Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) plans to enlarge the buoy barriers in the Rio Grande, reports Safia Samee Ali of NewsNation.
In an exclusive interview with NewsNation’s Ali Bradley, Abbott said he is waiting on a final court decision that he expects will go his way. The Biden administration brought a lawsuit against the state over the buoys on the grounds that Texas is violating the federal Rivers and Harbor Act.
Elsewhere in border barriers news, the bipartisan border and asylum compromise Vice President Kamala Harris said she’d support would include millions of dollars for wall construction, report Alex Thompson and Hans Nichols of Axios.
It’s part of a somewhat harder line Harris is taking, they note, but she opposes former President Donald Trump’s history of family separation and blueprint for mass deportations. On the latter, Trump’s plan is missing key details and would get messy, Samuel Benson [a former Forum intern] writes in the Deseret News.
Separately, in a Miami Herald op-ed, Republican former congressman Mark A. Green and Eddy Acevedo recount their experience meeting with families crossing Panama’s dangerous Darién Gap migration route and explore the root causes driving their journeys.
Migrants "will require assistance, protection against forcible return, and creative solutions that maximize self-reliance and minimize dependency on aid agencies and governments," they write — and they go on to propose specific suggestions.
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, Joanna Taylor, Darika Verdugo and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
LIMBO — President Biden criticized the ruling pausing his administration’s "Keeping Families Together" program, report Skylar Woodhouse and Ella Ceron of Bloomberg. Many mixed-status families are now in limbo as they wait to learn the fate of the program, report Valerie Gonzalez and Gisela Salomon of the Associated Press. "I feel pretty heartbroken, very sad … because without it we face so much uncertainty," said 23-year-old Oscar Silva, who already had applied.
‘INCREDIBLY RARE’ — Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) signed an executive order to monitor noncitizens and make sure they do not try to vote, reports Wesley Muller of the Louisiana Illuminator. Among other measures, the order requires the Office of Motor Vehicles (OMV) to provide a list of Louisiana residents who have received temporary licenses. As we’ve noted, noncitizen voting in state and federal elections is already illegal. Instances of it are "incredibly rare," as Aaron Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council has written.
DETENTION — Journalists recently had an unusual opportunity to tour ICE’s El Paso Processing Center, reports Julian Resendiz of Border Report. The facility received more than 100 complaints of alleged rights violations between 2022 and earlier this year, according to records. Amid a new effort at transparency, Field Director Mary De Anda-Ybarra said all detainees will receive due process, medical screenings, access to legal resources and humane treatment while awaiting their hearings.
APPEALS FROM THE FAITHFUL — Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, urged Catholics to "welcome and protect" migrants at a high-level meeting last week, David Agren of OSV News reports. Also from OSV News, Rhina Guidos reports that Latin American Confederation of Religious (CLAR) seminar attendees released a statement denouncing "government leaders who ignore the pain, suffering and threatening situations faced by many people and their families in situations of internal and international displacement."
