The president’s immigration policies are having an unusual impact: While immigration has declined dramatically nationwide, “perhaps ironically, it is Trump-voting states and metropolitan areas that have registered the largest gains in immigrants,” writes Richard Florida in City Lab.
The numbers tell the story. “In 2017-18, in Trump states, the immigrant population surged by nearly 300,000, whereas it declined by more than 100,000 in states that voted for Clinton. Metros in the South and Rust Belt saw the biggest gains, while some large coastal metros on the East Coast, plus the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Chicago, saw considerable declines.”
Welcome to the “We are going to the World Series (!)” Wednesday edition of Noorani’s Notes.
Have a story you’d like us to include? Email me at [email protected]
OIL GUSHER – Nearly every time I’ve talked with a Texas business leader, they have told me about the labor shortage in the state’s booming oil industry. Well, the president’s immigration policies are negatively impacting American oil drillers, who “say that the lack of a system to get illegal oil workers documented or given working visas is impeding the oil industry from having enough labor force to take full advantage of the unprecedented—albeit slowing—oil boom in the United States,” writes Tsvetana Paraskova in Oilprice.com. Indeed, the hardline policies mean business owners “can’t find legal immigrant workers to do some of the dangerous difficult jobs on the oil field that some Americans shun.”
FLORES VIOLATIONS – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) centers in San Diego are detaining children for longer than the law permits, Gustavo Solis reports in the Los Angeles Times. The Flores Settlement Agreement states that “CBP should not hold children for more than 72 hours,” yet asylum-seeking children are “routinely” held for longer than 72 hours in San Diego. One asylum seeker “said the conditions inside CBP custody were so poor that she asked to be sent back to Mexico.”
REMOVE FROM MEXICO – With 50,000 migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. stuck at the border under the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” program, Mexico has adopted a “controversial solution: Ship as many asylum seekers as possible more than 1,000 miles back [to Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala] in the apparent hope that they will opt to return to Central America — even if that implies endangering or foregoing prospective political asylum claims in U.S. immigration courts.” As Patrick J. McDonnell reports in the Los Angeles Times, Mexico’s immigration agency advertises the 40-hour bus rides as “free, voluntary, and secure.” But advocates say the program is “a barely disguised scheme for encouraging ill-informed migrants to abandon their ongoing petitions in U.S. immigration court and return to Central America.”
DEEP DIVE – Governments across the Americas are bungling the migration crisis, repeating mistakes made in Europe, Alexander Betts writes in Foreign Affairs (paywall). This is a long read, but worth your time. “Central American migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexican border, Venezuelans crossing dry plains into Colombia, Bolivians seeking work in Argentina and Chile—these are treated as separate phenomena but are in fact part of the same underlying set of problems. To avoid the kind of human and political toll that the migration crisis produced in Europe, political leaders and policymakers must treat this new situation holistically and learn from past examples.”
SOMETHING UPBEAT – Michigan State University is helping migrant workers earn high school diplomas, according to a statement released by the school Tuesday. The U.S. Department of Education has granted $2.4 million to the university’s Migrant Student Services program, which will support more than 6,000 students in obtaining their GED. The program’s director, Luis Garcia, describes the approach: “If you’re a migrant farmer sitting on a picnic table at lunchtime on a blueberry farm it can be hard to see yourself as an engineer or a teacher someday… We work constantly to reach migrants where they live and create a safe space for them to express their hopes, doubts and dreams.” I absolutely love these kinds of programs.
MISUNDERSTANDINGS – World Magazine’s Sophia Lee has been writing about migration issues around the world. As a result, she writes, “In my six years of reporting for WORLD, I have never received so many negative, impassioned emails and comments as I have over the topic of immigration and the border.” She goes on, “It’s OK that we Christians disagree on certain policies regarding immigration. But precisely because immigration policies are not something that the gospel is all that clear about, we should keep an open mind and not just rely on our favorite news source to form staunch opinions.”
NEW MANAGEMNET – The Department of Homeland Security will soon be under new management, following the resignation of acting secretary Kevin McAleenan. Acting head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Ken Cuccinelli and acting commissioner of CBP Mark Morgan are the top contenders for the position — both have previously advocated for harsher immigration policies, and either pick would likely result in more court challenges, to say the least. As I told The Wall Street Journal’s Michelle Hackman, “The rhetoric coming from the top of DHS will likely now more closely match the president.”
Thanks for reading,
Ali
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