Nearly half of undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. arrived here legally and stayed past their visas’ expiration dates, reports Miriam Jordan for The New York Times. “Of the roughly 3.5 million undocumented immigrants who entered the country between 2010 and 2017, 65 percent arrived with full permission stamped into their passports, according to new figures compiled by the Center for Migration Studies … More overstayers arrived from India than from any other country.” Jordan’s interviews with Asian immigrants working in Silicon Valley’s service sector illustrate the policy challenge we face.

Welcome to Monday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes, and I hope you enjoyed a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

FORT WORTH – Fort Worth mayor Betsy Price, a Republican, is urging Gov. Greg Abbott to continue allowing refugees to resettle in Texas, Sarah McConnell reports for The Texan. Price is the latest mayor to speak out following a Trump administration executive order that allows states to decide whether they will accept refugees. In a letter to Gov. Abbott, Price wrote: “I have witnessed the mutually beneficial impact of resettling almost 2,600 refugees in Fort Worth since 2016, I don’t want to risk fixing anything that is not broken.”

MISSOULA – Refugees resettled in Missoula, Montana, are finding their hopes of being reunited with family members dimmed after the Trump administration said it will accept just 18,000 refugees in 2020, reports Kim Briggeman for the Missoulian. As we previously mentioned in the Notes, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Missoula is also struggling with confusion over the executive order requiring local leaders to consent to allowing more refugees. “I think the unknowing is all-consuming,” said Mary Poole, executive director of Soft Landing Missoula, of refugee families.

ARIZONA – In an op-ed for the Arizona Capitol Times, Pastor Caleb Campbell of Phoenix’s Deseret Springs Bible Church and Maria Del Socorro Leon Pena, a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient and former student ministries coordinator for the church, call on Congress to move quickly on DACA legislation. “The Bible calls us to stand for justice, especially for immigrants,” they write. “Our values require a solution, which would benefit not only Dreamers but also the native-born Americans who attend church with and work alongside them.”

BALLROOM DANCE LESSONS – The ballroom dance industry is the latest to point to tightening federal visa application rules as reason for a shortage of qualified employees, writes Susan Haigh for the Associated Press. Studios including the Fred Astaire and Arthur Murray chains said they’re struggling to find professional instructors. “[Studio owner Chris] Sabourin had to eventually give up after a year and thousands of dollars trying to hire a top ballroom dancer from Greece to teach at her Fred Astaire studio in Orange, Connecticut, only to have the woman detained at New York’s Kennedy Airport and sent back home.”

LATINO VOTE – In appeals to turn out Latino voters in 2020, Democrats on the campaign trail are finding that immigration is a dicey issue, reports Suzanne Gamboa for NBC News. The Democratic Party is “wrestling with trying to appeal to its growing progressive base while not losing more centrist and rural voters – which also includes Latino voters.” While many progressives are calling for a stop to deportations, not all Latinos agree: The population isn’t “one-size-fits-all” on immigration, Gamboa writes.


ASYLUM STRUGGLES – For the Dallas Observer, Meredith Lawrence profiles Michael, a Kurdish journalist whose story of seeking asylum in the U.S. highlights the numerous hurdles — including “miscommunication, red tape, government errors, and delays” — that can make the asylum-seeking process impossible to navigate. “Regulations require asylum seekers to wait six months after filing for asylum before applying for a work permit,” Lawrence writes. “But Michael has been waiting for his permit for years, tangled up in a system that has left him unable to support himself. … After two years in this country with no work permit and no way to earn a living legally, Michael ran out of money.”

HISTORY LESSON – Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Joe Mozingo has an incredible feature on Esther Takei Nishio, the child of Japanese immigrants and the first Japanese American “test case” for resettlement after her family was detained in an internment camp in 1944. Nishio, who died last week at 94, was allowed to leave the internment camp to live with a friend and attend college in Pasadena. “Her resettlement would gauge the public reaction and, if all went well, lead the way for tens of thousands more to return to the West Coast,” Mozingo writes. The full read is well worth your time.

Thanks for reading,

Ali