The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday left in place a lower court opinion upholding one of California’s sanctuary laws “that limits cooperation between law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, a measure that the Trump administration says is meant to “undermine” federal immigration enforcement,” CNN reported.

The California law “prohibits state officials from telling federal ones when undocumented immigrants are to be released from state custody and restricts transfers of immigrants in state custody to federal immigration authorities,” wrote Adam Liptak in the New York Times.

The Trump Administration sued California in 2018 in federal court, “accusing the state of unlawfully obstructing enforcement of federal immigration law and saying the measures violate the U.S. Constitution’s provision that federal laws take precedence over state laws,” noted Ted Hesson of Reuters.

“The case, which would have been heard next fall or winter, raised the broad issue of whether state and local governments can effectively provide sanctuary to undocumented immigrants threatened with arrest or deportation,” wrote USA Today’s Richard Wolf.

June 20 marks World Refugee Day.

As the Trump Administration continues its draconian efforts to shut America’s doors to refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is hosting virtual World Refugee Day events. Click here for more details (link).

The United Nations General Assembly launched World Refugee Day in 2000.

The Trump administration “continues to advance its policies to restrict legal immigration, halting the flow of foreign workers and raising the bar for asylum seekers hoping for sanctuary,” report Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman in the New York Times.

They report that administration officials last week “proposed a fallback for when they need to lift “emergency” border closure rules for the coronavirus, proposing regulations that would raise the standard of proof for migrants hoping to obtain asylum and allow immigration judges to deny applications for protection without giving migrants an opportunity to testify in court.”

The proposal would make it harder for immigrants to claim asylum in the U.S., even after the COVID-19 pandemic, writes Julia Ainsley for NBC News.

“If enacted after a public comment period, the rule would allow immigration judges to throw out asylum cases before holding a hearing,” she reported.

Critics say the proposed changes “are so severe that they would effectively shut down the asylum system in this country,” NPR reported.

The draft regulations are available here.

In a recent article for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Robert Patrick details how refugees are adjusting to life in the city during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Patrick focuses on the International Institute of St. Louis, which works with refugees in St. Louis.

“The institute, which has helped tens of thousands of immigrants resettle in the area over the last 100 years, closed its offices March 16 to visitors and switched to providing services remotely whenever possible,” Patrick reported.

“But the staff still had to pick up people at the airport and stock apartments with furniture and culturally appropriate food.”

It has been a challenge to tell new refugee arrivals to self-isolate and difficult emotionally for them not to explore and to delay “that feeling of home,” according to the institute’s senior vice president for programs, Blake Hamilton.

The COVID-19 pandemic “has created new turmoil for refugees who have escaped war and persecution to resettle in the Chicago region,” writes Katlyn Smith in the Chicago Daily Herald.

Many refugees in Chicago are on the front lines of the pandemic, working as certified nursing assistants or helping manufacture medical supplies, Susan Sperry, regional director for World Relief in the Chicago area, told the Chicago Tribune.

“Jims Porter, spokesman for RefugeeOne, a refugee resettlement agency in Chicago, said the organization’s main concern has been collecting emergency funds for those losing their income. RefugeeOne staff members have been working to help refugees file for unemployment, he said, and have been checking in with each family once a week,” write Elvia Malagon and Nausheen Husain.

Refugee women make masks

Chicago’s WGN recently reported dozens of refugee women in Chicago “have been turning scraps of fabric into masks and gifting them to others, but with a common thread.”

All of the women making masks aregraduates of the RefugeeOne service in Chicago.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, “border closures, suspended asylum programs, interruptions in global transportation and stay-at-home lockdowns have drastically curbed migration around the world, particularly from poorer nations to rich ones,” reports Kirk Semple in the New York Times.

“The pandemic has essentially — not absolutely, but essentially — stopped international migration and mobility dead in its tracks,” said Demetrios G. Papademetriou, co-founder and president emeritus of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, said in the article.

Indeed, in some places, “migratory flows have seemingly made a U-turn, as migrants no longer able to earn a living abroad have decided to return home, even if their home countries are mired in political conflict and economic ruin,” Semple writes.

In a May 1 Op-Ed published in the Houston Chronicle, a group of faith leaders suggest that stimulus check recipients “consider donating their stimulus to an especially needy group — our refugee neighbors.”

As faith leaders, “we have been approached by some of our congregants who are fortunate not to need the stimulus payment. They are comfortably employed or retired. They have ample savings. They see the stimulus payment as a tax policy whose benefit they would prefer to share with those truly in need,” wrote Rt. Rev. C. Andrew Doyle, Rabbi Oren J. Hayon, Sheikh Joe Bradford and Venerable Hung-I.

“We would like to propose that those in this situation consider donating their stimulus to an especially needy group — our refugee neighbors,” the faith leaders wrote.

The White House’s curbing of immigration to the U.S. in response to the COVID-19 pandemic “was in large part repurposed from old draft executive orders and policy discussions that have taken place repeatedly since Mr. Trump took office and have now gained new legitimacy,” the New York Times reported on May 3.

The story puts Miller’s efforts in a disturbing historical context. “The idea that immigrants carry infections into the country echoes a racist notion with a long history in the United States that associates minorities with disease.”

Refugees fleeing the effects of the climate crisis “cannot be forced to return home by their adoptive countries, a United Nations panel has ruled, in a landmark decision that could open the door to a flood of legal claims by displaced people around the world,” CNN reported on Jan. 20.

The UN Human Rights Committee’s decision centers around Ioane Teitiota, whose asylum application in New Zealand was denied in 2015. He was then deported with his wife and children to his home country of Kiribati. He filed a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee, arguing that by deporting him, New Zealand had violated his right to life.

The Committee noted that Teitiota argued that the rise in sea level and other effects of climate change had rendered Kiribati uninhabitable for all its residents. Violent land disputes occurred because habitable land was becoming increasingly scarce. Environmental degradation made subsistence farming difficult, and the freshwater supply was contaminated by salt water.

The Committee determined that in Teitiota’s specific case, New Zealand’s courts did not violate his right to life at the time of the facts, because the thorough and careful evaluation of his testimony and other available information led to the determination that, despite the serious situation in Kiribati, sufficient protection measures were put in place.

“Nevertheless,” said Committee expert Yuval Shany, “this ruling sets forth new standards that could facilitate the success of future climate change-related asylum claims.”

The Committee also clarified that individuals seeking asylum status are not required to prove that they would face imminent harm if returned to their countries. The Committee reasoned that climate change-induced harm can occur both through sudden-onset events (such as intense storms and flooding), and slow-onset processes (such as sea level rise, salinization and land degradation). Both sudden-onset events and slow-onset processes can prompt individuals to cross borders to seek protection from climate change-related harm.

The ruling is available here.

U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte recently “blocked a directive by President Donald Trump that would allow states and local governments to reject the resettlement of refugees in their communities” (CBS News, Jan. 15).

Messitte said the executive order “does not appear to serve the overall public interest,” NPR reported.

The judge’s ruling followed a hearing on January 8, during which plaintiffs’ attorneys, lawyers at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), argued that the order violated federal law and is causing irreparable harm to the resettlement agencies and the refugees they have been tasked with assisting in rebuilding their lives in the United States, refugee advocacy group HIAS noted in a news release.

Prior to the ruling, governors from several states said that they would continue to accept refugees. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott proved to be the exception, saying his state would not accept new refugees in 2020.

Messitte’s opinion is available here.