to South America," said policy analyst Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America. Meanwhile, faith leaders continue to call on the administration to end Title 42, per Rhina Guidos of Catholic News Service.

WORDS OF WISDOM — A retired U.S. Air Force master sergeant known as "Annie," originally from Afghanistan, was recently named one of Central Ohio’s Remarkable Women of 2022. Annie came to the U.S. when she was 13 and served in the U.S. Air Force for almost 26 years. But when Kabul fell to the Taliban, she "worked day and night coordinating efforts to get the right papers into the hands of Afghan refugees" in collaboration with a network of veterans and nonprofit organizations, per WCMH. "[W]e’re blessed, we have everything we need," she said. "But we’ve got to reach back and help the ones that don’t necessarily have everything they need." Speaking of wisdom, World Magazine’s Esther Eaton interviews CNSI leader, former DHS official and Forum board member Elizabeth Neumann on how the vetting process works for refugees fleeing war, among other topics.

On local welcome:

With support from a U.S. Marine, Lutheran Family Services Rocky Mountains in Denver, and a family connection in Cincinnati, three young Afghan female athletes are settling into their new home in Ohio. (Sharon Coolidge, Cincinnati Enquirer)
In partnership with Church World Service, California restaurant owner Aasim Sajjad and others volunteered with SLO4Home to offer "refugees assistance with finding a job, transportation, housing, governmental coordination, culture and hospitality, and more." (Malea Martin, New Times San Luis Obispo)

CENSUS DATA — New Census data shows that substantial population loss in 2021, headlined by but not limited to large cities, led to the slowest year of growth in U.S. history, report Robert Gebeloff, Dana Goldstein and Winnie Hu of The New York Times. "Although some of the fastest growing regions in the country continued to boom, the gains were nearly erased by stark losses last year in counties that encompass the New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco metropolitan areas," they write. The pandemic, increased housing costs, steadily falling birthrates, and a steep drop in immigration have all contributed to the slowdown. The Census Bureau’s map offers a good visualization of population declines in many rural areas as well. As we’ve noted, increased legal immigration can help us respond to the demographic and economic challenges at hand.

BORDER ART — For this year’s Whitney Biennial exhibition, senior curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards stepped outside the box to look for visual artists and drew inspiration from art depicting humane experiences at the Tijuana, Mexico, border wall, reports Siddhartha Mitter of The New York Times. "The generative alchemy of a border town might offer clues for fresh thinking about other divisions: between racial or gender categories, the material and the spiritual worlds, the living and the dead," writes Mitter. "We think of the border as a divide, but actually it marks a point of negotiation," Edwards says. The show, "Quiet as It’s Kept," opens April 6.

Thanks for reading,

Joanna