The Burleigh County Commission in North Dakota voted 3-2 Monday night to continue accepting refugees, Mitch Smith and Miriam Jordan report in The New York Times. The commission capped refugee admissions at 25, about the same number as last year. Brian Bitner, the chairman of the county commission — who opposed additional resettlement — told the Times: “We have to be accepting of people from other places … But the question is, ‘What is that costing us and is there an impact, whether it’s financial or otherwise?’”

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

PUBLIC CHARGE – 70-year-old Joaquin Escudeno is a permanent U.S. resident, but after 30 years here, he’s too scared to sign up for public health programs because his wife Herlinda’s immigration case is still open and he fears it could affect her chances of obtaining a green card, Joey Peters reports in a piece for Sahan Journal and MPR News. “‘On the TV in Spanish, they talk like everybody is affected by public charge,’ Herlinda, speaking through an interpreter, told Sahan Journal. ‘We feel terrorized by this because we’re thinking it’s for us.’” The Trump administration’s “public charge” rule continues to wind its way through the courts.

NEW RESEARCH – A transatlantic team of researchers has found that closing American borders to immigrants in the 1920s — a dramatic policy change — “didn’t raise wages for U.S.-born workers in the areas most affected by the shift,” Jeff Kearns writes in Bloomberg. In fact, “Losing immigrant workers encouraged farmers to invest more in equipment, which discouraged some workers from entering the agricultural labor force. That suggests that outsourcing or automation could replace lost immigrants — and, in turn, American-born workers.”

SCOTUS – The Supreme Court appears likely to rule in favor of a challenge that seeks judicial review of deportation orders, reports Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson in Bloomberg Law. For context: The Immigration and Nationality Act prevents judicial review for immigrants convicted of certain crimes, meaning courts can only look at whether the correct legal standard was used, not whether the standard was correctly applied. “Justices from both the conservative and liberal wings of the court aggressively questioned the government’s attorney in a case examining what immigration decisions are reviewable in federal court.”

VACCINES – A group of doctors who last month pressured U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to allow them to provide flu vaccines to migrant children are now taking their fight to a detention facility in San Ysidro, Wendy Fry reports in the San Diego Tribune. “About 40 people, including medical doctors licensed to practice medicine in California, marched Monday from Vista Terrace Neighborhood Park to the detention facility on Beyer Boulevard, calling for CBP to let them in or let the children out to participate in a free mobile clinic they set up outside.” In the past year, three children have died from the flu while in federal immigration custody.

“PADLOCKED” – Many Americans have fairness and justice in mind when they say that immigration is good as long as immigrants follow the rules and come legally (which makes sense). But, as Naomi Ishisaka writes in a Seattle Times column, “what if the ‘legal’ door is padlocked and blockaded? What if it’s only open for five minutes a day and only if you can open it with your hands tied behind your back?” Today, the Trump Administration’s “invisible wall” is setting up barriers to the four main legal pathways to the U.S.: family reunification, diversity lottery, asylum or refugee status, and work visas.

TURKEY – Turkey has started bringing Syrian refugees across the border into northeastern Syria despite very precarious security conditions, reports Lara Seligman in Foreign Policy. This is “the first sign Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is moving forward with his plan to resettle some 3 million Syrians living in Turkey into 20 miles of formerly Kurdish-held territory.” Erdogan’s violent military operation has displaced 200,000 people and killed hundreds of Kurdish fighters.

Thanks for reading,

Ali