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 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 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 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. 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. 

"[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]. 

‘INDEFINITE LIMBO’ — Congress is keeping Afghan allies in what "could be best described as an indefinite limbo," Marcela García writes in her Boston Globe column. In telling the story of Karim, García highlights the need for the Afghan Adjustment Act. "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.  And in the Baptist Standard, 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, 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. 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. The move aims to provide economic opportunities and address labor shortages, particularly in fields such as nursing.   

Thanks for reading, 

Dan