The U.S. Supreme Court has granted an appeal to the Trump administration’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

“The Obama-era program to protect DREAMers will get a one-hour hearing before the high court next term. The court said it would consolidate three appeals into one argument,” NPR reported on June 28.

The Supreme Court on Friday “agreed to decide whether President Donald Trump acted lawfully when he moved to end a program that protects from deportation hundreds of thousands of immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children, a key element of his hardline immigration policies,” Reuters reported.

Under the headline, “Trump vs. ‘Dreamers’: Supreme Court to decide on DACA during the election year,” Los Angeles Times reporter David Savage wrote that the high court will “hear arguments in the fall over whether the administration has the authority to “wind down” the program, which suspended deportation for these young immigrants who were brought into the country as children.”

The New York Times reported that the court “will probably issue its decision in the spring or summer of 2020, ensuring a fierce immigration debate over the outcome in the midst of the presidential campaign.”

A four month old baby was taken from his parents at the U.S.-Mexico border and the parents had no idea where he wound up, the New York Times reports.

As a parent, I can’t imagine how horrific this was for the mother and father.

While they were ultimately reunited, it’s clear from the story that the child has suffered emotional and developmental damage.

In a recent article for the New York Times, Melissa Vida reports that in the wake of President Trump’s crackdown on migrants trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, Central American migrants are increasingly seeking refuge in Europe.

Vida reports that the number seeking asylum in Europe has increased nearly 4,000 percent in the last decade “and the rate of arrivals is accelerating. Nearly 7,800 applied for asylum in Europe last year, up from 4,835 in 2017.”

The distance “may be greater, but many have found that the journey to Europe is safer and much cheaper than paying smugglers to get through Mexico to the United States,” writes Vida.

A software program called “Annie” utilizes machine learning in order to place refugees in U.S. cities where they are most likely to be welcomed and succeed, reports Jasu Hu in the Atlantic.

In the article, “How Technology Could Revolutionize Refugee Resettlement,” Hu notes that the Annie software is named after Annie Moore, “the Irishwoman who was the first person to pass through Ellis Island.”

The software the software uses a matching algorithm to allocate refugees with no ties to the United States to their new homes,the article notes.

“Annie’s algorithm is based on a machine learning model in which a computer is fed huge piles of data from past placements, so that the program can refine its future recommendations. The system examines a series of variables—physical ailments, age, levels of education and languages spoken, for example—related to each refugee case. In other words, the software uses previous outcomes and current constraints to recommend where a refugee is most likely to succeed,” Hu writes.

The software is being utilized by HIAS, a refugee assistance nonprofit.

“Every city where HIAS has an office or an affiliate is given a score for each refugee. The higher the score, the better the match,” Hu reports.

For anyone who may have missed it, the New Yorker recently published a series of deeply reported articles on the forces that are driving migration from Guatemala these days including climate change. All three are worth a read.

Here are links to the three articles:

“How Climate Change is Fueling the U.S. Border Crisis”

“The Dream Homes of Guatemalan Migrants”

“The Epidemic of Debt Plaguing Central American Migrants”

A new report argues for refugees and the communities that host them, to have access to Internet connectivity.

“As the report makes clear, the lack of connectivity among those displaced from their homes, and often their countries, is particularly acute. Nearly half of all refugees — about 32 million people — don’t use the Internet. Those who do may not make full use of its capabilities, because of factors such as a lack of key government applications and little native language support,” writes Larry Downes, project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy, in the Washington Post.

The “Global Broadband Plan for Refugee Inclusion” analyzes “the multi-faceted context of improving connectivity for refugees. It spells out collective goals and actions necessary for progress, and identifies specific roles for governments, multilateral organizations, the private sector and NGO stakeholders.”

The project is managed by leading experts on broadband policy and practice and funded by USA for UNHCR, Tent.org, and the World Bank.

Additional information about the effort is available here.