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 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].

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

ABOUT FENTANYL — The spoiler is right there in NPR’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. 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 reports. She plans to donate all proceeds to help asylum-seekers in Chicago.