In a new report, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that immigration will add nearly $7 trillion to the economy within the next decade by boosting the workforce and demand for goods, services and housing, reports Rich Miller of Bloomberg.

The CBO isn’t alone in noting the potential for growth. "The U.S. economy has benefited from immigration," Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on CBS News’ 60 Minutes last weekend.

Miller notes that the report emerges just after the Senate halted the bipartisan border and immigration deal. Molly Ball of The Wall Street Journal offers some history that led to this point, and in an opinion post on Texas GOP Vote, Charles Frantes agrees with us that the bill could serve as a foundation for future negotiations.

"Rather than playing political football and blaming the other side for lack of action on the border crisis, Republicans and Democrats should work together on solutions," Frantes writes.

Evangelical leaders continue to advocate for a conversation - and solutions - that center on biblical principles, reports Addie Offereins of World. "Evangelical means follower of Christ, and proclaimer of the good news," said Gabriel Salguero, President of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition. "It’s my hope that we, as evangelical voters, would approach the immigration issue from a gospel centered lens and not a partisan lens."

And Justin Giboney, a minister, attorney and president of the AND Campaign, has a compelling commentary in Christianity Today. "We can’t afford these partisan rivalries and the selfish ambition that perpetually stalls important legislation until the next election," he writes.

Welcome to Friday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Isabella Miller, Jillian Clark, Ally Villarreal and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].

SPEAKING OF FAITH — Hostility toward refugees contrasts with faith-based calls to welcome the stranger, Joan Rosenhauer, Executive Director of Jesuit Refugee Service/USA, writes in Jesuit magazine America. "The message seems lost that welcoming the stranger is central to who we are as followers of Christ — and should be central to who we are as Americans, having built our country through the contributions of generations of immigrants," she writes.

NAVY OFFICER’S PATH — When he was 16, U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Shahram Sean Ahrar came to the U.S. from Iran with nothing, writes Senior Airman Zachary Foster of MacDill Air Force Base. Decades later, after building a life in America, Ahrar’s people skills and cultural knowledge allowed him to help Afghans resettle in the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Welcome.

This week in local welcome:

A rescue mission led by former Army intelligence officer Jason Kander, also a Democratic former Missouri secretary of state, helped several families escape the Taliban and make their way to the United States. (Eric Adler, The Kansas City Star)
Beautiful photos and text allow Afghans to share their stories of welcome and challenge as they resettled in Sacramento, California. (Sasha Abramsky and Fred Greaves, Comstock’s Magazine)
In Knoxville, Tennessee, Mohamad Hamdard started a restaurant that celebrates his culture with the help of a local nonprofit. (Ryan Connors, WBIR)

BORDER, MIGRATION QUICK BITES —

Deportation flights from the U.S. to Venezuela, part of a pact intended to curb migration, have been halted, with Venezuela initiating recent cancellations, report Annie Correal, Genevieve Glatsky and Hamed Aleaziz of The New York Times.
The share of unauthorized migrant crossings is down in Texas and up in Arizona and California, though irregular migrant encounters have generally dropped across the southern border, reports Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News.
David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio has more on Eagle Pass, Texas, residents’ anxiety as their city remains a focal point.

GUESS WHO SAID IT — Fewer arrivals from abroad were causing "a great deficiency of laborers in every field of industry, especially in agriculture and in our mines ...." The occasion was an address to both houses of Congress, which responded with an immigration bill. Find the answer in Harold Holzer’s book excerpt in Smithsonian Magazine.

Thanks for reading,

Dan