The Forum Daily | Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025https://immigrationforum.org/

**THE FORUM DAILY**Encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border have decreased to levels unseen since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when global migration decelerated dramatically, reports Lauren Villagran of USA Today [link removed]. 

According to Border Patrol officials, the agency registered about 1,000 daily migrant encounters in the seven days that ended Sunday — 25% of the totals it reported in the same week a year ago. 

The numbers continue a downward trend in the past year, Villagran notes.  

"This sustained success is the result of strong border enforcement, extensive engagement with our foreign partners and the delivery of safe and lawful pathways that continue to provide humanitarian relief under our laws," Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement. 

In the El Paso Times [link removed], Jeff Abbott focuses on the decline in the El Paso sector and reports on the factors behind the decrease. Farther south, crossings in the dangerous Darién Gap declined 41% in 2024, Al Jazeera [link removed] reports. 

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega of The New York Times [link removed] underscores the current realities and widens the lens to highlight concerns and preparations in Mexico and Central America, should the U.S. carry out mass deportation. 

In other news, yesterday the House passed a bill that would require the detention of unauthorized immigrants charged with relatively minor crimes, Karoun Demirjian of The New York Times [link removed] reports. The 264-159 vote was bipartisan, with the Senate still expected to take up the bill Friday. 

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, Soledad Gassó Parker, Clara Villatoro and Becka Wall. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. 

POP. PEP — Legal migration over the past year has helped California to recover from an unprecedented population decline during the pandemic, reports Terry Castleman of the Los Angeles Times [link removed]. Immigrants arriving via various legal programs have been a buffer against the state’s "exodus," Castleman writes. Now, a quarter of the state's population is foreign-born, per Census data, the highest percentage in the country. 

BIRTHRIGHT — Northwestern University law professor Paul Gowder dives deep into the ins and outs of birthright citizenship — and the flaws in arguments against it — in a piece on The UnPopulist [link removed]. "In the end, every single legal argument for stripping U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants of citizenship fails," he writes. Beyond the legal arguments, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is among groups that have warned about the moral implications, reports Peter Laffin of the National Catholic Register [link removed]. Here again is our resource [link removed]. 

SCHOOLS — Schools are preparing for potential immigration enforcement actions onsite, reports Carolyn Thompson of the Associated Press [link removed]. California officials have shared a 54-page guide, and schools in Des Moines, Iowa, have reinforced a measure that calls for only the superintendent to interact with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. "We have parents who are afraid," Adam Clark, superintendent of the Mount Diablo Unified School District in California, told Dana Goldstein of The New York Times [link removed]. "We are trying to inform them of what their rights are."  

HURTFUL — H-1B visa holders are weighing in on the pain the debate over foreign professional workers is causing and the impact that policy changes could have on their lives, reports Sakshi Venkatraman of NBC News [link removed]. In Forbes [link removed], Stuart Anderson offers a recap on what’s at stake for H-1B visas and other temporary programs as the second Trump administration approaches. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

P.S. This weekend, Dallas residents can watch the documentary film "Nurse Unseen," which analyzes how Filipino American nurses became part of the backbone of the U.S. health care system, reports Travis Pinson of The Dallas Morning News [link removed]. 

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