A bus from Brownsville, Texas, arrived in Los Angeles Thursday carrying 30 migrants. It was the third bus sent to California by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), report Jack Herrera, Nathan Solis, Raul Roa and Irfan Khan for the Los Angeles Times.  

Volunteers with the LA Welcomes Collective, a network of nonprofit, faith and immigration groups, greeted the bus. "We are committed to continuing to welcome all people with dignity, and if that means somebody putting them on a bus to their final destination, where they have family and friends, we will continue to support and welcome them," said Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance. 

Jozef’s group has worked in Texas to ensure that migrants are consenting to their transport and have enough food and water for the trips, and in California to make sure city officials and local organizations are prepared for migrants to arrive. 

Texas has sent 118 migrants to California since last month — and 22,000 to large cities elsewhere, including New York and Chicago.  

Writing in The Dallas Morning News on Wednesday, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council had an interesting suggestion: creating a federal office to help migrants and the communities that receive them. 

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

WORKFORCE — New York City needs workers. Thousands of asylum seekers have arrived in the past several months and could fill those jobs, but work permits are still a hurdle, report Daniela Sirtori-Cortina and Augusta Saraiva of Bloomberg. Different business sectors have supported a petition to the federal government to expedite work permits for asylum seekers to tackle labor shortages. And economists say cities will benefit from migrants’ arrival, Christopher Maag and Raúl Vilchis of The New York Times report.  

LETHAL COMBINATION — Experts say recent triple-digit temperatures alone are not why migrants have died trying to reach the U.S. — deterrence policies and physical infrastructure are also to blame, Jose Ignacio Castaneda Perez reports in The Arizona Republic. Walls and other barriers lead to added physical exertion, researchers report. "That's just a recipe for death. It's just going to make the journey that much more difficult," said Brad Jones, professor at the University of California and volunteer with Arizona nonprofit Humane Borders. 

RACIAL BIAS CONCERNS — Advocates say Black immigrants in Ohio’s immigration court system, particularly from Mauritania, face racial bias, reports Danae King of The Columbus Dispatch. Many immigration judges have been denying their asylum claims, despite evidence of torture scars and solid, legitimate cases, according to advocates. Judges are being criticized for questioning the credibility of Black asylum seekers and displaying a lack of understanding of trauma and cultural differences. 

‘BRAVE AND SMART’ — Our hearts go out to the family of Ahmad Yar, who was fatally shot in Washington, D.C., last week. Ahmad was an Afghan interpreter for U.S. Special Forces and was starting to build a new life in the U.S. Friends and colleagues described Yar as "brave and smart and always happy," writes Susan Svrluga of The Washington Post. 

This week in local welcome: 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan