The working-age immigrant population has bounced back to reach trends from before the pandemic, and "that’s great news not just for inflation, but for growth, labour force mobility and entrepreneurship," Rana Foroohar of the Financial Times writes.

Her quote from Apollo chief economist Torsten Sløk stands out: " ‘[I]mmigration is a key reason that the U.S. labour market is gradually moving from very overheated to less overheated. The fact that immigration is now moving to levels above 2019 is going to be very positive for the labour market, and for the Fed’s inflation challenge.’ "

Speaking of the labor (with or without "U") market, Rachel M. Cohen of Vox analyzes how immigration could address some of the many distinct crises related to child care in the U.S. "Expanding immigration could bring down the cost of child care for families by increasing the supply of workers and help more moms work in the labor market," she writes.

Child care advocates’ caveat is that policies also should counter exploitation and promote fair wages. The Migration Policy Institute is out with a new study that sounds this theme as well: "[I]mmigrant admissions need to be accompanied by integration supports, and international recruitment strategies should not come at the cost of investing in local workers and exploring ways to make hard-to-fill jobs more competitive."

Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP, and today’s great Forum Daily team also includes Clara Villatoro and Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].

FLORIDA LEGISLATION — There’s lots of good new content from the past few days on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) immigration proposals:

In an Orlando Sentinel op-ed, the Rev. Gabriel Salguero of Orlando and Myal Greene, president and CEO of World Relief, write of one proposal’s threat to religious liberty and cite the support of "roughly four in five Floridian evangelicals" for federal immigration reforms.
Florida Catholics also are raising religious liberty concerns, Kate Scanlon of OSV News reports.
"Imagine the impact that a law like this would have on people of good will involved in some way in the lives of young undocumented immigrants," Tim Miller writes in The xxxxxx.
In The Guardian, Miami correspondent Richard Luscombe writes about DeSantis’ plan to nationalize the policies.

FEELINGS ON IMMIGRATION — Our recent polling shows support for immigrant welcome and targeted border and immigration reforms, as our policy expert Alexandra Villareal writes in an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News: "The American people still want immigrants in this country. We just want order, and we want bipartisan efforts from our representatives to provide it."

DARIÉN GAP — "People are the new commodity for cartels," writes a team at CNN that made the nearly 70-mile journey across the Darién Gap in Panama, among the most dangerous migrant routes in the world. The accompanying visuals alone are worth a few minutes of your time. Meanwhile, as thousands of migrants from China try to reach the U.S. via the Darién Gap, Wenxin Fan and Shen Lu of The Wall Street Journal zoom in on one man’s journey.

SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION — American and Cuban officials met last week to discuss migration agreements as thousands of Cubans arrive under humanitarian parole, reports Nora Gámez Torres of the Miami Herald. "The U.S. delegation highlighted areas of successful cooperation on migration, while also identifying issues that have been obstacles to fulfilling the goals of the Accords," the State Department said in a statement.

Thanks for reading,

Dan