Hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday season and New Year’s. I spent a week driving the Pacific Coast Highway — not terrible.

Let’s start the decade with the data: The Census Bureau reports that the U.S. population slowed this past decade, from 0.97% annually during the 2000s to 0.66% annually during the 2010s, as a result of lower immigration rates and fewer births. Scottie Andrew in CNN reports that migration bottomed out between 2018 and 2019, “largely due to a steep drop in foreign-born immigration.” And in 2019, for the first time in 40 years, the U.S. had a natural population increase (births minus deaths) below 1 million.

Simply put, immigration is our national lifeblood.

Welcome to the first 2020 edition of Noorani’s Notes. (A bit longer than usual as we catch up on a few important stories.) Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

LOOKING AHEAD – Immigration will likely animate the 2020 elections, but there are some important policy items to keep an eye on this year, writes Stuart Anderson in Forbes. From H-1B and L-1 visa denials to potential H-4 rules to a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) decision to court cases to border issues, the politics and policies of immigration will be a constant reminder of who we are as a nation. Meanwhile, Tania Karas and Monica Campbell offer their ten immigration issues to watch this year over at PRI.

A GLOBAL CAPITAL OF EXILES – When Americans think about those who cross our southern border, they often think of Latin Americans — but in fact, Jack Herrera writes in an excellent Politico feature, “migration, both legal and illegal, from Mexico into the United States is incredibly international.” In 2018 alone, nearly 9,000 Indians, 1,000 Chinese nationals, 250 Romanians, 153 Pakistanis, 159 Vietnamese people, and individuals from more than 100 other countries were apprehended by border patrol. “Now, one of the most direct effects of Trump’s border policy is that thousands of foreigners from all over the world have found themselves unexpectedly stuck on the southern border.”

BORDER STOPS – The reports of “Iranians and Iranian-Americans being detained for questioning upon entering the U.S. kicked off a furor on Sunday from Washington state to Washington, D.C.,” report Lauren Gardner, Daniel Lippman, and Andy Blatchford in Politico. Coming on the heels of the killing of Iran’s Qassem Soleimani, the detentions — including of Iranian-Americans returning to the U.S. after attending a pop concert in Vancouver — have triggered a backlash “with references to the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection tweeted that the reports are “false.”

NO GOODBYE – In a story first reported last year, Rocio Rebollar Gomez — who had been in this country 31 years and raised three children, including a son in the U.S. Army — was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, where she has almost no family, Derrick Bryson Taylor reports for The New York Times. Second Lt. Gibram Cruz, who has been in the Army for five years and rushed to be with his mom after Christmas, “said he was ‘shocked’ at the way his mother was treated and called the actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] ‘completely inhumane.’” The kicker: Gomez was planning to self-deport, which ICE knew, yet they still took her across the border without giving her a chance to say goodbye.

DMV STUDY – The acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Chad Wolf, is scrutinizing new laws in New York, New Jersey and other states that allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses and prevent sharing the data with federal authorities, Colleen Long at the Associated Press reports. Wolf wrote a memo to various agencies within DHS “requesting a department study on how the laws affect its enforcement efforts for both immigration and other investigations into human trafficking, drug smuggling and counterterrorism.”

OHIO – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) officially consented to his state receiving refugees, reports Jackie Borchardt at the Cincinnati Enquirer. “The State of Ohio has a long and successful history of welcoming and assimilating refugees from all corners of the globe … Ohio also has a well-developed support network to welcome and assimilate refugees, primarily led by our faith-based communities,” DeWine wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. According to President Trump’s 2019 executive order, states and localities have until January 21 to provide written consent to accept refugees, and at least 33 governors have already done so, including 15 Republicans (save for Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, among others), writes Nancy LeTourneau in Washington Monthly.

GLOBES – For those who didn’t stay up late last night, Ramy Youssef won the Golden Globe for lead actor in a comedy series for “Ramy,” about a first-generation Muslim American from an Egyptian family, Meredith Blake writes in the Los Angeles Times. (Love this show.) And rapper and actor Awkwafina “became the first woman of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy film for her starring role in “The Farewell,” Jonathan Landrum Jr. reports for the Associated Press.

Thanks for reading,

Ali