The Forum Daily | Tuesday August 8, 2023
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THE FORUM DAILY

In three incidents during just the past few days, Mexican authorities
have found almost 900 migrants being smuggled in harsh conditions. 

Mexico's National Institute of Migration wrote in a press statement
<[link removed]>
yesterday that 126 Central American migrants were found in a tourism bus
in Veracruz. Migrants were then provided with water, food and medical
assistance and taken to immigration facilities. 

On Saturday, the same agency reported
<[link removed]>
that 265 migrants from Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras were
found overcrowded and hidden in two trucks in Oaxaca. And on Friday, the
Associated Press
<[link removed]>
reported on 491 migrants being held at a walled compound east of Mexico
City, along a route that migrant smugglers frequently use. 

At the border itself, buoy barriers in the Rio Grande, part of Gov. Greg
Abbott's (R) border security initiative, are benefiting smugglers and
raising concerns in Piedras Negras, Mexico, writes Alfredo Corchado of
The Dallas Morning News
<[link removed]>.
Recently, two deceased migrants were discovered near the barriers. The
Justice Department is pushing for their removal, citing treaty
violations. 

"We need to be better human beings, good Christians, and think of
humanity," said Sister Isabel Turcios, who manages the Casa del Migrante
shelter in Piedras Negras. "We should be talking about solutions."  

Our policy expert Alexandra Villarreal analyzes the human costs of
outsourcing asylum policy to Mexico in an opinion piece out this
morning, also in The Dallas Morning News
<[link removed]>. 

"[I]n the U.S., we must stop devising and implementing policies that -
by design - strand people in Mexico in the first place, knowing full
well the high risk of harm that awaits them there," she writes. " ...
As a nation that values human dignity, we must do better than this new
status quo of cruelty." 

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 Karime Puga, Clara Villatoro, Ashling Lee and Katie Lutz.
If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to
me at [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>. 

'INDEFINITE LIMBO' - Congress is keeping Afghan allies in what
"could be best described as an indefinite limbo," Marcela García writes
in her Boston Globe
<[link removed]>
column. In telling the story of Karim, García highlights the need for
the Afghan Adjustment Act
<[link removed]>.
"It's a shameful state of affairs when Congress can't come together
in a timely fashion to provide stability to so many Afghans who helped
American forces and sacrificed so much already," García
writes. Catherine Rampell complements the point today in The Washington
Post
<[link removed]>.  And
in the Baptist Standard
<[link removed]>,
Mike Morris, a pastor in Fort Worth, Texas, and a professor at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes on a similar
theme from a faith perspective and encourages advocacy.

ASK YOURSELF - If you were living in the conditions protesters in
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, describe to Evens Sanon of the Associated Press
<[link removed]>,
would you stay, or would you try to migrate to a safer country?  

IMMIGRATION DETENTION - Despite President Biden's campaign promise
to end profit-driven immigration detention, the administration closed
only one facility after an internal review in May 2021, report Ted
Hesson, Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke of Reuters
<[link removed]>.
And private prison companies have experienced a surge in revenues from
ICE contracts. Data analyzed by the American Civil Liberties Union
revealed that more than 90% of immigration detainees were held in
private facilities in July 2022, up from 80% during the Trump
administration.  

PROFESSIONAL LICENSES - Utah's decision to permit certain immigrant
professionals to obtain licenses has generated significant demand, with
more than 2,600 foreign-licensed individuals expressing interest,
reports Sydnee Gonzalez of KSL.com
<[link removed]>.
The move aims to provide economic opportunities and address labor
shortages, particularly in fields such as nursing.   

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

 

 

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