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The National Migration Institute (INM) deployed vans and buses to move 8,000 migrants from Tapachula to other towns. Thousands more are still waiting outside offices in Tapachula to apply for asylum. Similar pressure points are leading other local authorities and communities to take action. As Corrie Boudreaux and Omar Ornelas document for the El Paso Times, local volunteers and advocates are trying to help hundreds of migrants stranded 300 miles to the south by the recent suspension of some freight train services by Mexican rail company Ferromex. The company wrote of a "remarkable increase in migrants … and the severe risk to their safety that the use of cargo trains represents." But as Boudreaux and Ornelas report, "Though dangerous in their own right, trains offer some protection against the constant threat of extortion and kidnapping that migrants face in Mexico." The reporters traveled to Chihuahua to speak with some of the stranded migrants. Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Ashling Lee, Clara Villatoro and Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected]. PILOT PROGRAM — Speaking of Tapachula, a refugee pilot program implemented there could help to ease the pressure on U.S. communities, reports Pamela Falk of CBS News. The pilot is designed to help process asylum applications and, for those with legitimate claims, open the opportunity for housing, jobs and health care in Mexico. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that with the program, asylum seekers "don't feel the need to go further, because they get opportunities in Mexico, with Mexico’s support and agreement." SHUTDOWN EFFECTS — With a federal shutdown possibly days away, officials in U.S- Mexico border towns are worried that staff shortages will make processing migrants more difficult, Nik Popli and Sanya Mansoor report in Time. The potential shutdown looms as some processing centers see 1,000 migrants per day. Even a shutdown of "[t]hree to four days will throw everything off scale," said Victor Treviño, mayor of Laredo, Texas. SEPARATION LAWSUIT — A federal magistrate judge in California has ordered former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen to testify in a 2021 lawsuit on family separation at the border, reports Maria Sacchetti of The Washington Post. While the Trump administration’s "zero tolerance" policy was officially in effect, more than 3,000 children were separated from their families. Migrant parents filed the lawsuit against the federal government. ASSISTANCE DELAYED — The slow start for legal assistance for migrants in New York City could be one of the issues preventing them from obtaining work permits, a team at Bloomberg reports. While the city did see legal assistance as a priority early on, it took over a year after the initial increase in migrants to open a legal clinic. "If we had started this in February or March, then thousands of people would be getting their work authorizations," said city Comptroller Brad Lander. Thanks for reading, Dan P.S. What have you been doing for the past 371 days? Frank Rubio, the son of immigrants from El Salvador, has been on the International Space Station — setting an American record for time spent in space — before his safe landing back on Earth this morning, as Daniel Wu and Leo Sands report in The Washington Post. Welcome home, sir.
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