The Biden administration’s official announcement is expected this week during a visit from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The program could then expand in coming years to more Indian and other foreign skilled workers on H-1B visas, Hunnicutt and Hesson note.  

The U.S. government makes 65,000 H-1B visas available each year to companies seeking skilled foreign workers. The visa lasts for three years and can be renewed for another three. Among the most active users of the program are Indian citizens, making up "73% of the nearly 442,000 H-1B workers in fiscal year 2022."  

Separately, although some sources say the U.S. is showing signs of progress in tackling visa application backlogs among Indians, the wait time remains long. The administration’s effort comes amid congressional inaction on visa policies, despite advocacy as labor shortages affect many sectors. 

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

GUARD UP — El Paso, Texas, has kept an emergency ordinance in place despite a significant drop in migrant encounters since Title 42 ended, writes Julian Resendiz of Border Report. Many other border cities have remained on alert as well. Encounters data released Tuesday show a decrease in apprehensions. Meanwhile, also at Border Report, Sandra Sanchez reports that local law enforcement agencies are receiving fewer ICE detainers under the Biden administration than under the Trump administration. 

CONCERNS IN FLORIDA — Concerns are increasing among undocumented immigrants, advocates and business owners in Florida as the July 1 implementation of a new, hardline immigration law approaches, report Ana Goñi-Lessan and John Kennedy of the USA Today Network. "Even if, say 25% of undocumented workers were to leave [because of the new law], that’s 200,000 people," explained Samuel Vilchez, Florida director of the American Business Immigration Coalition. Among a dozen immigrant workers in the Florida Panhandle, "all said their community is worried [and m]any plan to leave … if they haven’t already left," Goñi-Lessan and Kennedy report. 

OBSTACLES — Many Afghans who fled and traveled through Latin America to make it to the U.S. are trying to build a life in San Antonio despite immigration obstacles, reports Paul Flahive of Texas Public Radio. Flahive notes that about 70,000 Afghans were eligible for humanitarian parole [see our explainer here] after the 2021 evacuation, "[b]ut there was no plan for tens of thousands of others who were also threatened by the Taliban." 

‘CITIZENSHIP DISCRIMINATION’ — In recent years advocates and state lawmakers have focused on "citizenship discrimination" — jobs unavailable to legal immigrant workers — in state employment law, law professor Allison Brownell Tirres analyzes for The Washington Post. Initiatives we noted yesterday to allow DACA recipients with federal work authorization to serve as police officers are examples of efforts to change state laws, many of which have century-old roots. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan