After not publishing on Migratory Notes for four years, we are testing out a return. I realized I had not shared with our Medium community, so you’ll find the details below!

I had planned to reach out to share exciting personal news: My first book, The Wanderers, is coming out this spring. But I am also writing for another reason. Along with the rest of the Migratory Notes team, I have felt called to reconnect — at this brutal time for immigrants — because we want to see how we can remobilize this community to support each other.

First, the book. Since we sent out the last Migratory Notes five years ago, I shifted gears to reporting and writing The Wanderers. At its core, it’s a love story. When I met my future wife, immigration attorney Talia Inlender, at a picnic in LA, I assumed she’d be a good source since she was then working with people in immigration detention at a local jail. Then we discovered Talia’s grandfather and my own were once neighbors in the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands. I’m thrilled that the early reviewers get how I sought to unravel our intertwined history, while connecting our family’s refugee journeys to broader issues of forced migration and displacement.

“In crisp, unadorned prose, Gerson restores a neglected history; notes its contemporary resonances, as people are uprooted by violence across the globe; and tenderly chronicles the relationship that brought this history to light. It’s a profoundly moving account.

-Publisher’s Weekly

Though etched in local detail, this is really a global tale for our own time…Today, when many Americans face questions to their citizenship, this book lets us know that true belonging lies less in the ink of a passport than in the blood of family.”

-Kirkus Reviews

“[Gerson’s] impassioned tale spans decades, continents, languages, and coping mechanisms, and it provides a significant voice to a lesser known experience of Polish Jews. Gerson doesn’t shy away from the hard realities their families faced and the legacy and consequences that remain for current and future generations worldwide.”

-Booklist (starred review)

As The Wanderers comes out, I’d love to connect with Migratory Notes readers. (I have events lined up so far in DC, San Antonio, LA, SF — and will be sharing a lineup in a month or so). A few requests:

• It would be great to meet you in person and to visit your book clubs, festivals, etc. If you have an idea for a forum where I could share the book, I’d love to hear it.
• If you’re a reporter and would like a galley, I have a few left to distribute.
• And as my publishing team keeps reminding me, pre-orders make a huge difference in getting the book out in the world: consider ordering a copy of The Wanderers online or at your favorite bookstore.

While I’ve been writing The Wanderers, my co-conspirators at Migratory Notes have also been busy. Elizabeth had a Knight-Wallace Fellowship in Michigan, became a professor at LMU, and is writing a column at Capitol and Main, Yana moved to Arizona to report for the Republic and now Luminaria, Anna-Cat left Central America for Houston and then began as an editor with the AP in Mexico City.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been nine years since we sent out the first of 218 Migratory Notes newsletters, the week of Trump’s inauguration. In the years since our funding ran out and we stopped publishing, we have been encouraged to see other immigration newsletters and collaborative reporting efforts grow. We don’t envision a return to publishing Migratory Notes as a newsletter, but at this acute moment, we are interested in your thoughts on how we might fill gaps and again serve you in a different capacity at a different time. We have been considering ideas such as hosting another immigration reporters’ town hall, creating a collaborative effort to recognize exceptional reporting, or a hub for resources. We would love to hear from you (simply reply via email or in the comments):

• As immigration reporters, lawyers, advocates, and concerned citizens, what are you using, reading, listening to that’s most useful to keep up right now and understand immigration developments?
• And what more do you need? What do you wish you had as a resource on immigration news? Or to support immigration journalism?

Thank you in advance! We have missed our Migratory Notes community. At this harrowing time, connections are critical to resilience, and we look forward to reconnecting.

Daniela (and Elizabeth, Yana, Anna-Cat)

A book announcement, and a query for our Migratory Notes community was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Migratory Notes #218 will be our final newsletter.

Make no mistake: We were determined to continue publishing Migratory Notes under the Biden administration, because we believe that even if the headlines don’t scream in the same way, immigration news is just as important.

Unfortunately, we were not able to secure sufficient financial support for the newsletter. (Some of you have already reached out about a crowdsourcing campaign; without complementing that with core operating support we did not feel it would be sustainable.)

While we are stopping to publish Migratory Notes, Elizabeth and I will seek out new ventures in the spirit of the newsletter, filling gaps to strengthen immigration coverage. Here are three ways we hope to continue to work with many of you:

• We are up for collaborating and scheming on immigration news initiatives. If you have an idea, get in touch.
• We are planning with our partners at Internews a new effort to support immigration journalism in the U.S. and Central America.
• We love to talk immigration coverage. Do not hesitate to reach out to us for an expert voice or analysis.

And if you do want to show support for Migratory Notes and future immigration news initiatives, one way you can do so is by retweeting this message or sharing your own about why sustained immigration coverage matters.

Migratory Notes has been an incredibly rich journey for us at a tumultuous time personally, and, of course, for the world. Despite starting as a pop up the week of the first travel ban to keep track of rapid-fire changes at the outset of the Trump administration, we went on to cover the full four years. We connected with an inspiring and tenacious network of journalists, collaborated with Reveal and Columbia Journalism Review, and deepened our understanding of the impact of immigration news from the messages we received weekly from readers.

At the outset, the newsletter was our joint baby. We nurtured it on the side of our actual jobs, writing and editing late into the night. After Emerson Collective, and later Omidyar Foundation, generously supported us, we were able to hire some incredible young journalists as staff writers. Yana Kunichoff wrote from Chicago, Houston, and even for a stint in Moscow. She recently signed on as an education reporter for the Arizona Republic. Anna-Cat Brigida wrote from buses and rental apartments across Central America, Mexico and the border. She is now editing for Global Post and El Faro English, and is an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow reporting on mental health. And we were just getting started with Paco Alvarez, a Chicago-based writer who is about to begin an internship with Type Investigations.

We also have worked with a fantastic support team behind Migratory Notes: Michele Henry has patiently dealt with our finances. Newsletter guru Jacque Boltik coded late into the night (as I think she always does) and created our template. The staff at INN has provided fiscal sponsorship, and answered a multitude of questions. Our board has been there strategizing with us, analyzing the best immigration coverage of the year, and bringing in new ideas. We are particularly grateful for those on the board of directors: Fernanda Santos, Adolfo Flores, Phuong Ly, and our profe, Roberto Suro.

In the years since we launched, Elizabeth and I have each had two kids while also continuing our work as full-time journalists and journalism professors. Support and a staff not only sustained us, but gave us the ability to grow. During the pandemic it was evident that immigration reporters were often siloed and depleted. We gathered our immigration journalism idols together and across generations and geographies we connected about how to report and tell stories at our first Migratory Notes Town Hall.

Internews, a global organization fostering healthy media environments, shared a vision for how we might be able to build on our platform to support immigration journalists and the coverage they provide. We will soon release research, led by Chi Zhang, analyzing the stories we have aggregated during the Trump administration for patterns and growth opportunities. And this year we collaboratively organized two international Migratory Notes Town Halls with Internews, based around the theory that the best immigration coverage crosses borders.

Our Town Hall earlier this year on covering Central American migration included journalists reporting in 10 countries. Tomorrow evening, our Migratory Notes Town Hall: Covering Haitian Migration, will be our last official event. We are optimistic that we will be able to continue to develop this work connecting immigration journalists and identifying opportunities to expand coverage under the auspices of Internews.

While this is a sad letter to write, we are also proud of what we accomplished as a team and with you, our readers, and hope it is also the beginning of new projects we can work on together. If you are able, we invite you to join us for the Town Hall on Thursday, and stay for a toast at its conclusion.

Stay in touch, as always, we love hearing from you,
Daniela and Elizabeth

Saying Goodbye to Migratory Notes was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We are incredibly moved by the outpouring of support we have received from across the United States, Mexico, and beyond since announcing that we are stopping publication of Migratory Notes. We have never before so deeply felt our impact. Readers who are journalists, geographers, priests, rabbis, lawyers, data specialists, academics, activists, government representatives, and more wrote about how Migratory Notes has shaped their work.

THANK YOU for sharing and being part of this community.

Join us one more time tonight for the Town Hall on Covering Haitian Migration, and stay for a toast at its conclusion.

-Daniela and Elizabeth

#MustReads
The rapper known as MF DOOM died late last year, at the age of 49, barred from returning to the U.S., reports Pitchfork. Piecing together documents acquired from USCIS, Noah Yoo traces DOOM’s complicated immigration history from his birth in West London to his early life in New York and decades long failed struggle for permanent residency. It’s a fascinating and unique portrait, but also a story, Yoo writes, “familiar to any immigrant who’s ever wondered about whether they will one day be forced out of or kept away from the place they call home because of obsolete laws, brushes with law enforcement, or unlucky and inequitable circumstances.”

A record number of migrants from Central America are stopping short of the U.S. and applying for asylum in Mexico, reports The Economist. While Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy explains some of the increase in recent years, 2021 is set to break new records in the number of asylum seekers in Mexico with nearly 42,000 applications in the first five months of the year. “You can spend years trying to get into the United States, or spend those years building a life in Mexico,” says Rafael Alonso Hernández from Colef, a Mexican think-tank.

Remain in Mexico No More
The Biden administration is giving nearly 28,000 migrants another shot at asylum. They were enrolled in Trump’s Remain in Mexico policy and ordered deported after failing to show up to U.S. court dates, reports BuzzFeed News. Many of the migrants were deported “in absentia” after missing their last asylum hearing for a variety of reasons, such as dangerous conditions preventing them from crossing the border, kidnappings by cartels, or because they were denied entry for being pregnant. The Biden administration previously allowed in over 11,000 migrants with open Remain in Mexico cases; the new announcement allows migrants with closed cases a chance to enter the U.S.

Title 42
The Biden administration is considering ending for migrant families the controversial Title 42 policy, which expels most asylum seekers caught at the border, reports Axios. Currently, there are no plans to end Title 42 for single adults, though officials admitted that ending it for families could increase pressure to terminate the policy altogether. A report by Human Rights First found that since January, nearly 3,300 migrants expelled under Title 42 or blocked from entering by the policy have been killed, raped, or kidnapped in Mexico, reports Reuters.

Meanwhile, the administration has restarted “lateral flights,” in which migrants subjected to Title 42 are flown to and released in a different section of the border than where they were caught, after suspending such flights in mid-May, reports NBC News. Critics of the tactic argue that migrants often think they are being allowed into the U.S., only to be walked across the border into an area of Mexico they are unfamiliar with and where they lack connections.

Migrant Children
Over 55,000 migrant children have come to the U.S. since Biden’s inauguration, and about 1 in 3 is from Honduras, reports KERA News and the Dallas Morning News in a collaboration. This includes kids like Oscar Sanchez, who left Honduras in late March after the pandemic and two hurricanes decimated the country’s economy and local gangs attempted to recruit him. After arriving in the U.S., Sanchez spent weeks in an emergency shelter for children in Texas, where he says children were sometimes treated like “animals” and many suffered from depression — he often entertained people using a borrowed guitar.

Sanchez’s experiences in the emergency shelter mirror other reports from children held in emergency facilities. According to 17 testimonials filed in a court case on Monday, children in emergency shelters across the United States endure crowded living areas, sometimes rotting food, and depression, reports Reuters.

Detention
COVID cases in detention centers skyrocketed by about 340% between March and May, with outbreaks centered in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arizona. The spike in Covid-19 cases in ICE detention centers coincides with a decision to transfer detainees through a Mississippi facility experiencing an outbreak, reports The Intercept. Some advocates are also blaming ICE’s slow vaccination rollout for the increase in infections, though detainees were offered vaccines in some facilities.

A new report shows that ICE force-fed hunger striking detainees protesting poor conditions several times between 2015 and 2017, reports BuzzFeed News. The joint ACLU and Physicians for Human Rights report shows that ICE acquired at least 15 court orders to force-feed or use other involuntary medical procedures, such as forced urinary catheterization, on detainees, though the report was unable to verify if every court order was executed or if hunger-strikers voluntarily ate after being threatened with force-feeding.

Texas Border Crisis?
Texas officials emptied out a prison in preparation for an increase in migrant arrests under Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, which aims to use state law enforcement to crack down on the increase in migration at the border, reports The Texas Tribune. The prison has the capacity to hold up to 1,000 people.

The prison preparations come as Abbott attempts to finish the border wall Trump started. Abbott’s office claims about $400,000 has been donated by the public towards the border wall so far, reports Newsweek. Some local officials and business leaders say that the state is ignoring the actual needs of communities near the border, which were hit particularly hard during the pandemic, reports The Texas Tribune. Many locals are more concerned with boosting the local economy than stopping migration, and some business and property owners are pushing for more legal means of migration because their sales and tax revenues depend on Mexican shoppers.

Residents in border towns like El Paso fear that Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s rhetoric about immigration, which has likened migration to an “invasion,” will incite violence, reports The Dallas Morning News. The state leaders’ rhetoric has drawn comparisons to both former President Trump and the El Paso shooter, who targeted Mexicans and warned of a “Hispanic Invasion of Texas.”

Border Visit
After months of criticism by Republicans, Vice President Kamala Harris is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso on Friday with DHS Secretary Mayorkas, reports the LA Times. Harris’ spokeswoman has stated the border trip will be part of her ongoing efforts to address the “root causes of migration” from Central America. Her trip will come a few days before former President Trump visits the existing border wall with Gov. Greg Abbott and a group of congressional Republicans, reports Politico.

Immigration is an International Issue
Foreign investment in Central America from U.S. companies is only a starting point to affect migration from the region, reports Vox. Vice President Kamala Harris’s announcement that a dozen private companies would support “inclusive economic development” in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is promising. But experts say that more substantial investments in education and other quality-of-life improvements, such as medical care, will be necessary to improve people’s lives and curb migration from the region.

Immigration Reform
Senate Democrats are planning on including a pathway to citizenship for some immigrants in the upcoming infrastructure bill they hope to pass through budget reconciliation, reports the LA Times. An early draft of the bill includes $150 billion for immigration policies, including some funds for border security, though Democrats are debating which immigrants will be included in a pathway to citizenship. Using the budget reconciliation process, Senate Democrats would be able to pass the bill using a simple majority instead of trying to convince 10 Republicans to sign onto their plans to overcome the filibuster. The process can only be used if the legislation will have a direct impact on the budget.

Senator Alex Padilla (D-Ca.) is advocating for the Citizenship for Essential Workers Act, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for the 5 million undocumented immigrants who work essential jobs during the pandemic, to be included in the infrastructure bill, reports LA Times. In an op-ed supporting the bill, Jean Guerrero argues that the debate around immigration reform is “about workers in the U.S. who have been here, on average, for 18 years, and who saved our economy last year. They have kids, homes and jobs here.” She notes that about 74% of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. work jobs in healthcare, agriculture, childcare, and other essential occupations, and that thousands died due to the pandemic.

Several advocacy events around the country aim to push government officials to enact immigration reform:

• A former marine will be walking along all 1,954 miles of the southern border to try to bring back deported veterans and create deportation protections for non-citizen veterans (Border Report)
• Marchers are walking from Milwaukee to Madison, Wisconsin’s state capital, over nine days to push Congress to enact a pathway to citizenship in its infrastructure bill and to push the state legislature to allow undocumented immigrants to receive drivers’ licenses (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
• Hundreds rallied Sunday in New Jersey to push Democratic U.S. Senators Robert Menendez and Cory Booker to enact immigration reform using the budget reconciliation process (NJ.com)

Black Immigrants
As Congress passed legislation to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, immigration advocates held events across the country to push for protections for Black immigrants, reports Roll Call. Immigration advocates called on the Biden administration to create Temporary Protected Status designations from Black-majority countries like Cameroon and Mauritania, and to redesignate TPS for Somalia and Sudan to allow undocumented immigrants who entered the United States after the previous designations in 2012 and 2013, respectively, to apply for protection. Black immigrants are detained disproportionately compared to immigrants of other races, often have to pay higher bonds, and some report discrimination while in detention, reports HuffPost.

Immigration and Pandemic
In areas with limited access to health care, undocumented immigrants are resorting to unproven medications to treat Covid with sometimes deadly consequences, reports The New York Times. Cultural and language barriers, high prices for medicine, and a widespread lack of insurance have pushed some undocumented immigrants to flea markets and wellness centers to purchase scientifically unsupported and unregulated Covid treatments like “vitamin infusions” and hydroxychloroquine, many of which are peddled on social media.

Last year over 170 migrant farmworkers contracted Covid-19 at a greenhouse in upstate New York, reports Documented. Despite the outbreak and the hospitalization of some workers, business at Green Empire Farms continued uninterrupted.

Follows

• Biden admin plans to evacuate Afghans who worked with U.S. (NY Times)
• On Saturday, about 200 families from the U.S. and Mexico with no legal means of reuniting met for three minutes to embrace each other in the Rio Grande for the annual Hugs Not Walls event. (El Paso Matters)
• A new Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll shows that 64% of registered voters say Biden should enact stricter border policies to stem migration. (The Hill)
• Mexico is launching an initiative to vaccinate migrants along the U.S.-Mexico border (Reuters)
• The New Jersey state assembly passed a bill banning new contracts for ICE detention centers and preventing current ICE contracts with county jails from being renewed (NJ.com)
• Asylum-seekers and attorneys are criticizing Winn Correctional Center, a Louisiana detention center, for its “horrible conditions” that one detainee says were “not suitable for humans.” (NBC News)

Jobs, Fellowships & Awards

Houston Chronicle is hiring an immigration reporter. Send resume and clips to lily.thomas@chron.com.

Director of Development and Audience Growth, Borderless Magazine

inewsource seeks border and immigration reporter

Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News — ABC News Washington is looking for a Producer/Reporter to join the Race and Culture team “to develop coverage with a deeper reporting at the intersection of race, politics, and culture, with a specific focus on immigration.”

Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021

Immigration Resources & Opportunities

Coronavirus Resources

• Immigrants in COVID America documents the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. (Immigrant History Research Center)
• Database of more than 200 COVID relief funds that are accessible to refugees and other immigrants, including without legal status. (IRAP)
• Updates on immigration developments during COVID-19 (Center for Migration Studies)
• Map of detention centers tracking coronavirus outbreaks (Freedom for Immigrants)
• COVID-19 resources for undocumented immigrants (UndocuScholars)
• Database of likely deportation flights during the pandemic (Center for Economic and Policy Research)
• Informed Immigrant is an online resource that provides information for undocumented immigrant communities in the U.S. during the coronavirus.

Recently released immigration books and films(got one, send it over)

• Driving while Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block (April 2021)
• A Nation of Immigrants, second edition, by Susan F. Martin (March 2021)
• Faces of Courage: Ten Years of Building Sanctuary photography by Harvey Finkle (2021)
• The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz (January 2021)
• Futbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties by David Trouille (January 2021)
• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau (September 2020)
• Next Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah argues climate change migration is a solution rather than a crisis. (August 2020)
• Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato. (September 2020)
• Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero (August 2020)
• Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff tells the story of the long-term impact of the family separation policy on families. (July 2020)
• 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall by DW Gibson covers the repercussions of the wall in San Diego. (July 2020)
• “USA V Scott” a documentary that depicts the moral dilemma facing Arizona residents, who must decide whether or not to help desperate migrants they come across, using the case of activist Scott Warren as a case study.
• The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants by Adam Goodman. The book examines how public officials have used different forms of deportations and expulsion “to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.” (June 2020)
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang, chronicles the major changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century and their profound impact on immigrant families including her own. (May 2020)
• The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond by John Washington. The book takes an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s attack on asylum, told through the story of one Salvadoran dad, Arnovis. (May 2020)
• Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation, by anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink, chronicles deportation from the perspectives of Indigenous youth who migrate unaccompanied from Guatemala. (April 2020)

Reporting Initiatives about Immigrant Communities

• Borderless: a non-profit online magazine reimagining coverage of the immigration system.
• Documented: a non-profit news site covering immigrants in New York.
• Ethnic Media Services: organization that works with ethnic media organizations to improve coverage and reach.
• Feet In Two Worlds: project that tells immigrant stories and provides fellowships for immigrant journalists.
• Finding American: a collaboration between documentary photographer Colin Boyd Shafer and immigrants to feature their stories.
• The Immigrant Story: a project between journalists, photographers, graphic designers and developers to document and archive immigrants’ stories.
• ImmPrint: an online publication by and for people affected by immigrant detention.
• New Michigan Media: a network of ethnic and minority media across the state of Michigan.
• Newest Americans: a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories of the immigrant and immigrant communities in Newark, NJ.
• Refugees (Santa Fe Dreamers Project): a collection of testimonies from asylum seekers in partnership with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

Newsletters, Podcasts, & Facebook Groups

• Port of Entry is a podcast about cross-border stories that connect us. Border people often inhabit this in-between place. From KPBS and PRX, “Port of Entry” tells personal stories from this place.
• Routed Magazine curates a bi-monthly newsletter on news in migration and mobility.
• Immigrant & Democracy from Harvard University’s immigration initiative.
• Detention Dispatches by Capital & Main follows the conditions in ICE detention centers during the pandemic.
• In The Thick podcast covers the coronavirus impact on immigrant communities from Chelsea, MA to the Bronx, New York.
• Nuestro South is a podcast exploring the experiences of Latinx people in the U.S. south.
• Salvadoran investigative media outlet El Faro has launched an English-language newsletter with reporting from Central America.
• ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? Podcast tells stories of Latino life “from the homeland to the heartland.”
• Frontera Dispatch is a weekly newsletter by the Hope Border Institute on news and analysis from the border.
• BIB Daily Edition is a free aggregation of “inside immigration news” (court cases, new regulations and the like) and “outside news” (culled from the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media).
• Center for Migration Studies Migration Update is a weekly digest of news, faith reflections, and analysis of international migration and refugee protection.
• Migration Information Source from the Migration Policy Institute offers a series of newsletters.
• Documented NY’s Early Arrival newsletter aggregates information on immigration in New York and nationally.
• Politico’s Morning Shift newsletter: a daily read on employment and immigration.
• Tempest Tossed, a podcast with “conversations on immigration and refugees that go beyond the predictable soundbites.”
• Displaced, a podcast from the International Rescue Committee.
• A is for America America’s Voice discusses immigrant politics and organizing.
• Only in America National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.

Curriculum & Campaigns

• Doctors for Immigrants released a toolkit to welcome and protect immigrants within the healthcare system.
• We Have Rights is a campaign to educate immigrants about rights in encounters with ICE
• Ecologies of Migrant Care has collected nearly 100 interviews with migrants, activists, academics and other immigration experts to shed light on the reasons why Central Americans flee and detail the networks that have developed to help them along their journey.
• Moving Stories is an app and curriculum to capture and share immigrant stories.
• Re-imagining Migration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
• The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Freedom for Immigrants publishes an Immigration Detention Syllabus

Reporting resources, tools and tips

• Higher Ed Immigration Portal: A new digital platform that integrates data, policies, and resources about DACA and undocumented, other immigrant, international, and refugee students.
• Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (Migration Policy Institute)
• The Immigrant Defense project created a style guide for journalists reporting on immigration.
• Digital First Responders: A database, report, and case study of how immigrant news outlets are innovating to serve their communities. (Center for Community Media).
• Journalists who have been targeted for their work can send incident reports through the online platform of Press Freedom Tracker.
• No Refuge from Council on Foreign Relations’ InfoGuide series, includes an interactive map of origin and destination countries for refugees, and policy options that can help refugees and support host states.
• Covering Immigration Enforcement webinar from Poynter with Marshall Project contributing writer Julia Preston.
• Tools for covering ICE from the Columbia Journalism Review
• Migration Reporting Resources (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
• Resources for Investigating Visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
• Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by Angilee Shah.

If there’s a story or immigration-related opportunity you think we should consider, please send us an email.

*Daniela Gerson is a co-founder and the editor of Migratory Notes. She is an assistant professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge, Previously she was a senior fellow at the Center for Community Media (CCM); community engagement editor at the LA Times; editor of the trilingual Alhambra Source; and immigration reporter for the New York Sun. She has reported for WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, The New York Times, among other outlets. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson

*Elizabeth Aguilera is co-founder and executive editor of Migratory Notes. She is a multimedia reporter for CalMatters where she co-hosts the new political podcast California State of Mind and covers the health and welfare of California’s next generation. Previously she covered health care and social services, including immigration for the digital outlet. Before joining CalMatters Aguilera reported on community health for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and worked for the Denver Post covering urban affairs and immigration. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera

*Paco Alvarez is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. He is a writer based in Chicago. Previously, he was a Fall 2020 Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau where he covered the 2020 elections and political participation in immigrant communities. His work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago and South Side Weekly. You can find him on Twitter @pacvarez

*Anna-Cat Brigida is a contributing editor for Migratory Notes. She is a freelance reporter covering immigration and human rights in Mexico and Central America. She began covering immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg and later moved to Central America to work as a reporter. She has covered the region since 2015 and has been based in El Salvador since January 2018. She has also worked as a Spanish-language writer for Fusion out of the Mexico City office. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Univision, LA Times, and Al Jazeera, among others. You can find her on Twitter @AnnaCat_Brigida

*Yana Kunichoff is a special projects editor for Migratory Notes. She currently covers public education for the Arizona Republic. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure

*Migratory Notes Advisory Board: Daniel Connolly, Maria Kari, Dan Kowalski, Paola Marizán, Mirta Ojito, Roberto Suro, Phuong Ly, Fernanda Santos

Migratory Notes 218 was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Migratory Notes is hosting a Town Hall for Immigration Journalists on Covering Haitian Migration, presented with Internews
6.24.21/ 5:30 PT/ 7:30 CT/ 8:30 ET
Details and Registration Link Here

#MustListen/ #MustRead
Cindy Carcamo, a veteran L.A. Times immigration reporter, has interviewed scores of immigrant families separated by U.S. policies. But she had never publicly shared her own separation story. For This American Life she bravely shifted the focus to the personal: interviewing her sister about the years when she was left behind in Guatemala, considering the wrenching decisions her parents had to make, and exploring their consequences and the trauma that passed to the next generation.

In the Rio Grande Valley, the Cartel del Golfo (CDG), one of the oldest organized crime syndicates in Mexico, runs most human smuggling, reports Rolling Stone. Seth Harp investigates the networks of coyotes connected to the CDG and lands an interview with El Comandante, a prolific coyote who claims to oversee human smuggling in the valley. “Everyone has their price,” says El Comandante. “Whether or not there’s a wall, we’re going to keep working.”

Asylum
Victims fleeing domestic violence and some victims of gang violence once again have access to asylum, after Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday reversed two controversial Trump administration legal rulings. Garland’s decision comes as scores of people fleeing domestic violence are crossing the southern border in an attempt to find refuge in the U.S., reports The Washington Post.

Migrant Children
The Biden administration is allowing tens of thousands of Central Americans in the U.S. to petition for their children to join them legally through an Obama-era program that was previously shut down by Trump, reports CBS News. Through the Central American Minors program, parents from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador who have permanent residency, Temporary Protected Status, other legal status and some with pending applications for status are able to petition for their children to join them in the U.S. legally. It’s intended to prevent children from making the perilous journey from Central America. The Biden administration began re-processing closed applications in March, and opened up the program to new applications on Tuesday, expanding eligibility to parents with pending applications for asylum and U-Visas.

Despite a slight increase in the overall number of border apprehensions, the number of children and teenagers crossing the border decreased in May, reports The New York Times. Over 65,000 children and teenagers have arrived at the border alone since the beginning of the year, and over 16,000 children remain in government custody.

Many of the 2,500 migrant children sheltered in Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, Texas are suffering from stress and mental health issues, as paramedics are regularly called to help children suffering from panic attacks, reports AP. Some children are kept for nearly two months at a time and volunteers are urged to keep scissors, pencils and toothbrushes away from children to prevent them from harming each other. Advocates are urging the Biden administration to close the shelter as soon as possible, pointing to other underutilized shelters, such as the newly opened Pomona Convention Center in California, that have better track records and have higher rates of releasing children to family members.

Border Wall
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced last Thursday the state would build its own wall along the southern border to stem migration, reports The Texas Tribune. Immigration advocates attacked the plan as “political theater” meant to set up a potential 2024 presidential run for Abbott, and state representatives expressed confusion as the border wall funding is not in the current state budget. On Wednesday, Abbott announced a $250 million “down payment” for the wall would come from Texas state funds, and that Texas will take private donations for construction through a new website. Florida’s governor said he will send law enforcement support to Texas and Arizona, calling it “a disaster and an emergency,” reports AP. And former President Trump will visit the existing Texas-Mexico border wall at the invitation of Abbott later this month, reports The Washington Post.

On Tuesday, the Government Accountability Office determined that Biden did not violate congressional spending rules by suspending construction on the border wall, reports CBS News. The decision comes amid Republican complaints that Biden is legally obligated to continue border wall construction. The Biden administration will also be returning over $2 billion in border wall funding that Trump had siphoned off from the Pentagon, reports CNN.

Title 42
Since Biden’s inauguration, almost 10,000 Mexican children have been expelled under the Trump-era Title 42 policy, which closed the border to most migrant crossings, despite Biden’s promise to stop turning away unaccompanied children at the border, reports The Dallas Morning News. While children from other countries have been allowed into the U.S., 95% of unaccompanied Mexican children encountered at the border have been turned away, according to a report by Amnesty International.

While the expulsion program continues, families are increasingly being allowed to enter the U.S., with 80% of families encountered at the border admitted in May, reports The Washington Post.

DACA
Tuesday marked the 9th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which temporarily grants work authorization and deportation protection for some undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, reports Mother Jones. More than 800,000 undocumented immigrants have benefited from the program over its lifespan, though it has been threatened by lawsuits and political changes since its inception. Yet, many DACA recipients remain frustrated with the program’s temporary nature. “We say that DACA is the floor, not the ceiling. Citizenship is the ultimate goal,” said Dylan Ruiz, whose DACA application is pending.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who helped implement the program during the Obama administration, wrote an opinion piece for USA Today touting the benefits of the program and urging Congress to pass legislation that offers “Dreamers” permanent protection.

Immigration reform legislation, however, is far from secure. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the House-passed American Dream and Promise Act, which would provide a pathway to citizenship for immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, TPS recipients, and millions of other undocumented immigrants, Senate Republicans signaled they were gearing up for a fight on which groups of undocumented immigrants to include in potential immigration reform, reports Roll Call. While members from both parties agreed on legalizing “Dreamers,” Republicans expressed doubts on providing a pathway to citizenship to other undocumented immigrants, including TPS holders, and signaled that legislation must also include boosts to border security and immigration enforcement.

While legislation stalls, a federal judge in Texas who previously ruled against the Obama administration’s attempts to expand DACA is weighing whether the program is legal. Some analysts contend that if the program is struck down in court, Congress may be pushed to act on immigration reform.

Visas
A new DHS policy will expand work permits to immigrant victims of crimes with pending U-Visa applications, reports Reuters. Every year, 10,000 U-Visas are made available to victims of crimes who assist law enforcement, and successful petitioners receive work authorization and the ability to apply for permanent residency after three years. High demand has created a backlog of nearly 269,000 applications, with some applicants waiting five years before receiving work permits. The new rule will allow applicants who have filed the proper forms, including biometric data and their statement of “victimization,” to receive work permits before their cases have been fully reviewed, reports The Hill.

Coronavirus-related visa backlogs and travel bans have exacerbated labor shortages and negatively impacted U.S. companies that rely on foreign professionals and seasonal employees, reports The Wall Street Journal. Citizens from the 33 countries under a U.S. travel ban have been unable to get work visas even if they’re vaccinated, and backlogs for work visas have gotten worse as only 160 out of the 233 U.S. consulates that process work visas are accepting appointments. Many summer recreation employers, such as amusement parks or summer camps, that normally hire thousands of foreign workers to staff their locations during the summer have been forced to reduce their services or close altogether due to labor shortages caused by a lack of foreign workers.

Detention
After being notified of a potential tuberculosis exposure, six women in a privately-run ICE detention facility in Louisiana protested a lack of proper medical care and poor communication about their immigration cases by refusing to enter quarantine in the cells, reports The Intercept. The women say that staff responded by taking away phone and TV access, measures that staff at the same facility took last year against detained women who published videos of their Covid-19 fears. Neither ICE officials nor representatives from GEO group, which runs the facility, have commented on the incident. In Georgia, at a contentious immigration detention center, ICE has been monitoring activity of immigrant organizers and considering retaliatory measures, The Intercept reports.

Two important cases await decisions that will affect immigration detention in multiple states:

• In Washington, a federal jury is deciding whether the private prison company GEO Group must pay immigration detainees the state minimum wage instead of the current $1-a-day for performing tasks in its immigration facility. (AP)
• In California, GEO Group and lawyers from the Biden administration are urging judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to repeal a 2019 law that bans new for-profit detention contracts and phases out existing facilities by 2028. (LA Times)

Justice
With a backlog of 1.3 million cases and rising, immigration judges around the country are saying they are overworked, understaffed, and under political pressure from the Justice Department, reports NBC News. Unlike other federal judges, the approximately 500 immigration judges in the U.S. are employees of the Justice Department and answer to the attorney general, meaning they are more susceptible to political pressure, which came in the form of more deportations under Trump. Though the judges have been represented by a union since 1979, a move to decertify their union by former Attorney General William Barr has some worried they will lose judicial independence.

