On the campaign trail, Democrats are missing an opportunity to address Americans’ fears about issues ranging from immigration to the opioid crisis head on, writes Timothy McMahan King in an op-ed for CNN. McMahan King, author of “Addiction Nation: What the Opioid Crisis Reveals About Us,” explains how President Trump consistently links the opioid crisis to the southern border and immigration. “During his last speech in New Hampshire, he made his talking points of the drug crisis and immigration crisis one and the same, saying, ‘at the center of America's drug crisis is the border crisis.’ He gives his crowds a story to believe about how and why they are seeing their friends, family and loved ones dying at record rates.”

Returning from Austin with a belly full of barbecue and tacos after speaking to the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Policy Orientation conference, welcome to Friday’s edition of Noorani’s Notes. Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected].

“BIRTH TOURISM” – The State Department officially rolled out new regulations yesterday which grant officials more power to stop pregnant women from visiting the U.S. in an effort to crack down on what they’re calling “birth tourism.” Under the rule, which takes effect today, consular officers “will be expected to apply additional scrutiny if, through the course of an interview, they come to suspect that a woman is traveling to the United States specifically to give birth,” writes Zolan Kanno-Youngs for The New York Times. “State Department officials holding a briefing for reporters under the condition of anonymity failed to provide an example of how birth tourism presented a national security risk, though both the State Department and the White House said that it did.”

IN OTHER CONGRESSIONAL NEWS – The House Oversight and Reform Committee requested information from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about the separation of migrant children from their parents on Thursday, reports Rebecca Klar in The Hill. “The Democrats’ request follows a recent court ruling that the Trump administration was within its authority when it separated more than 900 children from their parents since June 2018, when the court halted family separation under a ‘zero tolerance’ policy.” Specifically, Democrats are asking DHS for information on all separated children — including how and why they were separated — and how DHS plans to track children and reunify families.

CARAVAN – Hundreds of migrants from Central America were rounded up onto buses by Mexican authorities to be returned to Honduras after entering Mexico and walking for hours along a rural highway, Peter Orsi reports for the Associated Press. “National guardsmen in riot gear advanced banging their plastic shields with batons and engaged the migrants. There was shoving and pepper spray as migrants were rounded up. … Asked about assertions from Mexico’s president that migration must be regular and orderly, [one migrant] said: ‘He needs to have a little more compassion ... we’re going out of necessity. We’re not going for ambition.’”

REUNION – Nine migrant parents who were deported from the U.S. after being separated from their kids in 2017 and 2018 returned here Thursday, reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez in CBS News. The dramatic scene at Los Angeles International Airport was made possible through a court ruling issued last September, when a federal judge ruled that 11 migrant parents were unlawfully deported. For many of the parents, “it was the first time in the U.S. outside the treacherous terrain of the southern border, crowded and cold Border Patrol cells and jail-like adult detention centers. It was also their second time on board an airplane; the first being when they sat on a deportation flight with their arms bound by metal shackles.”

RICHER, NOT POORER – While advocates for immigration restrictions often claim that migrants from rich countries are more desirable, recent research from economist Ed Lazear proves that even immigrants arriving from poor countries tend to be upwardly mobile when they arrive in the U.S. — making the nation richer, not poorer. “The evidence shows that the U.S. system is actually very good at selecting talented go-getters from abroad,” writes Noah Smith in a column for Bloomberg. “Restrictionists who believe that immigrants from poor countries will make the U.S. a poorer place are simply wrong.”

Thanks for reading,

Ali