North Dakota’s Burleigh County is set to vote today on whether the county will be the first in the nation to ban further resettlement of refugees, reports James MacPherson at the Associated Press. “Monday night’s meeting will be held in a middle school cafeteria to accommodate public interest that Chairman Brian Bitner said is the most intense he’s seen in more than a decade on the commission.”

Keep in mind that North Dakota’s Republican governor, Doug Burgum, sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in November consenting to refugee resettlement “with the continued assent and cooperation of local jurisdictions.”

So, what does it mean for a refugee — or anyone foreign-born — if one North Dakota locality assents to resettlement, and another does not?

Welcome to Monday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes.

Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

MEANWHILE IN ARIZONA – Late last Friday, Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona (R) decided how to respond to the Trump administration’s refugee resettlement executive order. In response to support from a range of organizations, including World Relief and the Evangelical Immigration Table, the Arizona Republic’s Daniel Gonzalez reports that Gov. Ducey “has agreed to accept the resettlement of refugees into Arizona in 2020.”

CHAIN LINK NATIVITY – Claremont United Methodist Church in southern California is using their Christmas nativity to send a powerful message, depicting the Holy Family as a migrant family separated from each other in chain link cells. Tim Stelloh at NBC News writes that “the church said that after fleeing a tyrant king, Jesus, Mary and Joseph became “the most well-known refugee family in the world. … What if this family sought refuge in our country today?’”

ELSEWHERE – U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing criticism from the country’s business sector after releasing details of proposed immigration policies to cut visas for “lower-skilled” immigrant workers, reports The Independent’s Rob Merrick. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Gettleman and Suhasini Raj at The New York Times report on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to pass legislation that would “give migrants of all of South Asia’s major religions — except Islam — a clear path to Indian citizenship.”

FAMILIES DETAINED – Earlier this fall, Miriam Jordan at The New York Times reported that a federal court blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to indefinitely detain immigrant families. Now, as the federal government appeals the ruling, the Times’ Caitlin Dickerson delves into ongoing efforts to expand a family detention system that “could multiply to incarcerate more than 15,000 parents and children across the country.” One woman, who was detained at a facility in Dilley, Texas, for four months before being released, said that “her 8-year-old son Jostin refused to eat while they were there and would vomit when she tried to force him into the dining hall.”

SIX MONTHS – The latest data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shows that apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border have decreased for the 6th straight month. Adam Shaw at Fox News writes: “The numbers (33,510 apprehended and 9,139 deemed inadmissible) represented a decline of roughly six percent since October, and a drop of over 70 percent since the height of the crisis in May, when more than 144,000 migrants were encountered.”
AFRICAN MIGRANTS – The number of African migrants seeking to come to the U.S. through Mexico has increased tenfold over the last decade — from 460 in 2007 to more than 5,800 in 2019, reports Gustavo Solis in the Los Angeles Times. In addition to the challenges faced by most migrants traveling through Mexico, “African migrants face additional obstacles in terms of language and cultural barriers. They also have less access to services from legal aid organizations who do not have staff who speak the same language as the migrants.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali