News Digest: August 24, 2020

8/20/20, New York Times: Steve Bannon Is Charged With Fraud in We Build the Wall Campaign

8/20/20, New York Times: Immigrant ‘Dreamers’ in Search of a Job Are Being Turned Away

8/20/20, Immigration Impact: Cuccinelli and Wolf Were Found Ineligible to Serve at DHS. What Happens Next?

8/19/20, Courthouse News Service: Immigration Lockup Accused of Feeding Pork to Muslim Detainees

8/19/20, Immigration Impact: Asylum Seekers Face a Dangerous Journey—and United States Interference

8/18/20, New York Times: Kids Seeking Asylum Find Some Measure of It in One Makeshift School

8/18/20, New York Times: How U.S. Policy Turned the Sonoran Desert into a Graveyard for Migrants

8/18/20, Chicago Tribune: Musician Ephraim Bugumba uses his newfound TikTok fame to tell his refugee story. ‘Music became a part of my spirit.’

8/18/20, KQED: Half of All Detainees at Bakersfield ICE Facility Have Tested Positive For COVID-19

8/18/20, Public Source (PA): For more than a decade in Pittsburgh, we lived the U.S. immigration nightmare. The pandemic sealed our move to Canada.

8/17/20, Los Angeles Times: Trump and Biden on immigration: nearly opposite, but not quite

8/17/20, Des Moines Register: A week after the derecho, many struggle to find shelter for Cedar Rapids refugees

8/17/20, WLRN (FL): Marriage Punishment: U.S. Citizens Wed To Immigrants Fight For Federal Benefits Trump Denied Them

8/14/20, Texas Tribune and ProPublica: ICE guards ‘systematically’ sexually assault detainees in an El Paso detention center, lawyers say

Opinion

8/23/20, Guardian: Harsh words fly back and forth across the Channel – while refugees remain desperate

8/20/20, Guardian: People are dying in the Channel because of politicians, not smugglers

8/18/20, Tampa Bay Times: Florida’s immigrants need access to coronavirus care | Column

8/17/20, Washington Post: At Homeland Security, I saw firsthand how dangerous Trump is for America

8/17/20, CNN: Trump’s immigration restrictions would have kept me and other tech founders from coming to America

Policy Resources

Kaiser Family Foundation report: Health and Financial Risks for Noncitizen Immigrants due to the COVID-19 Pandemic

8/13/20, Rethinking Refuge: Making the Maritime Visible: Rethinking Humanitarianism at Sea

Multimedia

Today in Focus (podcast): Who are the people risking everything to cross the Channel?

Opportunities & Resources

MPI webinar: Excluding Millions: How Trump Administration Changes to the Decennial Census Could Leave Out U.S. Citizens and Immigrants

Join MPI for this timely conversation, featuring a former U.S. Census Bureau director and other top experts. Speakers will discuss how the many challenges facing the 2020 Census could affect the count and representation of immigrant communities, difficulties inherent in data matching to determine legal status, and the legal and constitutional issues surrounding the administration’s actions. August 26 at 1:30 P.M. ET. Register.

Immigration Advocates Network webinar: Investigating In-Custody Tragedies for Organizing, Advocacy, and Accountability

In this third part of the #DetentionKills training series, advocates offer an overview of the opportunities and pitfalls to investigating DHS in-custody deaths. This training will explain the parameters and timelines for both advocate and government investigations; analyze the documents to obtain; provide case studies; and discuss communications, advocacy, and the organizations’ decision to pursue these cases. The panelists are Dale Melchert from the Transgender Law Center; and Elaina Vermeulen and Trevor Kosmo from Centro Legal de La Raza. The moderator is Andrew Free, federal civil litigator.
Thu, Aug 27, 2020 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT. Register.

Switchboard webinar: Cultural Competence in Refugee Service Settings: What Does the Research Tell Us?

Refugees have unique, complex needs and strengths related to their cultural backgrounds and experiences of forced displacement and resettlement. Most of us are familiar with the term “cultural competence” and the importance of culturally appropriate services when working to support refugee clients. But providing culturally appropriate services is often complicated by unclear definitions and a lack of practical guidance. This webinar will share the findings of an original literature review on the topic of cultural competence in refugee service settings, highlighting key concepts and approaches described by refugee service providers and organizations. Sep 10, 2020 02:00 PM Eastern. Register.

Center for Migration Studies webinar: The President and Immigration Law

In a groundbreaking new book, The President and Immigration Law, Adam Cox and Cristina M. Rodríguez show how, over the course of two centuries, the president became the US immigration policymaker-in-chief. They examine how the Executive’s ordinary power to decide when to enforce the law, and against whom, has become an extraordinarily powerful vehicle for making immigration policy. Finally, they offer a blueprint for reform that accepts the role of the president in shaping the national community, while outlining strategies to curb the abuse of law enforcement in immigration and beyond. Please join the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) for an interactive, virtual event on the need to rethink the role of the president in US immigration policymaking. September 16, 2020 1:00 pm Eastern. Register.

2020 Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative Virtual Conference

The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) and the University of Notre Dame will hold the 2020 Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative Conference on Thursday, October 1 and Friday, October 2, 2020. Out of an abundance of caution for all who would like to participate, this year’s conference will take place virtually. This annual event is part of CMS’s Catholic Immigrant Integration Initiative (CIII) which seeks to understand, expand and strengthen the work of Catholic institutions with immigrant communities. Agenda and speakers recently announced. Learn more and register.