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An agreement between the United States and Costa Rica aims to manage the region’s flow of asylum seekers by opening potential legal pathways to the U.S. for some Venezuelans and Nicaraguans already awaiting asylum in Central America, reports Javier Cordoba of the Associated Press. Costa Rica will join the initiative Movilidad Segura (Safe Mobility). The pilot program will allow eligible individuals to schedule a screening appointment to assess their candidacy for legal pathways at a Movilidad Segura office, a regional processing center. In recent years, asylum applications from Nicaraguans in Costa Rica have increased. Last year, nine out of 10 applications were from Nicaraguans, Cordoba notes. On Tuesday, Costa Rican Public Security Minister Mario Zamora and migration director Marta Vinda highlighted that only Nicaraguans and Venezuelans with pending asylum applications would be considered in the pilot program. Details about the legal pathways for the asylum seekers have not been provided. And it is unclear, how many of the 240,000 people awaiting asylum in this Central American country would be eligible to apply for U.S. immigration paths, writes Cordoba. In Guatemala Movilidad Segura was enacted on June 12, and is only available to Guatemalans and nationals under the Central American Free Mobility Agreement – El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, per the U.S. Embassy in Guatemala. Eight offices will be opened across Guatemala. The centers would be directed by the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration, per Sonia Perez D. for the Associated Press on Friday. Yesterday, a day after the launch of Movilidad Segura in Guatemala, Perez D. reported in Spanish that some of the offices were still lacking infrastructure and staff to serve the program applicants. Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Clara Villatoro, the Forum’s strategic communications manager, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Karime Puga, Ashling Lee, Keylla Ortega, Samuel Benson, Christian Blair and Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected]. MORE FUNDS — The federal government will grant $290 million to non-profit organizations helping migrants who have been processed and provisionally released, reports Sandra Sanchez of Border Report. "This money helps us breathe. This money helps the programs to stay stable and available for all the migrants who are coming through our community," says Rebecca Solloa, executive director of Catholic Charities of Laredo. FLORIDA APPEALS — A Florida appeals court heard arguments and questioned an October ruling determining that "Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration violated Florida’s public-records law last year by not properly providing documents about controversial flights of migrants from Texas to Massachusetts," reports a team of CBS Miami. In the hearing, Judge Brad Thomas repeatedly questioned what would have been a "reasonable" time to provide the records, the CBS team notes. HOTEL STAFF SHORTAGE — Despite record wages and benefits, hotels still struggle to fill jobs, reports Kathakali Nandi Hotels Magazine. To tackle this issue, Chip Rogers President and CEO of American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) called for "bipartisan solutions, including those that create opportunities for more immigrants to enter the American economy," in addition to other initiatives. STRUGGLES— Undocumented Guatemalan-Mayan immigrants in Florida fearing deportation and lack of access to medical care under SB1718 are fleeing the state, reports Wilkine Brutus of WLRN. The Guatemalan-Maya Center even launched a fundraiser to support people who decide to leave. But they are trying to inform them about the situation first with the hope they will stay in their communities. Separately, Stanford sociologist Asad L. Asad published a book about how undocumented immigrants endure institutional surveillance in their everyday lives, per Vignesh Ramachandran of Stanford News. Thanks for reading, Clara |
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