Sol Trujillo, the chairman of Trujillo Group Investments and the first native-born Hispanic chairman and CEO of a Fortune 150 company, says he believes that America is straying from the ideals written in the Declaration of Independence.
In an op-ed for MarketWatch, Trujillo — whose roots in America go back nearly 500 years — writes that more than 80% of U.S. workforce growth is because of Latinos. He wants Americans to “remember what George Washington said about the American dream: ‘I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.’”
Welcome to this Friday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].
STAFFING – Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports for CBS News that John Zadrozny and Robert Law, two immigration hardliners, have been promoted to acting chief of staff and acting chief of policy, respectively, within U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). “Both Zadrozny and Law have worked for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), whose stated mission is to ‘reduce overall immigration to a more normal level,’ and which has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).” In other staffing headlines, Jill Colvin and Colleen Long report in the Associated Press that “Several witnesses who testified in the House impeachment inquiry this week chose to highlight their immigrant backgrounds, sharing their families’ stories in highly personal opening statements. They drew a connection to how those experiences led them to public service and a strong desire to safeguard U.S. national security.”
CHURCH SUPPORT – Nearly four months after the largest immigration raid in the last decade, which resulted in 680 arrests, churches in central Mississippi are still supporting the families who were impacted, reports Egan Millard in Episcopal News Service. “Initially, legal assistance was the resource they needed most. But now, with wage-earning parents either detained or unable to work, many of those families simply need food to put on the table. … Other churches have launched their own efforts, like the Morton United Methodist Church, which has collected over $100,000 to pay bills for people affected by the raid, NPR reported, and a Presbyterian church is collecting Christmas presents for the children.”
JOURNALIST DATABASE – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced Wednesday that they have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for allegedly violating the First Amendment rights of five journalists, Tal Axelrod reports for The Hill. “The lawsuit comes months after reports surfaced in March that the government kept a database of journalists and activists who were associated with covering or raising awareness of one of the so-called migrant caravans last year. The database reportedly included headshots and other identifying information, such as date of birth and people’s ‘role’ regarding the migrant caravan.”
THE FIRST – Nebraska has become the first state to agree to share its state driver’s license record data with the U.S. Census Bureau. Starting in December and through 2021, “the state's DMV will share monthly data about license and ID card holders' citizenship status, plus names, addresses, dates of birth, sex, race and eye color,” reports Hansi Lo Wang in NPR. Nebraska also only provides drivers licenses to people who can prove they are legally residing in the United States. Meanwhile, civil rights organizations “are suing the Trump administration to try to block the bureau from producing citizenship data.”
ORANGE CITY – In Orange City, Iowa, nearly 100 people gathered last week to discuss faith and rhetoric surrounding immigration, Renee Wielenga reports in N’West Iowa Review. Panelists included law enforcement and religious leaders. One panelist, from the Christian Reformed Church Office of Social Justice, said that when Christians think about rhetoric used around immigration, it should come back to all people being image bearers of Christ: “We’re called to love all people, not called to love people unless we find out they’re undocumented.”
EXPANDING MPP – The Trump administration, concerned about rising numbers of migrant families crossing into Arizona, are preparing to bus migrants 300 miles to Texas — and then release them into Mexico, The Washington Post team reports. “Homeland Security officials plan to announce as soon as Friday that they will expand the ‘Migrant Protection Protocols’ program to the Tucson region, one of the last major spots on the border that is not diverting asylum seekers to Mexico to await their immigration court hearings.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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