The Forum Daily | Thursday, August 10, 2023
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THE FORUM DAILY

Good news: the increase in refugee resettlement seems to be sticking
around. For the fifth consecutive month, the U.S. resettled more than
6,000 refugees - monthly numbers we haven't seen in years.

The latest numbers <[link removed]>
show 6,468 people resettled in July, bringing the total this fiscal year
(since last Oct. 1) to 45,123. The number is already the highest since
2017, and nearly matches the number of refugees resettled from 2020-2022
combined (48,690).

That's real improvement for a resettlement system that had been
decimated. But we still have a ways to go before the annual "ceiling" of
125,000 comes into view.   

We're pausing the Daily on Fridays this month, so we'll be back
Monday. 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 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]>.

**BUILDING WOES -** Crackdowns on immigration and worker protections
are exacerbating labor shortages in construction, reports Patrick Sisson
of BisNow
<[link removed]>.
"Many members of the construction industry
<[link removed]>,
desperate for skilled labor, have called for immigration reform that
allows for status and more temporary visas, joining industries
nationwide clamoring for more workers
<[link removed]>,"
Sisson writes. Labor shortages and potential immigration solutions also
were a focus of a Nebraska congressional summit, Andrew Wegley of the
Lincoln Journal Star
<[link removed]>
reports.

** **

**IMPERILED -** The Afghan Adjustment Act remains stalled in Congress,
leaving thousands of Afghans in limbo, Forum Senior Fellow Linda Chávez
writes in The xxxxxx
<[link removed]>.
"The failure to act [on the bill] imperils not only these brave
individuals but the United States' ability to earn the trust of those
whose help we will need in the next war," she writes. Separately, Tom
Bowman and Walter Ray Watson of NPR
<[link removed]>
tell the story of an Afghan family who undertook the perilous journey
across the U.S.-Mexico border to seek medical care for their daughter.

In local welcome:

* Army veteran John Paluska has been striving for two years to bring his
Afghan comrade Habib to the U.S., despite multiple bureaucratic
obstacles. (Beth Bailey, Fox News
<[link removed]>)

* In Colorado, two resettled Afghan women have rebuilt their lives as
dental assistants with the aid of the Broomfield Resettlement Task
Force. (Corbett Stevenson, Daily Camera
<[link removed]>)

* Rafiullah Yari is fulfilling his dream of becoming a professional
boxer in the U.S. with the support of the Upton Boxing Center in West
Baltimore. (Charles Cohen, The Baltimore Banner
<[link removed]>)

**ABOUT FENTANYL** - The spoiler is right there in NPR
<[link removed]>'s
headline: "it's not the migrants" who are smuggling fentanyl across
the border. Joel Rose tells the story of one fentanyl courier and notes
that nearly 90% of the drug is seized at legal ports of entry, from
people legally authorized to cross. Stefani Hepford, an assistant U.S.
attorney in the Tucson, Arizona, office, says the ideal courier is
someone authorized to cross and who comes and goes frequently. "They're
looking for somebody we're not going to pay a lot of attention to," says
Michael Humphries, port director in Nogales, Arizona.   

**'DISPROPORTIONATE'**- U.S. officials say they were forced to
fire pepper balls at a crowd of migrants during a mass entry attempt
following a rumor that the southern border would be open to all
asylum-seekers, reports Julian Resendiz of Border Report
<[link removed]>.
Advocates are calling for an investigation given the "disproportionate"
response. "This is not the way migrants or asylum-seekers should be
treated," said Fernando Garcia of Border Network for Human Rights.

Thanks for reading,

Dan

**P.S.** Margarita Quiñones-Peña, a DACA recipient, has written
"Homecoming," a children's book recounting her own journey as an
undocumented child brought to Chicago's Little Village, Nation World
News
<[link removed]>
reports. She plans to donate all proceeds to help asylum-seekers in
Chicago.

 

 

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