Immigration scams
Advocates are warning that the expansion of TPS for 100,000 Haitian immigrants has been followed by an increase in immigration scams targeting TPS applicants, reports The Haitian Times. Scammers posing as attorneys or pastors are charging undocumented Haitian immigrants upwards of $5,000 to file TPS applications, despite the fact that the new application process for TPS hasn’t been opened yet. The Haitian Bridge Alliance has received over 100 reports of TPS scams since last month’s expansion.

Follows

• Immigrants crucial to vaccinations, but concerns over legal status and access barriers are creating obstacles (The Hill)
• A report by the Center for American Progress shows that providing a pathway to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants would boost the GDP by $1.7 trillion and create 438,800 new jobs over the next decade. (The Hill)
• Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tx.) sent a letter to Vice President Harris urging her to visit the U.S.-Mexico border with him to meet with the “people on the ground” who must deal with the impact of the increase in migration at the border. (Washington Post)
• A new poll by the International Rescue Committee shows that the majority of Americans support resettling 95,000 refugees per year in the U.S. (Forbes)
• New Mexico reopened applications for a $5 million program that provides cash assistance to immigrants who were ineligible to receive federal stimulus funds. (AP)
• On Friday, the Biden administration closed the Victim Of Immigration Crime Engagement Office, a Trump-era office that aimed to help victims of crimes committed by immigrants. (AP)

Jobs, Fellowships & Awards

Director of Development and Audience Growth, Borderless Magazine

inewsource seeks border and immigration reporter

Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News — ABC News Washington is looking for a Producer/Reporter to join the Race and Culture team “to develop coverage with a deeper reporting at the intersection of race, politics, and culture, with a specific focus on immigration.”

Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021

Immigration Resources & Opportunities

Coronavirus Resources

• Immigrants in COVID America documents the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. (Immigrant History Research Center)
• Database of more than 200 COVID relief funds that are accessible to refugees and other immigrants, including without legal status. (IRAP)
• Updates on immigration developments during COVID-19 (Center for Migration Studies)
• Map of detention centers tracking coronavirus outbreaks (Freedom for Immigrants)
• COVID-19 resources for undocumented immigrants (UndocuScholars)
• Database of likely deportation flights during the pandemic (Center for Economic and Policy Research)
• Informed Immigrant is an online resource that provides information for undocumented immigrant communities in the U.S. during the coronavirus.

Recently released immigration books and films (got one, send it over)

• Driving while Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block (April 2021)
• A Nation of Immigrants, second edition, by Susan F. Martin (March 2021)
• Faces of Courage: Ten Years of Building Sanctuary photography by Harvey Finkle (2021)
• The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz (January 2021)
• Futbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties by David Trouille (January 2021)
• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau (September 2020)
• Next Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah argues climate change migration is a solution rather than a crisis. (August 2020)
• Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato. (September 2020)
• Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero (August 2020)
• Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff tells the story of the long-term impact of the family separation policy on families. (July 2020)
• 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall by DW Gibson covers the repercussions of the wall in San Diego. (July 2020)
• “USA V Scott” a documentary that depicts the moral dilemma facing Arizona residents, who must decide whether or not to help desperate migrants they come across, using the case of activist Scott Warren as a case study.
• The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants by Adam Goodman. The book examines how public officials have used different forms of deportations and expulsion “to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.” (June 2020)
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang, chronicles the major changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century and their profound impact on immigrant families including her own. (May 2020)
• The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond by John Washington. The book takes an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s attack on asylum, told through the story of one Salvadoran dad, Arnovis. (May 2020)
• Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation, by anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink, chronicles deportation from the perspectives of Indigenous youth who migrate unaccompanied from Guatemala. (April 2020)

Reporting Initiatives about Immigrant Communities

• Borderless: a non-profit online magazine reimagining coverage of the immigration system.
• Documented: a non-profit news site covering immigrants in New York.
• Ethnic Media Services: organization that works with ethnic media organizations to improve coverage and reach.
• Feet In Two Worlds: project that tells immigrant stories and provides fellowships for immigrant journalists.
• Finding American: a collaboration between documentary photographer Colin Boyd Shafer and immigrants to feature their stories.
• The Immigrant Story: a project between journalists, photographers, graphic designers and developers to document and archive immigrants’ stories.
• ImmPrint: an online publication by and for people affected by immigrant detention.
• New Michigan Media: a network of ethnic and minority media across the state of Michigan.
• Newest Americans: a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories of the immigrant and immigrant communities in Newark, NJ.
• Refugees (Santa Fe Dreamers Project): a collection of testimonies from asylum seekers in partnership with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

Newsletters, Podcasts, & Facebook Groups

• Port of Entry is a podcast about cross-border stories that connect us. Border people often inhabit this in-between place. From KPBS and PRX, “Port of Entry” tells personal stories from this place.
• Routed Magazine curates a bi-monthly newsletter on news in migration and mobility.
• Immigrant & Democracy from Harvard University’s immigration initiative.
• Detention Dispatches by Capital & Main follows the conditions in ICE detention centers during the pandemic.
• In The Thick podcast covers the coronavirus impact on immigrant communities from Chelsea, MA to the Bronx, New York.
• Nuestro South is a podcast exploring the experiences of Latinx people in the U.S. south.
• Salvadoran investigative media outlet El Faro has launched an English-language newsletter with reporting from Central America.
• ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? Podcast tells stories of Latino life “from the homeland to the heartland.”
• Frontera Dispatch is a weekly newsletter by the Hope Border Institute on news and analysis from the border.
• BIB Daily Edition is a free aggregation of “inside immigration news” (court cases, new regulations and the like) and “outside news” (culled from the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media).
• Center for Migration Studies Migration Update is a weekly digest of news, faith reflections, and analysis of international migration and refugee protection.
• Migration Information Source from the Migration Policy Institute offers a series of newsletters.
• Documented NY’s Early Arrival newsletter aggregates information on immigration in New York and nationally.
• Politico’s Morning Shift newsletter: a daily read on employment and immigration.
• Tempest Tossed, a podcast with “conversations on immigration and refugees that go beyond the predictable soundbites.”
• Displaced, a podcast from the International Rescue Committee.
• A is for America America’s Voice discusses immigrant politics and organizing.
• Only in America National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.

Curriculum & Campaigns

• Doctors for Immigrants released a toolkit to welcome and protect immigrants within the healthcare system.
• We Have Rights is a campaign to educate immigrants about rights in encounters with ICE
• Ecologies of Migrant Care has collected nearly 100 interviews with migrants, activists, academics and other immigration experts to shed light on the reasons why Central Americans flee and detail the networks that have developed to help them along their journey.
• Moving Stories is an app and curriculum to capture and share immigrant stories.
• Re-imagining Migration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
• The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Freedom for Immigrants publishes an Immigration Detention Syllabus

Reporting resources, tools and tips

• Higher Ed Immigration Portal: A new digital platform that integrates data, policies, and resources about DACA and undocumented, other immigrant, international, and refugee students.
• Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (Migration Policy Institute)
• The Immigrant Defense project created a style guide for journalists reporting on immigration.
• Digital First Responders: A database, report, and case study of how immigrant news outlets are innovating to serve their communities. (Center for Community Media).
• Journalists who have been targeted for their work can send incident reports through the online platform of Press Freedom Tracker.
• No Refuge from Council on Foreign Relations’ InfoGuide series, includes an interactive map of origin and destination countries for refugees, and policy options that can help refugees and support host states.
• Covering Immigration Enforcement webinar from Poynter with Marshall Project contributing writer Julia Preston.
• Tools for covering ICE from the Columbia Journalism Review
• Migration Reporting Resources (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
• Resources for Investigating Visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
• Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by Angilee Shah.

If there’s a story or immigration-related opportunity you think we should consider, please send us an email.

*Daniela Gerson is a co-founder and the editor of Migratory Notes. She is an assistant professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge, Previously she was a senior fellow at the Center for Community Media (CCM); community engagement editor at the LA Times; editor of the trilingual Alhambra Source; and immigration reporter for the New York Sun. She has reported for WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, The New York Times, among other outlets. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson

*Elizabeth Aguilera is co-founder and executive editor of Migratory Notes. She is a multimedia reporter for CalMatters where she co-hosts the new political podcast California State of Mind and covers the health and welfare of California’s next generation. Previously she covered health care and social services, including immigration for the digital outlet. Before joining CalMatters Aguilera reported on community health for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and worked for the Denver Post covering urban affairs and immigration. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera

*Paco Alvarez is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. He is a writer based in Chicago. Previously, he was a Fall 2020 Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau where he covered the 2020 elections and political participation in immigrant communities. His work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago and South Side Weekly. You can find him on Twitter @pacvarez

*Anna-Cat Brigida is a contributing editor for Migratory Notes. She is a freelance reporter covering immigration and human rights in Mexico and Central America. She began covering immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg and later moved to Central America to work as a reporter. She has covered the region since 2015 and has been based in El Salvador since January 2018. She has also worked as a Spanish-language writer for Fusion out of the Mexico City office. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Univision, LA Times, and Al Jazeera, among others. You can find her on Twitter @AnnaCat_Brigida

*Yana Kunichoff is a special projects editor for Migratory Notes. She currently covers public education for the Arizona Republic. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure

*Migratory Notes Advisory Board: Daniel Connolly, Maria Kari, Dan Kowalski, Paola Marizán, Mirta Ojito, Roberto Suro, Phuong Ly, Fernanda Santos

Migratory Notes 217 was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When: 6.24.21/ 5:30 PT/ 7:30 CT/ 8:30 ET

Featured Speakers & Participants:

• Ebony Bailey, Independent filmmaker , Mexico City / Life Between Borders: Black Migrants in Mexico
• Cristina Baussan, documentary photographer and writer, San Salvador / Port-au-Prince
• Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald
• Garry Pierre-Pierre, Haitian Times, New York
• Ralph Thomassaint Joseph, Ayibo Post Port-au-Prince/ New York
• Lauren Villagran, El Paso Times

In recent years, Haitians fleeing natural disasters, political instability and poverty have found new places to settle: Brazil, Chile, and increasingly Mexican border towns. While the United States recently extended Temporary Protective Status to 100,000 residents, that does not provide legal entry for Haitians not already in the United States. We spoke with journalists about the context and history of why people leave Haiti, growing migrant communities on the border in Mexico, as well as the pressing issues facing diaspora communities throughout the U.S.

Migratory Notes Town Hall: Covering Haitian Migration was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Know someone who might like Migratory Notes? Please help us spread the word: Here’s the subscribe form and here’s an archive on Medium. Got a story or an immigration-related resource or opportunity we should know about? Send it on!

#MustReads
A sheriff’s deputy tasered the 16-year-old asylum seeker after shelter officials in Bexar County, Tx., called for backup. While extreme, the law enforcement response is not unique. In the last six years, shelters run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement have released at least 84 children, as young as 11, to local law enforcement to manage behavior such as fights, damage to property, and mental health problems, reports Reveal News. “We’ve talked a lot in this country about over-policing in different situations, and this is clearly an example of over-policing with respect to asylum-seeking youth,” U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro told Reveal. The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office issued a statement following the story’s publication that the deputy was placed on leave pending an investigation.

The Perla family tried to follow the rules, and now they regret it. “We wanted everything to be done legally. We didn’t want to break any laws,” Juan Carlos Perla, who spent the past two years with his family waiting on his pending U.S. asylum case in Mexico, told Mother Jones. “If I had known back then what I know now, we wouldn’t have waited to present ourselves at the port of entry. We would’ve just tried to cross illegally.” In a multimedia project featuring audio and illustrations, Fernanda Echavarri follows the 130-week journey of the Perla family from Honduras to the U.S. as they hop from shelter to shelter, are harassed, and wait with tens of thousands of other families stuck in the Remain in Mexico limbo.

Kamala Harris in Latin America
Vice President Kamala Harris’s warning to migrants on her first trip to Guatemala — “do not come” to the U.S. and that they “will be turned back” if they try to cross the border illegally — sparked backlash from immigration advocates. Among the most outspoken was Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who called Harris’ statement disappointing, saying “seeking asylum at any US border is a 100% legal method of arrival.” The public discord points to a growing rift in the Democratic party over immigration, reports The Hill.

During her trip to Guatemala and Mexico, Harris announced several initiatives to tackle the “root causes” of migration, such as U.S. investments in agriculture, entrepreneurship and housing. Other initiatives include:

• Train Guatemalan law enforcement to conduct corruption investigations (USA Today)
• Support a young women’s empowerment initiative (BBC)
• Provide 500,000 doses of surplus Covid-19 vaccine
• Invest $300 million over three years to support labor protections for Mexican workers
• Provide forensic training to Mexican officials to help find thousands of missing people (New York Times)

As the Biden administration promises to increase aid to Central America, it must reckon with the fact that U.S. aid programs designed to reduce poverty and stem migration have largely failed over the past decade, reports The New York Times. For example, in Guatemala, despite the $1.6 billion the country has received in the last 10 years, poverty rates have increased and more unaccompanied Guatemalan kids have entered the U.S. than from anywhere else in the world. Experts say one of the reasons aid programs have failed to help Central Americans is because development programs are often handed to American contractors who sometimes invest up to 50% of aid money in overhead costs, including salaries for executives.

Asylum Seekers
The Biden administration has asked six humanitarian groups to recommend migrants who should be allowed in the U.S. to seek asylum, aiming to allow up to 250 migrants a day until July 31, reports AP. The consortium of groups, which contains organizations based in the U.S, Mexico and London, has selected almost 800 migrants for admittance since May 3, and some organizations are saying there’s more demand than they can meet. Critics allege the new system lacks transparency about how the six groups were chosen, and are concerned because they say there are “no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum.” The new system is separate from an ACLU-led effort begun in March that allows 35 families a day to enter the U.S.

DNA and Data Collection at the Border
CBP has recently deployed a new app that uses facial recognition, geolocation and cloud technology to process asylum seekers before they enter the United States, reports LA Times. Called CBP One, the app allows organizations to submit biographical and biometric data directly to CBP. Some advocates are optimistic that the app will create a more efficient border and that pre-vetting asylum seekers will make them less likely to use smugglers, while critics are worried that facial recognition poses privacy and surveillance risks.

Some vulnerable asylum seekers are having their DNA collected by border officials and sent to the FBI, reports BuzzFeed News. “US immigration authorities said they are required to do this and that it has been a widespread practice since the end of last year, but advocates said they have only recently started hearing about DNA collection at the border and take issue with the fact that it’s being collected from some of the most vulnerable asylum-seekers,” Adolfo Flores writes.

Border Crossings
With four months left in fiscal year 2021, nearly 900,000 migrants have been apprehended by CBP between October 1 and May 31, the largest number of apprehensions since fiscal year 2006, reports Axios. According to preliminary numbers, there were over 170,000 apprehensions in May, continuing the 20-year records set in March and April. While most migrants are from Mexico and Central America, officials are continuing to see an increase in migrants from farther countries, including Haiti, Cuba, Ecuador and Brazil.

Meanwhile, officials and advocates are worried about a “brutal summer” as the increase in migrants crossing the border through remote and dangerous areas has the potential to create a spike in migrant deaths, reports The Washington Post. CBP is on track to make over 10,000 rescues in fiscal year 2021, twice the number of rescues in 2019 and 2020.

Texas Emergency?
Texas border towns are feeling the impact of increased numbers of migrants, reports KXAN. Around 250 human stash houses have been uncovered in the Rio Grande Valley, including 60 groups of 100 or more people.

On Monday, the Biden administration threatened to sue Texas if Gov. Greg Abbott forces shelters in the state to stop housing migrant children in federal custody, reports CBS News. Texas officials told 52 state licensed shelters that house about 4,200 unaccompanied children to stop operations by August 30 following Abbott’s disaster declaration last week. A top HHS lawyer responded that the act violates the U.S. Constitution, which grants federal law supremacy over state law, and gave Texas until Friday to decide whether the directive would apply to shelters operated by HHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Family Reunification
The Biden administration is planning on reuniting an additional 29 families separated at the border under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy in the coming weeks, reports CNN. According to a new report by the Family Reunification Task Force, 3,913 children were separated from their families between July 2017 and January 2021 — nearly half have already been reunited with their families, and there are no confirmed records of reunification for another 2,127 of the children. Only seven children have been reunited with their families since the task force was launched in February, reports Reuters.

Justice
The Biden administration has given broader discretion to ICE prosecutors in deciding which deportation cases they choose to pursue or dismiss, after years of guidance by the Trump administration to pursue most deportations, reports BuzzFeed News. A memo sent out on May 27 instructs prosecutors to consider dismissing cases against immigrants in certain circumstances, including long-time green card holders, pregnant or elderly immigrants, immigrants with health conditions, or immigrants who were brought to the U.S. at a young age. Officials hope the memo will help cut the immigration court backlog, which is currently over 1 million cases.

The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that immigrants with Temporary Protected Status cannot apply for permanent residency if they entered the country illegally, reports LA Times. While lower courts, including the 9th Circuit Court in California, were divided on whether TPS is considered a lawful admission, the high court ruled that only TPS recipients who entered the country legally could apply for a green card. In her opinion, Justice Elena Kagan said only Congress can change the law to allow all TPS recipients to apply for permanent residency. This is the third time in three weeks the court has reversed a decision on immigration law made by the 9th Circuit Court.

Anti-Asian Racism
As COVID cases fall and the United States reopens, some Asian-Americans are wary of returning to public spaces after the surge in pandemic-related hate crimes against Asians, reports The New York Times. A recent survey found that one-third of Asian-Americans are scared of becoming victims of a hate crime, and a federal survey found that only 18% of Asian-American fourth graders have returned to in-person learning compared to nearly 60% of their white classmates.

Visas
Thousands of winners of the 2021 Diversity Visa Program are suing the Biden administration over fears they will lose their chance to come to the U.S. due to processing delays, reports Euronews. Every year, 55,000 diversity visas are made available through a lottery to immigrants from countries with low immigration rates to the U.S. The visas have a time-limited application, and a recent State Department decision to make them the lowest-tier priority for application processing means some applicants will be unable to get their visas before the applications expire. Last year, some diversity visa winners were unable to enter the U.S. due to Trump policies.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken vowed to expedite Special Immigrant Visas for Afghans who worked with the United States due to fears they may be targeted by the Taliban following U.S. troop withdrawal this fall, reports Bloomberg. Blinken also asked Congress to raise the 26,000 visa cap under the Special Immigrant Visa Program by 8,000, and suggested the U.S. might move thousands of Afghan applicants to another location, such as Guam, while their applications are being processed. Blinken’s statements come after a bipartisan group of lawmakers sent a letter to Biden urging him to evacuate the thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S. in the last twenty years, reports Politico.

Traffic-to-Deportation Pipeline
For immigrants, regardless of immigration status, traffic stops can result in deportation, reports Bloomberg CityLab. Some experts refer to the circumstance as the “traffic-stop-to-deportation pipeline.” About 8% of all people deported in 2019 had been convicted of a traffic-related offense, not counting convictions that may have begun with a traffic stop.

Immigration Journalism
A Honduran asylum seeker in the U.S. was reunited with her daughter after seeing an Associated Press photo of her, reports AP. Glenda Valdez, who traveled to the U.S. six years ago, didn’t know her daughter, Emely, had been sent to the U.S. by the girl’s father until she saw the photo while watching a Univision newscast one afternoon. After weeks of speaking with U.S. officials and refugee agencies, Valdez was finally reunited with her daughter on Tuesday.

Coffee and Immigration
A deported Colombian immigrant has started a coffee exporting company, Deportado Coffee, to start conversations about deportations, reports The World. Mauricio Zuñiga lived in the U.S. for four decades before being deported in 2018 for a banking fraud conviction from 1998. Since then Zuñiga and his family have been building a new coffee export business in Colombia that they hope brings more attention to the problems with an immigration system that separates people from their families. For each bag of coffee sold, Deportado donates $1 to the non-profit Families Belong Together.

Follows

• Colorado is smashing down barriers to help undocumented immigrants live and work (NBC)
• New York gave every detained immigrant a lawyer. It could serve as a national model. (Vox)
• Facing shortage of high-skilled workers, employers are seeking more immigrant talent (CNBC)
• Advocates are criticizing the Biden administration for funding ICE at similar levels as previous years in his fiscal year 2022 budget proposal. (Roll Call)
• Attorneys representing the Biden administration are asking a federal court to strike down a California law that would phase out private and for-profit immigration detention by 2028, which they deem “extreme.” (Fresno Bee)

Jobs, Fellowships & Awards

Director of Development and Audience Growth, Borderless Magazine

inewsource seeks border and immigration reporter

Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News — ABC News Washington is looking for a Producer/Reporter to join the Race and Culture team “to develop coverage with a deeper reporting at the intersection of race, politics, and culture, with a specific focus on immigration.”

Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021

Immigration Resources & Opportunities

Coronavirus Resources

• Immigrants in COVID America documents the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. (Immigrant History Research Center)
• Database of more than 200 COVID relief funds that are accessible to refugees and other immigrants, including without legal status. (IRAP)
• Updates on immigration developments during COVID-19 (Center for Migration Studies)
• Map of detention centers tracking coronavirus outbreaks (Freedom for Immigrants)
• COVID-19 resources for undocumented immigrants (UndocuScholars)
• Database of likely deportation flights during the pandemic (Center for Economic and Policy Research)
• Informed Immigrant is an online resource that provides information for undocumented immigrant communities in the U.S. during the coronavirus.

Recently released immigration books and films(got one, send it over)

• Driving while Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block (April 2021)
• A Nation of Immigrants, second edition, by Susan F. Martin (March 2021)
• Faces of Courage: Ten Years of Building Sanctuary photography by Harvey Finkle (2021)
• The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz (January 2021)
• Futbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties by David Trouille (January 2021)
• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau (September 2020)
• Next Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah argues climate change migration is a solution rather than a crisis. (August 2020)
• Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato. (September 2020)
• Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero (August 2020)
• Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff tells the story of the long-term impact of the family separation policy on families. (July 2020)
• 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall by DW Gibson covers the repercussions of the wall in San Diego. (July 2020)
• “USA V Scott” a documentary that depicts the moral dilemma facing Arizona residents, who must decide whether or not to help desperate migrants they come across, using the case of activist Scott Warren as a case study.
• The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants by Adam Goodman. The book examines how public officials have used different forms of deportations and expulsion “to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.” (June 2020)
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang, chronicles the major changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century and their profound impact on immigrant families including her own. (May 2020)
• The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond by John Washington. The book takes an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s attack on asylum, told through the story of one Salvadoran dad, Arnovis. (May 2020)
• Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation, by anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink, chronicles deportation from the perspectives of Indigenous youth who migrate unaccompanied from Guatemala. (April 2020)

Reporting Initiatives about Immigrant Communities

• Borderless: a non-profit online magazine reimagining coverage of the immigration system.
• Documented: a non-profit news site covering immigrants in New York.
• Ethnic Media Services: organization that works with ethnic media organizations to improve coverage and reach.
• Feet In Two Worlds: project that tells immigrant stories and provides fellowships for immigrant journalists.
• Finding American: a collaboration between documentary photographer Colin Boyd Shafer and immigrants to feature their stories.
• The Immigrant Story: a project between journalists, photographers, graphic designers and developers to document and archive immigrants’ stories.
• ImmPrint: an online publication by and for people affected by immigrant detention.
• New Michigan Media: a network of ethnic and minority media across the state of Michigan.
• Newest Americans: a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories of the immigrant and immigrant communities in Newark, NJ.
• Refugees (Santa Fe Dreamers Project): a collection of testimonies from asylum seekers in partnership with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

Newsletters, Podcasts, & Facebook Groups

• Port of Entry is a podcast about cross-border stories that connect us. Border people often inhabit this in-between place. From KPBS and PRX, “Port of Entry” tells personal stories from this place.
• Routed Magazine curates a bi-monthly newsletter on news in migration and mobility.
• Immigrant & Democracy from Harvard University’s immigration initiative.
• Detention Dispatches by Capital & Main follows the conditions in ICE detention centers during the pandemic.
• In The Thick podcast covers the coronavirus impact on immigrant communities from Chelsea, MA to the Bronx, New York.
• Nuestro South is a podcast exploring the experiences of Latinx people in the U.S. south.
• Salvadoran investigative media outlet El Faro has launched an English-language newsletter with reporting from Central America.
• ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? Podcast tells stories of Latino life “from the homeland to the heartland.”
• Frontera Dispatch is a weekly newsletter by the Hope Border Institute on news and analysis from the border.
• BIB Daily Edition is a free aggregation of “inside immigration news” (court cases, new regulations and the like) and “outside news” (culled from the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media).
• Center for Migration Studies Migration Update is a weekly digest of news, faith reflections, and analysis of international migration and refugee protection.
• Migration Information Source from the Migration Policy Institute offers a series of newsletters.
• Documented NY’s Early Arrival newsletter aggregates information on immigration in New York and nationally.
• Politico’s Morning Shift newsletter: a daily read on employment and immigration.
• Tempest Tossed, a podcast with “conversations on immigration and refugees that go beyond the predictable soundbites.”
• Displaced, a podcast from the International Rescue Committee.
• A is for America America’s Voice discusses immigrant politics and organizing.
• Only in America National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.

Curriculum & Campaigns

• Doctors for Immigrants released a toolkit to welcome and protect immigrants within the healthcare system.
• We Have Rights is a campaign to educate immigrants about rights in encounters with ICE
• Ecologies of Migrant Care has collected nearly 100 interviews with migrants, activists, academics and other immigration experts to shed light on the reasons why Central Americans flee and detail the networks that have developed to help them along their journey.
• Moving Stories is an app and curriculum to capture and share immigrant stories.
• Re-imagining Migration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
• The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Freedom for Immigrants publishes an Immigration Detention Syllabus

Reporting resources, tools and tips

• Higher Ed Immigration Portal: A new digital platform that integrates data, policies, and resources about DACA and undocumented, other immigrant, international, and refugee students.
• Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (Migration Policy Institute)
• The Immigrant Defense project created a style guide for journalists reporting on immigration.
• Digital First Responders: A database, report, and case study of how immigrant news outlets are innovating to serve their communities. (Center for Community Media).
• Journalists who have been targeted for their work can send incident reports through the online platform of Press Freedom Tracker.
• No Refuge from Council on Foreign Relations’ InfoGuide series, includes an interactive map of origin and destination countries for refugees, and policy options that can help refugees and support host states.
• Covering Immigration Enforcement webinar from Poynter with Marshall Project contributing writer Julia Preston.
• Tools for covering ICE from the Columbia Journalism Review
• Migration Reporting Resources (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
• Resources for Investigating Visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
• Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by Angilee Shah.

If there’s a story or immigration-related opportunity you think we should consider, please send us an email.

*Daniela Gerson is a co-founder and the editor of Migratory Notes. She is an assistant professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge, Previously she was a senior fellow at the Center for Community Media (CCM); community engagement editor at the LA Times; editor of the trilingual Alhambra Source; and immigration reporter for the New York Sun. She has reported for WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, The New York Times, among other outlets. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson

*Elizabeth Aguilera is co-founder and executive editor of Migratory Notes. She is a multimedia reporter for CalMatters where she co-hosts the new political podcast California State of Mind and covers the health and welfare of California’s next generation. Previously she covered health care and social services, including immigration for the digital outlet. Before joining CalMatters Aguilera reported on community health for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and worked for the Denver Post covering urban affairs and immigration. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera

*Paco Alvarez is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. He is a writer based in Chicago. Previously, he was a Fall 2020 Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau where he covered the 2020 elections and political participation in immigrant communities. His work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago and South Side Weekly. You can find him on Twitter @pacvarez

*Anna-Cat Brigida is a contributing editor for Migratory Notes. She is a freelance reporter covering immigration and human rights in Mexico and Central America. She began covering immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg and later moved to Central America to work as a reporter. She has covered the region since 2015 and has been based in El Salvador since January 2018. She has also worked as a Spanish-language writer for Fusion out of the Mexico City office. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Univision, LA Times, and Al Jazeera, among others. You can find her on Twitter @AnnaCat_Brigida

*Yana Kunichoff is a special projects editor for Migratory Notes. She currently covers public education for the Arizona Republic. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure

*Migratory Notes Advisory Board: Daniel Connolly, Maria Kari, Dan Kowalski, Paola Marizán, Mirta Ojito, Roberto Suro, Phuong Ly, Fernanda Santos

Migratory Notes 216 was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Know someone who might like Migratory Notes? Please help us spread the word: Here’s the subscribe form and here’s an archive on Medium. Got a story or an immigration-related resource or opportunity we should know about? Send it on!

Must Reads
The lone Central American immigrant in Congress is wary of the Biden administration’s efforts to support the region, reports the Los Angeles Times. The fascinating portrait of California’s Norma Torres (D-Pomona) chronicles her story from fleeing Guatemala as a child to her current powerful and often provocative position on the subcommittee that decides how foreign aid flows. “We must stand strong against #NarcoGov and Dictators in the #NorthernTriangle, otherwise as they say ‘Meet the new boss same as the old boss,’” she wrote on Twitter. Not surprisingly her tweets sparked criticism, particularly from Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. The two “have exchanged an angry torrent of tweets — as fierce as it is unusual for a foreign leader to tangle with a member of Congress,” write Tracy Wilkinson and Sarah D. Wire.

More than 228,000 Guatemalans have been deported since 2015. While for many, “sent home with the stigma of failure and staggering debts that can’t be paid in a country where the minimum wage is about $11 per day” the dream had failed. Others keep trying. Sonia Pérez D. reports for the AP an in depth feature on what keeps Guatemalans attempting to immigrate to the U.S. “Smugglers in recent years have promised would-be migrants three tries at successfully crossing the U.S. border — an acknowledgment that it’s a large investment that doesn’t always pan out,” she writes.

Changes to Asylum
In an attempt to streamline the asylum process, the Biden administration intends to change how migrants apply for asylum at the border, shifting the initial decision-making power from an immigration judge to a USCIS asylum officer, reports BuzzFeed News, which received a copy of the plan. “Depending on how it is implemented, the plan could represent President Joe Biden’s most consequential immigration policy to date and fundamentally change the dynamics at the southern border by preventing asylum cases from taking years to complete in court,” Hamed Aleaziz writes. ProPublica reporter Dara Lind notes it could be 1) struck down in court or 2) create serious implementation problems.

In a separate, internal effort to speed up asylum cases for immigrant families picked up at the border, the Biden administration launched Friday a “dedicated docket plan” in 10 cities nationwide, reports BuzzFeed News. Courts will be expected to make a decision on asylum cases within 300 days of the initial hearing. But some advocates are saying the “rocket docket” approach causes more harm than good, comparing it to similar programs run by the Obama and Trump administrations, reports El Paso Matters. An analysis by TRAC of “rocket docket” cases during the Obama administration between 2014 and 2016 found that 70 percent of families did not have legal representation.

Texas Disaster Declaration
For the third consecutive month, according to preliminary data, border apprehensions in May remained the highest monthly level in two decades, reports Reuters. On Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster for 34 counties along Texas’ border with Mexico, citing what he called the “ongoing surge” of illegal immigration, reports KXAN. The order authorizes state and local law enforcement to protect Texans from property damage, trespassing, smuggling and human trafficking, and directs the Texas Commission on Jail Standards to work with border counties to increase detention capacity.

The Abbott disaster declaration also ordered state child-care regulators to take away licenses from facilities housing unaccompanied migrant children, reports the Dallas Morning News. Denying the Biden administration access to these shelters could force the administration to house migrant children at CBP stations. Under the order, 52 facilities with contracts with the Office of Refugee Resettlement would lose their licenses in three months. HHS says it does “not intend to close any facilities as a result of the order.”

Remain in Mexico & Title 42
The Biden administration formally ended on Tuesday the controversial Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” policy, a program that forced tens of thousands of Central American asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their U.S. court dates, reports Reuters. The administration had paused the program shortly after Biden took office, and a February 2nd executive order called for agencies to review the program and determine whether to terminate it. According to DHS officials, since Biden’s inauguration, over 11,000 migrants enrolled in the program have been allowed to enter the U.S. to pursue asylum claims.

Meanwhile, the ongoing Title 42, a Trump-era policy that has “closed” the border under the auspices of Covid-19 and public health, is supposed to prevent asylum seekers from crossing the border by expelling them back to Mexico. However, Mexican authorities have been limiting how many migrants they will take back per day, making it so crossing the border has become a “lottery” for migrants, where timing determines why some are accepted in the U.S. and some aren’t, reports NBC News.

Others are taking increasingly dangerous tactics to cross the border illegally. Maria Eugenia Chavez Segovia, one of three Mexican killed when an overloaded boat crashed, was expelled from the border twice before she attempted to enter the U.S. by sea, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Wendy Fry and David Hernandez explore Chavez Segovia’s life in Central Mexico to her tragic end near the shore to her funeral in her hometown, where dozens of family members gathered to honor her memory.

Anxiety and depression is rampant among asylum seekers at the U.S. border in Mexico, but getting those suffering with mental health problems to accept counseling is often challenging, reports U.S. News & World Report. “Helping migrants with their mental health presents its own challenges, since many migrants are resistant, in part because of a deeply ingrained societal stigma and general distrust,” Anna-Cat Brigida writes in a feature on NGO efforts such as group therapy that continues even after borders are crossed.

Biden Administration
A new DHS document maps the Biden administration’s plans to expand legal immigration and reverse the damage to the immigration system wrought by Trump, reports The New York Times. Among the desired shifts:

• Expand virtual interviews and electronic filings to address backlogs
• Increase opportunities for LGBTQ+ refugees fleeing persecution
• Revamp the U-Visa program that provides a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who cooperate with law enforcement

Immigration advocates are pushing to bring back immigrants who they say were unfairly deported, reports AP. One proposal, spearheaded by the National Immigrant Justice Center, urges Biden to use executive action to create a centralized DHS office to consider requests from deported immigrants to return to the U.S. to reunite with their families. Previously, a Biden-proposed bill to allow a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants included provisions that would allow some deported immigrants to return to the U.S., but the administration has not spoken publicly about the possibility of regularly considering requests.

Immigration is an International Issue
Panama has been hit with a five-fold jump in migration toward the United States, as global borders begin to open up and countries are feeling the impact of COVID. “The nation’s migration authority recorded 5,818 undocumented foreigners crossing into Panama from Colombia in April, up 477% from January. The biggest source countries are Haiti and Cuba, but many also travel from as far away as Bangladesh and Uzbekistan, trying to eventually reach the U.S.,” Michael D. McDonald writes in Bloomberg.

In his first official visit to Latin America, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the Costa Rican president and other Central American officials, reports the LA Times. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris is taking her first trip to Guatemala and Mexico next week, reports Reuters. According to her senior adviser, Harris plans on focusing on three areas: “economic development, climate and food insecurity and women and young people.”

Budget
On Friday, the Biden administration submitted a budget request to Congress of $52 billion for DHS for fiscal year 2022, reports The Washington Post. While the budget request is only one-tenth of a percentage less than Trump’s budget request last year, changes in spending reflect Biden’s shift in immigration policy:

• Elimination of border-wall funding
• Increase in spending on the care for unaccompanied minors
• A dramatic increase in staff at the border to help process asylum claims
• A $30 million fund to assist migrant families separated under Trump
• A two-fold increase in resources to help process up to 125,000 refugees next year

Detention
Covid-19 infections in ICE detention facilities have gone up to almost 1,500 this week compared to 60 inside the Bureau of Prisons, reports The Washington Post. Federal officials say the uptick in infections is due to the increase in Covid infected migrants crossing the border, but advocates say that ICE has failed to create a robust vaccination program similar to the program that helped the BOP drive down infection rates.

The Illinois General Assembly passed a sweeping reform bill that would prohibit cities and counties from entering into contracts with ICE to detain immigrants at county jails, reports Injustice Watch. Illinois would join two other states, California and Washington, in banning counties from contracting with ICE. If signed by the governor, the state would be rid of all existing detention centers by January 1, 2022 because it already restricts private detention centers.

Since Biden’s inauguration, ICE has signed new contracts with private prison firms worth more than $260 million, some of which contain language condoning $1-a-day wages for detainee labor, reports The American Prospect.

Immigration Courts & FOIA
Average wait times for Freedom of Information Act requests to DHS, USCIS and ICE have been cut by a third since December 2020, when a federal judge ruled the agencies must adhere to the 20-day FOIA deadline and clear backlogs, reports Borderless Magazine. Immigrants and citizens requesting their Alien Files can now expect their FOIA requests to be completed in an average of 21 days when before they might have had to wait months. Still, advocates and attorneys worry the expedited processing times for A-Files were only possible because USCIS received help from 136 FOIA personnel from within DHS, and say systemic change is needed to solve access issues.

On Monday, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill that would allow the Cook County public defender’s office to represent immigrants facing deportation in immigration court, reports Injustice Watch. Last year, the public defender’s office created an immigration unit, but needed the state’s authorization to represent immigrants in immigration court. The county has enough funding for two immigration attorneys. Recent studies of immigration court data from Chicago and New York show that immigrants with representation are five to 10 times more likely to avoid deportation.

Heartland Immigration Boom
Des Moines, Louisville, Indianapolis and Columbus are among the fastest-growing immigrant communities in the country, according to a new report from Heartland Forward. While most of these communities still have relatively small numbers of migrants, they have grown more rapidly than traditional landing cities due to a combination of refugee resettlement and low and high wage employment opportunities, reports the Des Moines Register.

Follows

• Despite an announcement to close Irwin Detention Center, ICE continues to send detainees (The Intercept)
• Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom pardoned two Laotian immigrants who worked as firefighters during their incarceration and were threatened with deportation back to Laos following their time in prison. (The Guardian)
• Human rights organizations are calling on the Biden administration to end surveillance programs, such as apps and GPS-tracking ankle monitors, that are used to keep track of asylum seekers in lieu of detention. (The Guardian)
• Rep. Ilhan Omar has re-introduced legislation to repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was used as a justification for Trump’s ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries and for the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2. (The Hill)
• Haitian refugees are celebrating across the country after Biden’s decision to grant Haitians Temporary Protected Status. (USA Today)
• The Supreme Court overturned a rule used by the 9th Circuit Court of California that presumed immigrants seeking asylum were telling the truth unless a previous immigration judge had explicitly said their story wasn’t “credible.” (LA Times)

Jobs, Fellowships & Awards

Director of Development and Audience Growth, Borderless Magazine

Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News — ABC News Washington is looking for a Producer/Reporter to join the Race and Culture team “to develop coverage with a deeper reporting at the intersection of race, politics, and culture, with a specific focus on immigration.”

Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021.

Immigration Resources & Opportunities

Coronavirus Resources

• Immigrants in COVID America documents the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. (Immigrant History Research Center)
• Database of more than 200 COVID relief funds that are accessible to refugees and other immigrants, including without legal status. (IRAP)
• Updates on immigration developments during COVID-19 (Center for Migration Studies)
• Map of detention centers tracking coronavirus outbreaks (Freedom for Immigrants)
• COVID-19 resources for undocumented immigrants (UndocuScholars)
• Database of likely deportation flights during the pandemic (Center for Economic and Policy Research)
• Informed Immigrant is an online resource that provides information for undocumented immigrant communities in the U.S. during the coronavirus.

Recently released immigration books and films(got one, send it over)

• Driving while Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block (April 2021)
• A Nation of Immigrants, second edition, by Susan F. Martin (March 2021)
• Faces of Courage: Ten Years of Building Sanctuary photography by Harvey Finkle (2021)
• The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz (January 2021)
• Futbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties by David Trouille (January 2021)
• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau (September 2020)
• Next Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah argues climate change migration is a solution rather than a crisis. (August 2020)
• Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato. (September 2020)
• Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero (August 2020)
• Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff tells the story of the long-term impact of the family separation policy on families. (July 2020)
• 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall by DW Gibson covers the repercussions of the wall in San Diego. (July 2020)
• “USA V Scott” a documentary that depicts the moral dilemma facing Arizona residents, who must decide whether or not to help desperate migrants they come across, using the case of activist Scott Warren as a case study.
• The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants by Adam Goodman. The book examines how public officials have used different forms of deportations and expulsion “to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.” (June 2020)
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang, chronicles the major changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century and their profound impact on immigrant families including her own. (May 2020)
• The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond by John Washington. The book takes an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s attack on asylum, told through the story of one Salvadoran dad, Arnovis. (May 2020)
• Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation, by anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink, chronicles deportation from the perspectives of Indigenous youth who migrate unaccompanied from Guatemala. (April 2020)

Reporting Initiatives about Immigrant Communities

• Borderless: a non-profit online magazine reimagining coverage of the immigration system.
• Documented: a non-profit news site covering immigrants in New York.
• Ethnic Media Services: organization that works with ethnic media organizations to improve coverage and reach.
• Feet In Two Worlds: project that tells immigrant stories and provides fellowships for immigrant journalists.
• Finding American: a collaboration between documentary photographer Colin Boyd Shafer and immigrants to feature their stories.
• The Immigrant Story: a project between journalists, photographers, graphic designers and developers to document and archive immigrants’ stories.
• ImmPrint: an online publication by and for people affected by immigrant detention.
• New Michigan Media: a network of ethnic and minority media across the state of Michigan.
• Newest Americans: a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories of the immigrant and immigrant communities in Newark, NJ.
• Refugees (Santa Fe Dreamers Project): a collection of testimonies from asylum seekers in partnership with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

Newsletters, Podcasts, & Facebook Groups

• Port of Entry is a podcast about cross-border stories that connect us. Border people often inhabit this in-between place. From KPBS and PRX, “Port of Entry” tells personal stories from this place.
• Routed Magazine curates a bi-monthly newsletter on news in migration and mobility.
• Immigrant & Democracy from Harvard University’s immigration initiative.
• Detention Dispatches by Capital & Main follows the conditions in ICE detention centers during the pandemic.
• In The Thick podcast covers the coronavirus impact on immigrant communities from Chelsea, MA to the Bronx, New York.
• Nuestro South is a podcast exploring the experiences of Latinx people in the U.S. south.
• Salvadoran investigative media outlet El Faro has launched an English-language newsletter with reporting from Central America.
• ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? Podcast tells stories of Latino life “from the homeland to the heartland.”
• Frontera Dispatch is a weekly newsletter by the Hope Border Institute on news and analysis from the border.
• BIB Daily Edition is a free aggregation of “inside immigration news” (court cases, new regulations and the like) and “outside news” (culled from the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media).
• Center for Migration Studies Migration Update is a weekly digest of news, faith reflections, and analysis of international migration and refugee protection.
• Migration Information Source from the Migration Policy Institute offers a series of newsletters.
• Documented NY’s Early Arrival newsletter aggregates information on immigration in New York and nationally.
• Politico’s Morning Shift newsletter: a daily read on employment and immigration.
• Tempest Tossed, a podcast with “conversations on immigration and refugees that go beyond the predictable soundbites.”
• Displaced, a podcast from the International Rescue Committee.
• A is for America America’s Voice discusses immigrant politics and organizing.
• Only in America National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.

Curriculum & Campaigns

• Doctors for Immigrants released a toolkit to welcome and protect immigrants within the healthcare system.
• We Have Rights is a campaign to educate immigrants about rights in encounters with ICE
• Ecologies of Migrant Care has collected nearly 100 interviews with migrants, activists, academics and other immigration experts to shed light on the reasons why Central Americans flee and detail the networks that have developed to help them along their journey.
• Moving Stories is an app and curriculum to capture and share immigrant stories.
• Re-imagining Migration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
• The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Freedom for Immigrants publishes an Immigration Detention Syllabus

Reporting resources, tools and tips

• Higher Ed Immigration Portal: A new digital platform that integrates data, policies, and resources about DACA and undocumented, other immigrant, international, and refugee students.
• Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (Migration Policy Institute)
• The Immigrant Defense project created a style guide for journalists reporting on immigration.
• Digital First Responders: A database, report, and case study of how immigrant news outlets are innovating to serve their communities. (Center for Community Media).
• Journalists who have been targeted for their work can send incident reports through the online platform of Press Freedom Tracker.
• No Refuge from Council on Foreign Relations’ InfoGuide series, includes an interactive map of origin and destination countries for refugees, and policy options that can help refugees and support host states.
• Covering Immigration Enforcement webinar from Poynter with Marshall Project contributing writer Julia Preston.
• Tools for covering ICE from the Columbia Journalism Review
• Migration Reporting Resources (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
• Resources for Investigating Visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
• Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by Angilee Shah.

If there’s a story or immigration-related opportunity you think we should consider, please send us an email.

*Daniela Gerson is a co-founder and the editor of Migratory Notes. She is an assistant professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge, Previously she was a senior fellow at the Center for Community Media (CCM); community engagement editor at the LA Times; editor of the trilingual Alhambra Source; and immigration reporter for the New York Sun. She has reported for WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, The New York Times, among other outlets. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson

*Elizabeth Aguilera is co-founder and executive editor of Migratory Notes. She is a multimedia reporter for CalMatters where she co-hosts the new political podcast California State of Mind and covers the health and welfare of California’s next generation. Previously she covered health care and social services, including immigration for the digital outlet. Before joining CalMatters Aguilera reported on community health for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and worked for the Denver Post covering urban affairs and immigration. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera

*Paco Alvarez is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. He is a writer based in Chicago. Previously, he was a Fall 2020 Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau where he covered the 2020 elections and political participation in immigrant communities. His work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago and South Side Weekly. You can find him on Twitter @pacvarez

*Anna-Cat Brigida is a contributing editor for Migratory Notes. She is a freelance reporter covering immigration and human rights in Mexico and Central America. She began covering immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg and later moved to Central America to work as a reporter. She has covered the region since 2015 and has been based in El Salvador since January 2018. She has also worked as a Spanish-language writer for Fusion out of the Mexico City office. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Univision, LA Times, and Al Jazeera, among others. You can find her on Twitter @AnnaCat_Brigida

*Yana Kunichoff is a special projects editor for Migratory Notes. She currently covers public education for the Arizona Republic. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure

*Migratory Notes Advisory Board: Daniel Connolly, Maria Kari, Dan Kowalski, Paola Marizán, Mirta Ojito, Roberto Suro, Phuong Ly, Fernanda Santos

Migratory Notes 215 was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Know someone who might like Migratory Notes? Please help us spread the word: Here’s the subscribe form and here’s an archive on Medium. Got a story or an immigration-related resource or opportunity we should know about? Send it on!

#MustReads
Last fall, a green bean facility in Wisconsin was the site of one of the deadliest coronavirus outbreaks in the food processing industry, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Maria Perez found that officials at Seneca Foods, which owns the facility, “failed to take critical precautions to protect the employees.” Perez traces the path of the workers, many of whom stayed at the company’s barrack-style camp, to a Super 8 motel where infected employees were forced to isolate and a bus ride back to Texas where several people tested positive of Covid-19 and died. In an accompanying story, Perez writes about the backgrounds of nine of the 11 migrant workers who died.

The executive director of the nonprofit Border Angels, Dulce Garcia, dared not cross the border for three decades. But last week the DACA recipient and attorney was granted advanced parole for 60 days, allowing her return to Mexico to work with asylum seekers in Tijuana, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune. Kate Morrissey follows Garcia as she visits packed migrant shelters, meets with desperate asylum seekers, and reconnects with her brother, who was deported in 2020 after his DACA protection lapsed.

TPS
On Saturday, the Biden administration granted Haitians in the U.S. a new 18-month Temporary Protected Status designation, citing Haiti’s deepening political and constitutional crises and a spike in Covid-19 cases, reports the Miami Herald. The designation can impact more than100,000 Haitians, including:

• Haitians unlawfully in the U.S. as of May 21.
• Haitians who were previously granted TPS who can apply to extend the designation.

On Tuesday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas visited South Florida to meet with Haitian community leaders to talk about the extension, reports CBS Miami. Immigration advocates and Haitian community leaders lauded the move, but say their focus now is on getting Congress to approve a path to citizenship for Haitians and other undocumented immigrants, and to end expulsions under the Title 42 policy, reports the Miami Herald.

Migrant Children
The Biden administration is scrapping a plan to house 5,000 migrant children under the age of 12 at the Fort Bliss Army base amid concerns of subpar conditions and prolonged stays, reports CBS News. The reversal followed media reports about children languishing at Fort Bliss, in some cases over 40 days. Some attorneys who visited the facility said it “feels like a warehouse” where children have little to do and sometimes don’t have access to fresh clothes, reports CNN. House Democrats who had publicly expressed outrage against Trump’s treatment of migrant children are taking a quieter approach with the Biden administration, reports The New York Times. Instead of indictments via Twitter or at congressional hearings, Democratic lawmakers are voicing concerns privately to administration officials and the staff at HHS.

Title 42
Border closures initiated under the Trump administration have pushed migrants into more remote and dangerous regions of the border, reports the Marshall Project in partnership with Mother Jones. Rescue rates at the Southern border doubled between fiscal year 2019 and 2020, and migrant deaths also nearly doubled. Between February and April, CBP has expelled nearly 290,000 migrants under Title 42, almost 40% of all expulsions enacted since the policy began.

The Biden administration is facing increasing pressure to repeal Title 42, including from within the administration itself and from human rights officials, reports The New York Times. Two physicians who consult for DHS sent a letter to Congress criticizing the policy for having a “perverse impact” of encouraging parents to send their children to the border alone since unaccompanied minors are not being expelled. The letter comes days after Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, said the policy has had “serious humanitarian consequences.” On Wednesday, DHS Secretary Mayorkas defended the administration’s continued use of the policy, saying it’s a necessary public health measure, reports The Hill. “We are watching the science, led by the CDC, and we will no longer rely upon Title 42 when there is no longer a public health imperative basis,” said Mayorkas.

Border Patrol
CBP is “unlikely” to have enough funds for the remainder of the fiscal year due to a shortfall in user fees after international travel and border crossings plummeted last year, reports Roll Call. Congress previously allocated $840 million in emergency funding to offset revenue losses, but it doesn’t seem to be enough to keep the agency afloat through September 30, the end of the fiscal year.

A CBP “crowd control exercise” planned for Election Day 2018 that was canceled due to public backlash faced criticism inside the agency, reports El Paso Matters. Emails show CBP officials planned the exercise to capture media on the migrant caravan that Trump was warning about ahead of the election, with one email’s subject line saying “Circus is coming to town.” “Not sure it’s going to deter anyone at this point in their journey but it sure will rile up the local advocacy groups,” said one email.

Enforcement & Detention
ICE carried out fewer than 3,000 deportations last month, the lowest level on record, as the Biden administration keeps the agency on a tight leash with deportation priorities that limit who officers can arrest, reports The Washington Post. While immigrant advocates and progressives pressure the administration to cut some funds to ICE, DHS Secretary Mayorkas has said he wants to reorient the agency, not shrink it. Some ICE officials feel frustrated with the changes, bemoaning a workplace environment where officers feel that the administration doesn’t “have [their] backs.”

Some immigrants who attempt to challenge their detention in court are quietly released by ICE while their case is pending, resulting in “shadow wins’’ that limit judicial accountability, reports ProPublica. A new study from Tulane University shows that in nearly 500 cases where immigrants petitioned against their indefinite detention, only five resulted in a release order from a judge, while 112 ended with ICE releasing the detainee while their petitions were pending, allowing the judge to dismiss the case. These “shadow wins” allow government officials to avoid testifying about conditions in their facilities and may be used to avoid negative court decisions “that make formal rulings regarding prolonged, indefinite and punitive detention.”

Alternative to Detention
A growing number of migrants are being placed in an ICE-run program, known as Alternative to Detention, that uses a phone app to track asylum seekers after they’re released into the United States, reports Border Report. The SmartLINK app uses facial recognition to confirm identity and GPS location monitoring, and is being used instead of ankle monitoring devices. Nearly 100,000 migrants have been enrolled in ICE ATD programs as of May 13, according to data from the Transactional Research Access Clearinghouse of Syracuse University.

Refugees
The Biden administration is unlikely to resettle the promised 62,500 refugees, reports Roll Call. Due to the low number of refugees the Trump administration allowed in each year, many organizations slashed their staff and resources, leaving them unprepared for the significantly larger number of refugees Biden promised to allow in. Fewer than 12,000 refugees were resettled in fiscal year 2020, compared to nearly 85,000 resettled during Obama’s last year in office.

Immigration is an International Issue
Vice President Kamala Harris is leaning on the president of Guatemala in her efforts to address the poverty, violence, corruption and other destabilizing factors that push migrants to migrate to the United States, reports Politico. Meanwhile, the administration is being cautious about dealing with the leaders of Honduras and El Salvador, due to the Honduran president’s ties organized crime and the Salvadoran president’s authoritarian streak, which includes dismissing five Supreme Court justices as well as the attorney general to seize control of the top court.

Anti-Asian Racism
Across the country, government officials and legislatures are taking steps to address anti-Asian racism:

• Biden signed legislation aimed at bolstering hate crime investigations following the surge of attacks against Asian Americans. (LA Times)
• Illinois is poised to become the first state to require public schools to teach the history of Asian Americans. (Injustice Watch)
• The Antioch, Calif., City Council passed a resolution apologizing for its racist treatment of Chinese immigrants during the gold rush, when it was a ‘sundown town’ where Chinese people were barred from walking the streets at night. (New York Times)

Justice
Former permanent residents who were deported and returned later can still be charged with unlawful reentry even if their initial deportations were later deemed illegal, according to a new Supreme Court ruling, reports Bloomberg. Refugio Palomar-Santiago, a former permanent resident, was deported in 1998 after being convicted of a DUI, which the Supreme Court later ruled is not a deportable offense. Still, the Court found that immigrants can only challenge initial removal orders if three conditions are met: the removal was “fundamentally unfair,” they exhausted all available administrative remedies and showed that they were effectively denied judicial review.

Immigration Journalism
Netflix is launching a new series, “Somos,” based on a 2017 ProPublica story detailing the DEA’s role in a 2011 massacre in Northern Mexico, reports ProPublica. The original story, “How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico,” was an oral history reconstructing a 2010 DEA case that targeted leaders of a Mexican cartel, which later turned violent when it was compromised by corrupt members of a DEA-trained Mexican police unit. The story was previously adapted into a podcast by Audible, featuring well-known film actors, including Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo.

COVID-19 & Immigrant Communities
For Borderless Magazine, Brian Herrera interviewed members of Quinto Imperio, an all immigrant band from Chicago, about their music and the ways they support the immigrant community they come from. Herrera transformed their words into a comic about their relationship to their neighborhood and the challenges they’ve faced since the beginning of the pandemic.

Brian Herrera for Borderless Magazine/CatchLight Local

Follows

• USCIS is providing up to $10 million in grants to citizenship preparation programs across the country. (Border Report)
• CBP is looking to build a second centralized facility in El Paso to process migrants who cross the border. (El Paso Times)
• Under the Trump administration, ICE deported at least 348 migrant parents separated from their children without documenting whether those parents wanted to leave their children in the United States. (NBC News)
• Processing delays for Tax Identification Numbers (ITIN) have made it difficult for some undocumented immigrants in New York to access the stat’s $2.1 billion Excluded Workers Fund, which provides up to $15,600 to undocumented workers who were left out of federal help. (Documented)
• Advocates are calling on the Biden administration to repeal a last-minute Trump rule that increased fees for those appealing deportation or seeking asylum. (The Hill)

Jobs, Fellowships & Awards

• Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News
• Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021

Immigration Resources & Opportunities

Covid-related resources

• Immigrants in COVID America documents the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. (Immigrant History Research Center)
• Database of more than 200 COVID relief funds that are accessible to refugees and other immigrants, including without legal status. (IRAP)
• Updates on immigration developments during COVID-19 (Center for Migration Studies)
• Informed Immigrant is an online resource that provides information for undocumented immigrant communities in the U.S. during the coronavirus.
• Map of detention centers tracking coronavirus outbreaks (Freedom for Immigrants)
• COVID-19 resources for undocumented immigrants (UndocuScholars)
• Database of likely deportation flights during the pandemic (Center for Economic and Policy Research)

Recently released immigration books and films(got one, send it over)

• Driving while Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block (April 2021)
• A Nation of Immigrants, second edition, by Susan F. Martin (March 2021)
• Faces of Courage: Ten Years of Building Sanctuary photography by Harvey Finkle (2021)
• The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz (January 2021)
• Futbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties by David Trouille (January 2021)
• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau (September 2020)
• Next Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah argues climate change migration is a solution rather than a crisis. (August 2020)
• Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato. (September 2020)
• Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero (August 2020)
• Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff tells the story of the long-term impact of the family separation policy on families. (July 2020)
• 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall by DW Gibson covers the repercussions of the wall in San Diego. (July 2020)
• “USA V Scott” a documentary that depicts the moral dilemma facing Arizona residents, who must decide whether or not to help desperate migrants they come across, using the case of activist Scott Warren as a case study.
• The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants by Adam Goodman. The book examines how public officials have used different forms of deportations and expulsion “to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.” (June 2020)
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang, chronicles the major changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century and their profound impact on immigrant families including her own. (May 2020)
• The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond by John Washington. The book takes an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s attack on asylum, told through the story of one Salvadoran dad, Arnovis. (May 2020)
• Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation, by anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink, chronicles deportation from the perspectives of Indigenous youth who migrate unaccompanied from Guatemala. (April 2020)

Reporting Initiatives about Immigrant Communities

• Borderless: a non-profit online magazine reimagining coverage of the immigration system.
• Documented: a non-profit news site covering immigrants in New York.
• Ethnic Media Services: organization that works with ethnic media organizations to improve coverage and reach.
• Feet In Two Worlds: project that tells immigrant stories and provides fellowships for immigrant journalists.
• Finding American: a collaboration between documentary photographer Colin Boyd Shafer and immigrants to feature their stories.
• The Immigrant Story: a project between journalists, photographers, graphic designers and developers to document and archive immigrants’ stories.
• ImmPrint: an online publication by and for people affected by immigrant detention.
• New Michigan Media: a network of ethnic and minority media across the state of Michigan.
• Newest Americans: a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories of the immigrant and immigrant communities in Newark, NJ.
• Refugees (Santa Fe Dreamers Project): a collection of testimonies from asylum seekers in partnership with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

Newsletters, Podcasts, & Facebook Groups

• Port of Entry is a podcast about cross-border stories that connect us. Border people often inhabit this in-between place. From KPBS and PRX, “Port of Entry” tells personal stories from this place.
• Routed Magazine curates a bi-monthly newsletter on news in migration and mobility.
• Immigrant & Democracy from Harvard University’s immigration initiative.
• Detention Dispatches by Capital & Main follows the conditions in ICE detention centers during the pandemic.
• In The Thick podcast covers the coronavirus impact on immigrant communities from Chelsea, MA to the Bronx, New York.
• Nuestro South is a podcast exploring the experiences of Latinx people in the U.S. south.
• Salvadoran investigative media outlet El Faro has launched an English-language newsletter with reporting from Central America.
• ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? Podcast tells stories of Latino life “from the homeland to the heartland.”
• Frontera Dispatch is a weekly newsletter by the Hope Border Institute on news and analysis from the border.
• BIB Daily Edition is a free aggregation of “inside immigration news” (court cases, new regulations and the like) and “outside news” (culled from the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media).
• Center for Migration Studies Migration Update is a weekly digest of news, faith reflections, and analysis of international migration and refugee protection.
• Migration Information Source from the Migration Policy Institute offers a series of newsletters.
• Documented NY’s Early Arrival newsletter aggregates information on immigration in New York and nationally.
• Politico’s Morning Shift newsletter: a daily read on employment and immigration.
• Tempest Tossed, a podcast with “conversations on immigration and refugees that go beyond the predictable soundbites.”
• Displaced, a podcast from the International Rescue Committee.
• A is for America America’s Voice discusses immigrant politics and organizing.
• Only in America National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.

Curriculum & Campaigns

• Doctors for Immigrants released a toolkit to welcome and protect immigrants within the healthcare system.
• We Have Rights is a campaign to educate immigrants about rights in encounters with ICE
• Ecologies of Migrant Care has collected nearly 100 interviews with migrants, activists, academics and other immigration experts to shed light on the reasons why Central Americans flee and detail the networks that have developed to help them along their journey.
• Moving Stories is an app and curriculum to capture and share immigrant stories.
• Re-imagining Migration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
• The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Freedom for Immigrants publishes an Immigration Detention Syllabus

Reporting resources, tools and tips

• Higher Ed Immigration Portal: A new digital platform that integrates data, policies, and resources about DACA and undocumented, other immigrant, international, and refugee students.
• Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (Migration Policy Institute)
• The Immigrant Defense project created a style guide for journalists reporting on immigration.
• Digital First Responders: A database, report, and case study of how immigrant news outlets are innovating to serve their communities. (Center for Community Media).
• Journalists who have been targeted for their work can send incident reports through the online platform of Press Freedom Tracker.
• No Refuge from Council on Foreign Relations’ InfoGuide series, includes an interactive map of origin and destination countries for refugees, and policy options that can help refugees and support host states.
• Covering Immigration Enforcement webinar from Poynter with Marshall Project contributing writer Julia Preston.
• Tools for covering ICE from the Columbia Journalism Review
• Migration Reporting Resources (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
• Resources for Investigating Visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
• Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by Angilee Shah.

That’s all for Migratory Notes 214. If there’s a story you think we should consider, please send us an email.

*Daniela Gerson is an assistant professor at California State University, Northridge with a focus on community, ethnic, and participatory media. She is also a senior fellow at the Democracy Fund. Before that she was a community engagement editor at the LA Times; founding editor of a trilingual hyperlocal publication, Alhambra Source; staff immigration reporter for the New York Sun; and a contributor to outlets including WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, and The New York Times. She recently wrote How can collaborations between ethnic and mainstream outlets serve communities in the digital age? for American Press Institute. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson

*Elizabeth Aguilera is a multimedia reporter for CALmatters covering health and social services, including immigration. Previously she reported on community health, for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and before that she covered a variety of beats and issues for the Denver Post including urban affairs and immigration. Her latest story is What ice cream flavors can teach us about the changing California Dream. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera

*Paco Alvarez is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. He is a writer based in Chicago. Previously, he was a Fall 2020 Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau where he covered the 2020 elections and political participation in immigrant communities. His work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago and South Side Weekly. You can find him on Twitter @pacvarez

*Yana Kunichoff is an independent journalist and documentary producer who covers immigration, policing, education and social movements. She was project manager for Migrahack 2016 in Chicago. She has also produced feature-length documentaries and a pop-culture web series for Scrappers Film Group; worked as a fellow with City Bureau, where she won a March 2016 Sidney Hillman award for an investigation into fatal police shootings; and covered race and poverty issues for the Chicago Reporter. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard and Chicago magazine among others. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure

Migratory Notes 214 was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Know someone who might like Migratory Notes? Please help us spread the word: Here’s the subscribe form and here’s an archive on Medium. Got a story or an immigration-related resource or opportunity we should know about? Send it on!

#MustReads
Two years ago NBC reporters in San Diego uncovered records of the U.S. government tracking journalists, lawyers and activists thought to be connected to the 2018 caravan. “New documents prove the operation went further — and raise questions about how many others were targeted,” Dara Lind writes in a ProPublica investigation. U.S. officials shared theories that “immigration lawyers were seeking to profit by moving migrants through Mexico, and that ‘Antifa’ may have been involved.”

In an immersive multimedia project, the Washington Post follows Central American migrants on a harrowing failed journey across the U.S.-Mexico border. The compelling mix of audio, video, and print transports the audience to a situation that is often reported on, but is challenging to grasp if you have not experienced it.

Pandemic Immigration Shifts
The patchwork of convoluted border policies is creating false hopes for migrants and confusing experts, ProPublica reports in a broad and detailed breakdown of current policies. Among recent shifts:

• As the pandemic eases in the U.S., and after months of pressure from advocates, the Biden administration has agreed to some changes to the Title 42 policy, such as stopping late-night expulsions and flying migrants across the U.S. in order to expel them. (LA Times)
• The Biden administration will also allow 250 vulnerable asylum seekers to enter the United States each day. (CBS News)
• An agreement between the University of Texas at El Paso and CBP allowed Mexican parents of U.S. citizen children to cross into the United States for their childrens’ college graduation ceremony. Similar agreements were made at a smaller scale at other University of Texas campuses in the Rio Grande Valley. (El Paso Times)

As Covid-19 cases dwindle in parts of the United States, new waves of global pandemic refugees are traveling long distances to the southwest border, reports The New York Times. According to CBP data, 30% of families encountered at the border are from countries other than Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, compared to only 7.5% during the last border surge in April 2019. In recent months, border officials have encountered migrants from more than 160 countries, many of which are bearing the brunt of the pandemic, including Ecuador, Brazil and India.

Meanwhile, thousands of immigrants who live in the U.S. on visas are stuck in India after the United States implemented a travel ban against the country amid record-high Covid-19 cases, reports The New York Times. The most recent travel ban has impacted a disproportionate number of Indian immigrants, who claim more than two-thirds of H-1B visas issued each year.

Migrant Children & Biden Administration
White House officials were “livid” after reports were released that some migrant children waited on parked buses overnight before being released to family or sponsors, reports NBC News. NBC News crews counted nine buses filled with children waiting in a Dallas parking lot last Tuesday night, and found several of the same buses Wednesday morning. One child’s family said he was stuck in a bus for four days.

As border apprehensions remain at high levels, the Biden administration is looking at different metrics to gauge its success on the immigration front, such as the transfer of more than 90% of children and teens from Border Patrol facilities to HHS run shelters, reports the Washington Post. “Apprehensions don’t tell the full story, and getting to zero is not a measure of success,” says Tyler Moran, one of Biden’s top immigration policy advisers.

HHS officials say they’ve placed more than 20,000 children with sponsors since Biden’s inauguration, reports CBS News. The discharge rate has increased from an average of 89 minors daily in late January, to an average of 608 minors daily last week. Still, more than 20,000 migrant children remain in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Immigration is an International Issue
Many migrants are fleeing Honduras because they aren’t receiving aid from the ruling party, which favors its own supporters, reports Reuters. The National Party, which controls the federal government and 58% of the nation’s mayor’s offices, runs a corrupt patronage system that provides aid and support for its supporters, breeding cynicism among those deprived of public benefits. Dozens of migrants told Reuters the system influenced them or their family to migrate.

Immigration Justice & Scammers
A San Francisco immigration judge quit after encountering a “soul-crushing bureaucracy” subject to the political whims of the Justice Department, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. His case exposes the pressures within a court system “subject to the changing winds of a political landscape.” William Hanrahan started the job 14 months ago hoping to “do some good,” but quickly clashed with a top-down management style, lack of discretion that leaves judges little choice but to deport people, and an uncomfortable closeness with the ICE prosecutor’s office.

Amidst rumors of new immigration laws under Biden, California lawmakers are considering a bill and an ordinance that would crack down on fraud committed against undocumented immigrants with two proposals that place limits on consultants, reports the Fresno Bee. Misrepresentation and corruption is not new or isolated. A woman in Fairfax County, Virginia, was arrested last week on charges of allegedly posing as an immigration attorney and collecting money for legal services she never provided, reports WJLA.

Detention
DHS announced plans to close detention facilities in Massachusetts and Georgia that were under federal investigation as part of an effort to improve the conditions in ICE facilities, reports The Washington Post. The Bristol County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts came under fire last year when staff used pepper balls and other harsh tactics against detainees who refused Covid testing. The Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia has been the center of a scandal involving the forced sterilizations of detained women, reports Prism. More changes to immigrant detention centers are expected to follow the decision as the Biden administration works to meet the demands of immigrant rights groups.

Legislators in New York will be introducing a bill that would prohibit county jails from entering directly into contracts with ICE or private-prisons to house immigrant detainees, reports The Nation. The Dignity Not Detention Act would also terminate existing detention contracts. The proposed legislation is part of a nation-wide effort to take on ICE and close detention centers, and mirrors legislative efforts in California and Maryland.

Teenagers are being held indefinitely at ICE-run juvenile jails for months at a time without an explanation, reports The Nation. Minors with criminal records are exempt from the 1997 Flores Agreement that sets limits for time in U.S. custody for immigrant children and teens. ICE says it detains minors in “rare circumstances” when they have been “deemed to pose a significant threat to public safety,” but advocates say some of the the detained teenagers were never convicted of a crime.

While vaccinations against Covid-19 have begun in some ICE facilities, there’s no national plan to ensure the detained population gets vaccinated, reports Roll Call. The ICE vaccination effort has remained slow in part because the agency has delegated responsibility to states, some of whom have not prioritized populations held in federal custody for the vaccine. According to ICE officials, about 20% of detainees have received at least one shot.

Art & Immigration
Across the country, artists are being inspired to create works of art that reflect the modern migrant experience:

• In Chicago, the multi-media project “Immigrant Mass’’ combines interviews with formerly detained immigrants with an original music composition. (Chicago Tribune)
• A Portland-based musician and a New York-based dance choreographer collaborated on a performance piece called “Los Delores de la Raza,” which is inspired by migrant children who were separated from their families. (OPB)
• Mexican filmmaker Fernanda Valadez’s directorial debut “Identifying Features” uses horror film tactics to portray the dangers of the migrant trail from Mexico to the U.S. (The Guardian)

Immigration Journalism
A CNN article about the “new tactics” migrants are using to evade CBP officials was criticized by journalists such as Liliana Soto and Ryan Devereaux for lacking accuracy and on-the-ground knowledge. “These ‘exclusive’ stories really make me cringe,” Liliana Soto writes on Twitter.

Follows

• DACA recipients in Long Beach won a lawsuit against the Biden administration that permits them to travel outside the U.S. and return legally. (LA Times)
• The Biden administration revoked a Trump-era proclamation that required immigrants to prove they could get qualifying health insurance within 30 days of arriving in the United States or prove they had the resources to cover medical costs. (Politico)
• Arizona will spend $200 million in taxpayer money by 2022 to cover the expenses of a lawsuit that determined former Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s immigration patrols engaged in racial profiling. (AP)
• Google led a coalition of tech companies in filing a “friend of the court” document expressing their support for continuing to give work authorization to the spouses of workers with H-1B visas. (ABC News)
• On Tuesday, the House passed a hate crime bill to address incidents against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. (LA Times)
• A federal program that provides mental health counseling for migrant families separated under the Trump administration’s family separation policy may end in July. (LA Times)
• According to a federal court filing, the parents of 391 migrant children separated at the border under the Trump administration still have not been found. (CNN)
• Migrant children waiting in Tijuana are being offered a respite from their chaotic lives at the Canyon School, which offers classes to children from asylum-seeking families who were expelled from the United States. (San Diego Union-Tribune)

Jobs, Fellowships & Awards

• Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News
• Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021

Jobs, Fellowships & Awards

• Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News
• Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021

Immigration Resources & Opportunities

Coronavirus Resources

• Immigrants in COVID America documents the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. (Immigrant History Research Center)
• Database of more than 200 COVID relief funds that are accessible to refugees and other immigrants, including without legal status. (IRAP)
• Updates on immigration developments during COVID-19 (Center for Migration Studies)
• Map of detention centers tracking coronavirus outbreaks (Freedom for Immigrants)
• COVID-19 resources for undocumented immigrants (UndocuScholars)
• Database of likely deportation flights during the pandemic (Center for Economic and Policy Research)
• Informed Immigrant is an online resource that provides information for undocumented immigrant communities in the U.S. during the coronavirus.

Recently released immigration books and films(got one, send it over)

• Driving while Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block (April 2021)
• A Nation of Immigrants, second edition, by Susan F. Martin (March 2021)
• Faces of Courage: Ten Years of Building Sanctuary photography by Harvey Finkle (2021)
• The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz (January 2021)
• Futbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties by David Trouille (January 2021)
• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau (September 2020)
• Next Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah argues climate change migration is a solution rather than a crisis. (August 2020)
• Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato. (September 2020)
• Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero (August 2020)
• 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall by DW Gibson covers the repercussions of the wall in San Diego. (July 2020)
• “USA V Scott” a documentary that depicts the moral dilemma facing Arizona residents, who must decide whether or not to help desperate migrants they come across, using the case of activist Scott Warren as a case study.
• The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants by Adam Goodman. The book examines how public officials have used different forms of deportations and expulsion “to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.” (June 2020)
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang, chronicles the major changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century and their profound impact on immigrant families including her own. (May 2020)
• The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond by John Washington. The book takes an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s attack on asylum, told through the story of one Salvadoran dad, Arnovis. (May 2020)
• Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation, by anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink, chronicles deportation from the perspectives of Indigenous youth who migrate unaccompanied from Guatemala. (April 2020)

Reporting Initiatives about Immigrant Communities

• Borderless: a non-profit online magazine reimagining coverage of the immigration system.
• Documented: a non-profit news site covering immigrants in New York.
• Ethnic Media Services: organization that works with ethnic media organizations to improve coverage and reach.
• Feet In Two Worlds: project that tells immigrant stories and provides fellowships for immigrant journalists.
• Finding American: a collaboration between documentary photographer Colin Boyd Shafer and immigrants to feature their stories.
• The Immigrant Story: a project between journalists, photographers, graphic designers and developers to document and archive immigrants’ stories.
• ImmPrint: an online publication by and for people affected by immigrant detention.
• New Michigan Media: a network of ethnic and minority media across the state of Michigan.
• Newest Americans: a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories of the immigrant and immigrant communities in Newark, NJ.
• Refugees (Santa Fe Dreamers Project): a collection of testimonies from asylum seekers in partnership with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

Newsletters, Podcasts, & Facebook Groups

• Port of Entry is a podcast about cross-border stories that connect us. Border people often inhabit this in-between place. From KPBS and PRX, “Port of Entry” tells personal stories from this place.
• Routed Magazine curates a bi-monthly newsletter on news in migration and mobility.
• Immigrant & Democracy from Harvard University’s immigration initiative.
• Detention Dispatches by Capital & Main follows the conditions in ICE detention centers during the pandemic.
• In The Thick podcast covers the coronavirus impact on immigrant communities from Chelsea, MA to the Bronx, New York.
• Nuestro South is a podcast exploring the experiences of Latinx people in the U.S. south.
• Salvadoran investigative media outlet El Faro has launched an English-language newsletter with reporting from Central America.
• ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? Podcast tells stories of Latino life “from the homeland to the heartland.”
• Frontera Dispatch is a weekly newsletter by the Hope Border Institute on news and analysis from the border.
• BIB Daily Edition is a free aggregation of “inside immigration news” (court cases, new regulations and the like) and “outside news” (culled from the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media).
• Center for Migration Studies Migration Update is a weekly digest of news, faith reflections, and analysis of international migration and refugee protection.
• Migration Information Source from the Migration Policy Institute offers a series of newsletters.
• Documented NY’s Early Arrival newsletter aggregates information on immigration in New York and nationally.
• Politico’s Morning Shift newsletter: a daily read on employment and immigration.
• Tempest Tossed, a podcast with “conversations on immigration and refugees that go beyond the predictable soundbites.”
• Displaced, a podcast from the International Rescue Committee.
• A is for America America’s Voice discusses immigrant politics and organizing.
• Only in America National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.

Curriculum & Campaigns

• Doctors for Immigrants released a toolkit to welcome and protect immigrants within the healthcare system.
• We Have Rights is a campaign to educate immigrants about rights in encounters with ICE
• Ecologies of Migrant Care has collected nearly 100 interviews with migrants, activists, academics and other immigration experts to shed light on the reasons why Central Americans flee and detail the networks that have developed to help them along their journey.
• Moving Stories is an app and curriculum to capture and share immigrant stories.
• Re-imagining Migration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
• The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Freedom for Immigrants publishes an Immigration Detention Syllabus

Reporting resources, tools and tips

• Higher Ed Immigration Portal: A new digital platform that integrates data, policies, and resources about DACA and undocumented, other immigrant, international, and refugee students.
• Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (Migration Policy Institute)
• The Immigrant Defense project created a style guide for journalists reporting on immigration.
• Digital First Responders: A database, report, and case study of how immigrant news outlets are innovating to serve their communities. (Center for Community Media).
• Journalists who have been targeted for their work can send incident reports through the online platform of Press Freedom Tracker.
• No Refuge from Council on Foreign Relations’ InfoGuide series, includes an interactive map of origin and destination countries for refugees, and policy options that can help refugees and support host states.
• Covering Immigration Enforcement webinar from Poynter with Marshall Project contributing writer Julia Preston.
• Tools for covering ICE from the Columbia Journalism Review
• Migration Reporting Resources (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
• Resources for Investigating Visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
• Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by Angilee Shah.

If there’s a story or immigration-related opportunity you think we should consider, please send us an email.

*Daniela Gerson is a co-founder and the editor of Migratory Notes. She is an assistant professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge, Previously she was a senior fellow at the Center for Community Media (CCM); community engagement editor at the LA Times; editor of the trilingual Alhambra Source; and immigration reporter for the New York Sun. She has reported for WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, The New York Times, among other outlets. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson

*Elizabeth Aguilera is co-founder and executive editor of Migratory Notes. She is a multimedia reporter for CalMatters where she co-hosts the new political podcast California State of Mind and covers the health and welfare of California’s next generation. Previously she covered health care and social services, including immigration for the digital outlet. Before joining CalMatters Aguilera reported on community health for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and worked for the Denver Post covering urban affairs and immigration. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera

*Anna-Cat Brigida is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. She is a freelance reporter covering immigration and human rights in Mexico and Central America. She began covering immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg and later moved to Central America to work as a reporter. She has covered the region since 2015 and has been based in El Salvador since January 2018. She has also worked as a Spanish-language writer for Fusion out of the Mexico City office. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Univision, LA Times, and Al Jazeera, among others. You can find her on Twitter @AnnaCat_Brigida

*Paco Alvarez is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. He is a writer based in Chicago. Previously, he was a Fall 2020 Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau where he covered the 2020 elections and political participation in immigrant communities. His work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago and South Side Weekly. You can find him on Twitter @pacvarez

*Yana Kunichoff is a special projects editor for Migratory Notes. She currently covers public education for Chalkbeat Chicago. She was project manager for Migrahack 2016 in Chicago. She has also produced feature-length documentaries and a pop-culture web series for Scrappers Film Group; worked as a fellow with City Bureau, where she won a March 2016 Sidney Hillman award for an investigation into fatal police shootings; and covered race and poverty issues for the Chicago Reporter. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard and Chicago magazine among others. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure

*Migratory Notes Advisory Board: Daniel Connolly, Maria Kari, Dan Kowalski, Paola Marizán, Mirta Ojito, Roberto Suro, Phuong Ly, Fernanda Santos

Migratory Notes 213 was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Know someone who might like Migratory Notes? Please help us spread the word: Here’s the subscribe form and here’s an archive on Medium. Got a story or an immigration-related resource or opportunity we should know about? Send it on!

#MustReads
Since 2018, “shadowy figures who traffic in disinformation and exploit social media to take advantage of migrants” have organized more than a dozens caravans, advertising on WhatsApp and Facebook, reports Rest of World. Over six months, Jeff Ernst followed two migrant caravans. “No one ever asked the organizers to identify themselves,” Ernst writes. “Migrants, worried about kidnapping or extortion, advise their peers to avoid sharing personal information. This anonymity creates a climate of suspicion and lawlessness that is easily exploited. Xenophobes pop in and out of WhatsApp groups to insult and disparage Hondurans.” Both caravans failed within a few days — the organizers led migrants astray, TV crews followed them day and night, and ultimately Guatemalan security forces stopped them.

The 2020 Census results revealed the slowest U.S. population growth since the Great Depression, and some policy experts are advocating immigration reform to combat the long-term socioeconomic impacts of a slow growth rate, reports Roll Call. Without changes, the U.S. could face “devastating consequences,” including a depletion of Social Security funds, decreased tax revenue from working-age adults, and labor shortages. Immigration responses include increasing the number of H-1B visas available and creating geographically tied “heartland visas” to target rural areas.

Migrant Children Facilities
The Biden administration is housing about 21,000 children and teens in an “opaque network” of 200 facilities that spans two dozen states and includes five shelters with more than 1,000 children each, according to confidential documents, reports AP. Several practices at the facilities are similar to those that Biden criticized under the Trump administration, including insufficient vetting of caregivers and the use of facilities facing abuse lawsuits. At two California sites more than 60 migrant youth have tested positive for COVID, including 55 at the Long Beach Convention Center, reports ABC News.

Despite these problems, “the migrant children are far better cared for at the new facilities, operated by the Department of Health and Human Services, than they were at crammed jails run by the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, according to administration officials,” reports The New York Times. Health and Human Services projections obtained by the Times predict the agency will need more than $8 billion for the 2021 fiscal year to house migrant youth. Meanwhile, it is taking about a month on average to move to transfer them from government facilities to family members or sponsors in the U.S.

Rapid Expulsions
Since Biden took office, Border Patrol agents have encountered more than 2,100 migrant children who were previously expelled from the United States with their families under Title 42, a public health policy that sends most migrants back to Mexico but currently exempts unaccompanied minors, reports CBS News. The children are believed to have voluntarily left their families to seek asylum by themselves.

Vice President Kamala Harris has remained silent on opening the border, despite before the election accusing Trump of violating federal law for citing the pandemic to effectively seal the border, reports Politico. Harris’s silence illuminates the bind that the Biden administration has faced upon taking office: Quickly reversing Trump’s policies “can create an abundance of political headaches and contribute to a host of other problems, including trying to process and house a record number of unaccompanied children crossing the southern border.”

Border Crossings
Migrants are taking more dangerous paths to get into the U.S., partially as a result of the border wall, stepped up enforcement and the U.S.’s policy of quickly expelling immigrants to Mexico, reports The Wall Street Journal. Mostly single adults are turning to remote desert and mountain crossings, or traveling on overcrowded boats or railcars. At least 16 migrants have been killed in accidents near the border since March, officials say. The number of single adults apprehended crossing the border soared to over 111,000 in April, the highest monthly total in over a decade, reports The Washington Post.

Biden Administration
Representative Henry Cuellar (D-TX) of Laredo, Texas, a border town, has become one of Biden’s harshest critics from within his party on his handling of the border, reports USA Today. “Listen to the people. Listen to the ranchers. Listen to the NGOs. It’s not only the immigration activist, but you got to listen to border communities,” says Cuellar.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas faces the daunting task of “managing a broken immigration system through a mix of empathy and law enforcement,” and striking the right balance has proven challenging so far, reports TIME in a profile. His actions to date have mixed his background as a prosecutor with a “humanitarian streak.”

Immigration Reform
A recent poll showed that 70% of respondents think the U.S. immigration system is not working, providing some Democrats with the confidence to push forward with immigration reforms, reports The Hill. Yet much of the criticism for the current situation is being placed on the Biden administration. A Hill-HarrisX poll found that 51% of registered voters disapproved of Biden’s immigration strategy, including 83% of Republicans, 22% of Democrats and 50% of independent voters, reports The Hill. Meanwhile, thwarting bipartisan talks on immigration reform, Republican lawmakers are demanding first action at the border, reports Roll Call.

Refugees
Support for refugees is increasing in largely rural, conservative states where Trump was popular, reports NPR. Before Trump drastically reduced the refugee cap at the beginning of his first term, Idaho, Nebraska and North Dakota often ranked at the top of the nation in per capita refugee resettlements and employers now say the cuts in refugee resettlement are contributing to a labor shortage.

Courts
The Biden administration hired a slate of immigration judges originally chosen by the Trump team, several of whom were former prosecutors and counselors for ICE, reports The Hill. The Justice Department issued a statement saying the 17 hired judges all received conditional offers under the previous administration, though critics are saying the Biden administration has an obligation to fully vet the judges they hire and rebalance the court system that’s been shaped by Trump.

Indigenous immigrants who speak neither English nor Spanish often find themselves invisible if they make it into immigration courts, reports El Paso Times. Despite a Clinton-era executive order obligating federal agencies to have a system in place to offer meaningful language access to asylum seekers, inter-agency discrepancies in tracking language populations means courts are sometimes unable to provide language accommodation for people who only speak Indigenous languages.

Anti-Asian Racism
Prosecutors in Georgia are seeking the death penalty and hate-crime charges against Robert Aaron Long, who killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women, reports The Washington Post. On Tuesday, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said she thinks her office will be the first to use Georgia’s new hate-crime law, passed last year in the wake of the fatal shooting of Ahmaud Arbery.

More than 6,600 hate incidents have targeted Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders since the pandemic began in the United States, with nearly a third reported in March 2021, according to Stop AAPI Hate, reports USA Today. A separate report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, found a more than 164% increase in anti-Asian hate crime reports to police in 16 major cities and jurisdictions in the first quarter of 2021 compared with last year.

DACA & Undocumented Students
A group of more than 80 DACA recipients is suing the Biden administration to respond to their applications requesting permission to leave the country to study abroad under a special provision, reports the LA Times. The case could pave the way to citizenship for DACA recipients.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration reversed a Trump-era guidance that declined federal pandemic assistance to undocumented college students, reports CBS News. Undocumented students, including those with and without DACA, refugees, international students and asylum-seekers will now be eligible to receive federal aid allocated by Congress to Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund — approximately $74.8 billion has been allocated since March 2020.

Visas
The Biden administration is restarting an Obama-era program that allows foreign entrepreneurs to work for five years in the United States without a visa, so long as their startups attract $250,000 in U.S. venture capital, hire 10 employees, or reach other benchmarks, reports The Wall Street Journal. Obama proposed the International Entrepreneur rule three days before he left office. The Trump administration released a notice opposing the program, but never officially terminated it.

On Saturday, the State Department announced the winners of the 2022 Diversity Immigrant Visa Program, which benefits up to 55,000 people per year and allows immigrants from countries with lower levels of immigration to the U.S. to apply for visas, reports CNN. Also known as the “Green Card Lottery,” this year, the program removed Trump-era restrictions on immigration from eight countries, including Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

Border
Roma, Texas, a community of 11,000 people, has become known as an “epicenter” of migrant crossings in recent years, reports the New Yorker. Stephania Taladrid visited the town to follow the journey of some recently migrated Central Americans, and spoke to town residents about their relationship to border crossers. While some, like Sister Norma Pimentel, attempt to help newly arrived migrants and find hope in Biden’s vision of a safe and prosperous Central America, others, like constable Jayson Rivera, feel that Trump did a better job handling the border. In 2018, Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times produced a series on Roma.

Immigration Journalism
Immigration was one of the top five issues that received the most media coverage in the first 100 days of the Biden administration, particularly in outlets that skew conservative, according to a Pew Research Center study. About 20% of stories for right-leaning audience focused on immigration or the border, compared to 8% for left-leaning audiences.

Follows

• The U.S. is stopping a policy of transporting migrant families by plane from Texas to California in order to rapidly expel them. (CBS News)
• As of last Sunday, 1,906 detainees have tested positive for COVID out of the approximately 16,700 total people detained by ICE. (Mother Jones)
• Nineteen advocacy, immigration rights and healthcare groups are teaming up to pressure Congress to pass the recently reintroduced HEAL for Immigrant Families Act, which would grant lawful immigrants access to federal healthcare programs. (The Hill)
• The border wall in Calexico is being reinforced with new sheets of metal mesh, despite Biden’s halt to new border wall construction. (KPBS)
• On Friday, the Biden administration withdrew a Trump-era proposal to expand the amount and type of biometric data collected by immigration authorities. (AP)
• New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy announced a $40 million fund for undocumented immigrants and other essential workers left out of federal pandemic relief. (NJ.com)
• Freedom for Immigrants details how ICE agents haven’t been following the immigration policies enacted by the Biden administration. (The Intercept)
• A combination of Covid and restrictive Trump-era policies has slowed visa processing to a crawl, placing many immigrants who have applied for marriage-based visas in limbo. (BuzzFeed News)

Immigration Resources & Opportunities

Jobs/ Calls for Submissions

• Producer/Reporter — Race & Culture, ABC News
• Radicle Anthology Call for Submission — A new multi-media anthology for and by undocumented im/migrant voices is accepting submissions until July 16, 2021

Coronavirus Resources

• Immigrants in COVID America documents the health, economic and social impact of COVID-19. (Immigrant History Research Center)
• Database of more than 200 COVID relief funds that are accessible to refugees and other immigrants, including without legal status. (IRAP)
• Updates on immigration developments during COVID-19 (Center for Migration Studies)
• Map of detention centers tracking coronavirus outbreaks (Freedom for Immigrants)
• COVID-19 resources for undocumented immigrants (UndocuScholars)
• Database of likely deportation flights during the pandemic (Center for Economic and Policy Research)
• Informed Immigrant is an online resource that provides information for undocumented immigrant communities in the U.S. during the coronavirus.

Recently released immigration books and films (got one? Send it over)

• Driving while Brown: Sheriff Joe Arpaio versus the Latino Resistance by Terry Greene Sterling and Jude Joffe-Block (April 2021)
• A Nation of Immigrants, second edition, by Susan F. Martin (March 2021)
• Faces of Courage: Ten Years of Building Sanctuary photography by Harvey Finkle (2021)
• The Shadow of El Centro: A History of Migrant Incarceration and Solidarity by Jessica Ordaz (January 2021)
• Futbol in the Park: Immigrants, Soccer, and the Creation of Social Ties by David Trouille (January 2021)
• After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau (September 2020)
• Next Migration: The Beauty and Terror of Life on the Move by Sonia Shah argues climate change migration is a solution rather than a crisis. (August 2020)
• Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato. (September 2020)
• Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda by Jean Guerrero (August 2020)
• Separated: Inside an American Tragedy by NBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff tells the story of the long-term impact of the family separation policy on families. (July 2020)
• 14 Miles: Building the Border Wall by DW Gibson covers the repercussions of the wall in San Diego. (July 2020)
• “USA V Scott” a documentary that depicts the moral dilemma facing Arizona residents, who must decide whether or not to help desperate migrants they come across, using the case of activist Scott Warren as a case study.
• The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants by Adam Goodman. The book examines how public officials have used different forms of deportations and expulsion “to purge immigrants from the country and exert control over those who remain.” (June 2020)
• One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965 by Jia Lynn Yang, chronicles the major changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 20th century and their profound impact on immigrant families including her own. (May 2020)
• The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the US-Mexican Border and Beyond by John Washington. The book takes an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s attack on asylum, told through the story of one Salvadoran dad, Arnovis. (May 2020)
• Migranthood: Youth in a New Era of Deportation, by anthropologist Lauren Heidbrink, chronicles deportation from the perspectives of Indigenous youth who migrate unaccompanied from Guatemala. (April 2020)

Reporting Initiatives about Immigrant Communities

• Borderless: a non-profit online magazine reimagining coverage of the immigration system.
• Documented: a non-profit news site covering immigrants in New York.
• Ethnic Media Services: organization that works with ethnic media organizations to improve coverage and reach.
• Feet In Two Worlds: project that tells immigrant stories and provides fellowships for immigrant journalists.
• Finding American: a collaboration between documentary photographer Colin Boyd Shafer and immigrants to feature their stories.
• The Immigrant Story: a project between journalists, photographers, graphic designers and developers to document and archive immigrants’ stories.
• ImmPrint: an online publication by and for people affected by immigrant detention.
• New Michigan Media: a network of ethnic and minority media across the state of Michigan.
• Newest Americans: a multimedia collaboration between journalists, media-makers, artists, faculty and students telling the stories of the immigrant and immigrant communities in Newark, NJ.
• Refugees (Santa Fe Dreamers Project): a collection of testimonies from asylum seekers in partnership with the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center.

Newsletters, Podcasts, & Facebook Groups

• Port of Entry is a podcast about cross-border stories that connect us. Border people often inhabit this in-between place. From KPBS and PRX, “Port of Entry” tells personal stories from this place.
• Routed Magazine curates a bi-monthly newsletter on news in migration and mobility.
• Immigrant & Democracy from Harvard University’s immigration initiative.
• Detention Dispatches by Capital & Main follows the conditions in ICE detention centers during the pandemic.
• In The Thick podcast covers the coronavirus impact on immigrant communities from Chelsea, MA to the Bronx, New York.
• Nuestro South is a podcast exploring the experiences of Latinx people in the U.S. south.
• Salvadoran investigative media outlet El Faro has launched an English-language newsletter with reporting from Central America.
• ¿Qué Pasa, Midwest? Podcast tells stories of Latino life “from the homeland to the heartland.”
• Frontera Dispatch is a weekly newsletter by the Hope Border Institute on news and analysis from the border.
• BIB Daily Edition is a free aggregation of “inside immigration news” (court cases, new regulations and the like) and “outside news” (culled from the mainstream and not-so-mainstream media).
• Center for Migration Studies Migration Update is a weekly digest of news, faith reflections, and analysis of international migration and refugee protection.
• Migration Information Source from the Migration Policy Institute offers a series of newsletters.
• Documented NY’s Early Arrival newsletter aggregates information on immigration in New York and nationally.
• Politico’s Morning Shift newsletter: a daily read on employment and immigration.
• Tempest Tossed, a podcast with “conversations on immigration and refugees that go beyond the predictable soundbites.”
• Displaced, a podcast from the International Rescue Committee.
• A is for America America’s Voice discusses immigrant politics and organizing.
• Only in America National Immigration Forum’s podcast about the people behind immigration issues.

Curriculum & Campaigns

• Doctors for Immigrants released a toolkit to welcome and protect immigrants within the healthcare system.
• We Have Rights is a campaign to educate immigrants about rights in encounters with ICE
• Ecologies of Migrant Care has collected nearly 100 interviews with migrants, activists, academics and other immigration experts to shed light on the reasons why Central Americans flee and detail the networks that have developed to help them along their journey.
• Moving Stories is an app and curriculum to capture and share immigrant stories.
• Re-imagining Migration has resources and lessons to teach about migration, immigration, refugees, and civic empowerment through history, literature, and the sciences
• The Advocates for Human Rights and the Immigration History Research Center at UMN free curriculum that helps students learn about U.S. immigration through personal narratives: Teaching Immigration with the Immigrant Stories Project
• Freedom for Immigrants publishes an Immigration Detention Syllabus

Reporting resources, tools and tips

• Higher Ed Immigration Portal: A new digital platform that integrates data, policies, and resources about DACA and undocumented, other immigrant, international, and refugee students.
• Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States (Migration Policy Institute)
• The Immigrant Defense project created a style guide for journalists reporting on immigration.
• Digital First Responders: A database, report, and case study of how immigrant news outlets are innovating to serve their communities. (Center for Community Media).
• Journalists who have been targeted for their work can send incident reports through the online platform of Press Freedom Tracker.
• No Refuge from Council on Foreign Relations’ InfoGuide series, includes an interactive map of origin and destination countries for refugees, and policy options that can help refugees and support host states.
• Covering Immigration Enforcement webinar from Poynter with Marshall Project contributing writer Julia Preston.
• Tools for covering ICE from the Columbia Journalism Review
• Migration Reporting Resources (Global Investigative Journalism Network)
• Resources for Investigating Visas (Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting)
• Reporting on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Immigrants (90 Days, 90 Voices)
• Immigration Data Resources: An extensive, and growing, list of immigration resources curated by Angilee Shah.

If there’s a story you think we should consider, please send us an email.

*Daniela Gerson is a co-founder and the editor of Migratory Notes. She is an assistant professor of Journalism at California State University, Northridge, Previously she was a senior fellow at the Center for Community Media (CCM); community engagement editor at the LA Times; editor of the trilingual Alhambra Source; and immigration reporter for the New York Sun. She has reported for WNYC: New York Public Radio, The World, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, CNN, The New York Times, among other outlets. You can find her on Twitter @dhgerson

*Elizabeth Aguilera is co-founder and executive editor of Migratory Notes. She is a multimedia reporter for CalMatters where she co-hosts the new political podcast California State of Mind and covers the health and welfare of California’s next generation. Previously she covered health care and social services, including immigration for the digital outlet. Before joining CalMatters Aguilera reported on community health for Southern California Public Radio. She’s also reported on immigration for the San Diego Union-Tribune, where she won a Best of the West award for her work on sex trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico; and worked for the Denver Post covering urban affairs and immigration. You can find her on Twitter @1eaguilera

*Anna-Cat Brigida is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. She is a freelance reporter covering immigration and human rights in Mexico and Central America. She began covering immigration as a journalism student at USC Annenberg and later moved to Central America to work as a reporter. She has covered the region since 2015 and has been based in El Salvador since January 2018. She has also worked as a Spanish-language writer for Fusion out of the Mexico City office. Her work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Univision, LA Times, and Al Jazeera, among others. You can find her on Twitter @AnnaCat_Brigida

*Paco Alvarez is a staff writer for Migratory Notes. He is a writer based in Chicago. Previously, he was a Fall 2020 Civic Reporting Fellow for City Bureau where he covered the 2020 elections and political participation in immigrant communities. His work has appeared in the Chicago Reader, Block Club Chicago and South Side Weekly. You can find him on Twitter @pacvarez

*Yana Kunichoff is a special projects editor for Migratory Notes. She currently covers public education for Chalkbeat Chicago. She was project manager for Migrahack 2016 in Chicago. She has also produced feature-length documentaries and a pop-culture web series for Scrappers Film Group; worked as a fellow with City Bureau, where she won a March 2016 Sidney Hillman award for an investigation into fatal police shootings; and covered race and poverty issues for the Chicago Reporter. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Pacific Standard and Chicago magazine among others. You can find her on Twitter @yanazure

*Migratory Notes Advisory Board: Daniel Connolly, Maria Kari, Dan Kowalski, Paola Marizán, Mirta Ojito, Roberto Suro, Phuong Ly, Fernanda Santos

Migratory Notes 212 was originally published in Migratory Notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.