People across the globe understand that immigrants make their countries stronger, Charles Dunst writes for Time. Now, instead of demonizing migrants and refugees as burdens, politicians must start recognizing their benefits, too — or else economic consequences and public backlash may ensue.  

In the United States, Heidi Zapata — who arrived undocumented as a child after fleeing scarcity and violence in Nicaragua — has gone on to care for countless Americans as an infectious disease physician during the COVID-19 pandemic, as she writes in the San Francisco Chronicle.  

And Latino truck drivers continue to bring essential supplies into our communities every day — while some are calling for a halt to deliveries to Florida in the wake of the state’s new hardline immigration law, C.A. Bridges reports for the USA Today Network.  

Meanwhile, where there are not enough immigrants, Americans stand to suffer. In 2006, a pear farmer named Nick Ivicevich lamented how a backdrop of thuds around him was the sound of pears rotting off the trees in his California grove. "I waited my whole life for a crop like this," Ivicevich told Bruce Maiman. Since then, the problem has only worsened, Maiman now writes for HuffPost. 

These are but a few examples of why our conversation needs to be about more than the huddled masses gathering at the southern border, yearning for a breath of life on the other side. Let’s address the acute needs at the border and in communities receiving migrants now — together with a conversation about longer-term solutions in immigration. 

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

THE BORDER — The Biden administration attributed the drop in migrant crossings since the end of Title 42 to the "warnings to asylum-seekers and displays of immigration enforcement," a team at CNN reports. The U.S. has deported nearly 2,400 people to Mexico over the last three days, said DHS Assistant Secretary for Border and Immigration Policy Blas Nuñez-Neto. Meanwhile, glitches continue to plague the CPB One app to schedule asylum appointments, Hilary Beaumont writes for Al Jazeera.  

DIVERSE CAMP — Soumya Karlamangla of The New York Times takes a look through the fence at the diverse migrant camp between Tijuana and San Diego, including its "striking system of order." 

STEM WORKERS — More than five dozen national security experts are urging Congress for more high-skilled immigrants to compete with China, report Alison Snyder and Sophia Cai of Axios. In a letter sent to the House China Select Committee, the experts ask Congress to address "immigration bottlenecks" for international science and engineering graduate students and workers. The signatories include members of the Forum’s Council on National Security and Immigration.  

‘WE ARE ALL HUMAN’ — Local farmworker Luis Ames provides food, water and friendship to migrants held in a dirt lot at the Arizona-Mexico border, reports Sarah Lapidus of the Arizona Republic. Ames began doing so in 2021 after witnessing a crowd including pregnant women, children and the elderly who had been kept without food and water for hours. "Everything I do, I do for humanity," he said. "Because we are all human. We all feel the same, and so we have to help." 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan