Election results in Venezuela could kick off a new round of migration, with the U.S. a potential destination, reports Lauren Villagran of USA Today.
Incumbent President Nicolas Maduro and his opponent, Edmundo Gonzalez, each have declared victory. The country’s political unrest and the possibility of Maduro, who has presided over the country’s economic downturn, keeping control are making Venezuelans uncertain about the future. More than 7.7 million Venezuelans have emigrated in the past few years, according to UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency.
Should Maduro hold on to power, "it’s probable that many Venezuelans will see little hope for the future, for them or their families. The incentive to migrate will be huge," said Cynthia Arnson, distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center's Latin America Program.
Land routes for such migrants are getting even more treacherous with Panama’s new president, José Raúl Mulino, having committed to blocking people from migrating through the Darién Gap, Anastasia Moloney of Reuters’ Context reports.
The barbed wire fences Panamanian authorities have installed since signing an agreement with the United States at the beginning of this month will just lead to new and more dangerous routes popping up, Moloney writes: "No amount of barbed wire will be enough to stop migrants heading north to the United States in search of a better life."
Welcome to Tuesday’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, Ally Villarreal and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
SEPARATION — Although President Biden has not engaged in the "purposeful cruelty" of his predecessor’s family separation policy, researchers at UCLA’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy find that family separations still happen, reports Gustavo Solis of KPBS. Bureaucratic processes and a dearth of transparency and accountability are to blame, researchers found. "What this report seeks to do is illustrate how family separation is a feature of many long-standing CBP practices and policies that, frankly, should change," said Monika Langarica, one of the report’s authors.
AMERICAN WORKERS — Mass deportation would greatly harm American workers, Albert R. Hunt writes in a commentary for U.S. News & World Report. "The argument that Trump has made is these measures would be good for the economy and good for American workers," says Natasha Sarin of Yale University, a Treasury Department alumna. "The vast economic research on this question suggests exactly the opposite." Hunt writes that mass deportation also "would be a stain on the moral fabric of this country."
CAMPAIGN FODDER — Kamala Harris’ stances on immigration have gotten "more complicated" as vice president, a team at the Los Angeles Times reports. Meanwhile, some on the right are thinking about trying to end the universal right to education in an effort to encourage "self-deportation," Emily Bazelon of The New York Times reports. And former CBP Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske takes on the myth that migrants are responsible for the bulk of illicit fentanyl smuggled into the U.S., Chris McGreal writes in The Guardian. (See our resource too.)
CITIZENSHIP — Economic growth and civic engagement are just two of the benefits Claudia Ortega Hogue (a Forum board member), Steve Stephens and Michael Treviño list as they celebrate newly naturalized American citizens in their Houston Chronicle op-ed. More than 2,000 people became new citizens in a Houston naturalization ceremony on July 10 — only two days after Hurricane Beryl struck. A strong immigrant community helps to make a more resilient community overall, the authors write.
