Leslie Berestein Rojas|A year ago, 87 Iranian refugees bound for the United States who’d been waiting in Austria since 2016 were stranded there indefinitely, after the U.S. denied their applications. They had been waiting to come to the U.S. through a program for religious minorities since before the January 2017 travel ban. Last month, following a court order, about a dozen of them were admitted into the country.
Until about a year ago, plans were moving forward to include a category in the 2020 census referred to as MENA, for "Middle Eastern or North African." It would have allowed a more accurate count of Americans of Arabic, Persian and other Middle Eastern or North African descent, who are now counted only as "white.
While the Trump administration wants to speed up deportations, the government shutdown had the opposite effect, forcing the cancellation of thousands of hearings.
A California teen has become an outspoken advocate to preserve Temporary Protected Status, becoming the lead plaintiff in a landmark class-action lawsuit.
