Nearly half a million Venezuelan migrants will be able to live and work in the U.S. legally after the Biden administration expanded the Temporary Protected Status program (TPS), reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez for CBS News. This expansion of TPS will allow Venezuelan migrants who arrived in the U.S. recently to apply for the program’s deportation protections and work permits.

Previously, only Venezuelans who arrived in the U.S. before March 2021 qualified for TPS. Expanding the program comes after elected leaders from multiple large cities, but especially New York, spent months pressuring the Biden administration to give migrants coming to their communities legal status. New York City Mayor Eric Adams thanked the administration for "taking this important step that will bring hope to the thousands of Venezuelan asylum seekers currently in our care who will now be immediately eligible for Temporary Protected Status."

Of course, the Temporary Protected Status program is exactly what the name implies — temporary. Despite the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcing it will also expand the validity period of work permits, there is still no permanent solution for these displaced communities until Congress takes legislative action.

Separately, Victoria Guida for Politico reports that a surge of legal immigration has helped fill jobs which otherwise might have gone unfilled. Jennie Murray, president of the National Immigration Forum, contends that before the Pandemic we were facing a labor shortage and now, "With our declining population growth and then this restriction on legal immigration, we’re now far behind that."

Welcome to Thursday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Becka Wall, the Forum’s digital communications VP, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Ashling Lee and Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at bwa[email protected].

IMMIGRATION REFORM — At an Immigration Law and Policy Conference, top officials from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) stressed the urgency of addressing immigration reform, writes Sandra Sanchez of Border Report. "We’re doing our best to try to address some of these infirmities in the system," said Blas Nuñez-Neto, assistant secretary for Border and Immigration Policy at DHS. "But we’re never going to solve it without meaningful work in Congress."

SMUGGLING —Increasing ties with the World Customs Organization and establishing a "Chemical Industry Outreach Project" are just some of the ways the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office will attempt to increase fentanyl seizures and break up supply chains, reports Nick Miroff for The Washington Post. The deadly drug is usually produced in Mexico and then smuggled into the United States by green card holders or U.S. Citizens. The latest statistics show authorities collecting more than 25,000 pounds of fentanyl before the end of the current fiscal year, "a fivefold increase since 2020."

REACTIONS — As many still process the latest court ruling on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA), Rita Omokha shares the experiences and reactions of several DACA recipients in her piece for The Guardian. One educator and activist, Alondra Garcia, says that her reaction is similar to what she felt when the program was first challenged: "Fear, uncertainty, sadness, anger – a mix of emotions."

WELCOME CENTER — In Massachusetts, cities and towns have stepped up to help house the unprecedented number of migrant families that have entered the state. The state’s new "welcome centers" are meant to help both new migrant families and families experiencing homelessness. On WGBH’s All Things Considered you can listen to host Arun Rath speak with the Quincy Welcome Center’s program director Patricia Zio and program manager, Frenika Valcin.

Thanks for reading,

Becka