The Forum Daily | Monday, May 12, 2025https://immigrationforum.org/

**THE FORUM DAILY**Wishing a belated Happy Mother’s Day to all who celebrated!  

If your day included food, keep in mind the immigrant workers who are crucial to the food on American tables. Immigrants account for 2.1 million [link removed]. employees in the food supply chain, reports Caresse Jackman of Investigate TV [link removed]. 

The impact goes beyond making food available: Local economies also rely on immigrants, as Sydney McCoy of Spectrum News 1 [link removed]- reports. In North Carolina, the agriculture sector reported an economic impact of $111 billion in 2024 [link removed] alone, thanks in part to foreign-born workers. 

"They are so important to the economy of the United States and the safe food," Faylene Whitaker, a North Carolina farm owner, said. "We could not survive without them, 100%." 

Whitaker, like many other farmers across the country, relies on the H-2A visa program for temporary workers. But the program has limitations, even as more farmers depend on it to stabilize their workforce amid expanding deportation efforts, report Melissa Gomez and Rebecca Plevin of the Los Angeles Times [link removed]. 

A bipartisan bill reintroduced last week would, among other things, reform the H-2A program to help address challenges, reports Tim Clouser of The Center Square [link removed]. 

Meanwhile, amid the current immigration crackdown, 6 in 10 immigrants in the U.S. — regardless of status — feel anxious or afraid about their future in the country, according to a new survey [link removed] on which Pedro Camacho of The Latin Times [link removed] reports. Enforcement fears are leading some migrants to forgo medical care, Emily Baumgaertner Nunn, Nina Agrawal and Jessica Silver-Greenberg of The New York Times [link removed] report. 

On a good note, Pope Leo XIV may advocate for better immigration policies in the U.S., according to Cardinal Blase Cupich, Archbishop of Chicago, reports Isabel Danzis of ABC News [link removed]. As NBC News [link removed]’ Nicole Acevedo reports, Catholics in Chicago — the pontiff’s hometown — are seeing him as a symbol of hope for a more compassionate immigration approach. 

Welcome to Monday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s VP of strategic communications, and the great Forum Daily team also includes Jillian Clark, Broc Murphy, 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]. 

 Federal Policy 

* Trump admin's threat to suspend core U.S. legal right sparks outcry and alarm [link removed] (David Rohde, NBC News) 

* US Customs and Border Protection Quietly Revokes Protections for Pregnant Women and Infants [link removed] (Dhruv Mehrotra, Wired) 

* Op-Ed: Militarization of the border can have serious consequences [link removed] (Michael DeBruhl, El Paso Times) 

* First group of Afrikaners granted refugee status are on their way to the U.S. [link removed] (Kate Bartlett, NPR) 

* Migrants Are Skipping Medical Care, Fearing ICE, Doctors Say [link removed] (Emily Baumgaertner Nunn, Nina Agrawal and Jessica Silver-Greenberg, The New York Times) 

 In the States 

* Florida pushing for approval to enforce new immigration law [link removed] (Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida) 

* State bill targeting immigration enforcement advances, draws criticism from activists [link removed] (Charlie Fossen, Port City Daily) 

* The rush in Illinois to become a U.S. citizen amid immigration crackdown [link removed] (Adriana Cardona-Maguigad, WBEZ Chicago) 

* After immigration crackdown, international students in Texas self-censor to protect their education [link removed] (Jessica Priest, The Texas Tribune) 

Immigration Enforcement 

* Trump Calls for 20,000 Extra Officers to Help With Deportation Efforts [link removed] (Hamed Aleaziz, The New York Times) 

* U.N. migration agency will help with Trump’s plan for immigrants to ‘self-deport’ [link removed] (Maria Sacchetti, The Washington Post) 

* Nashville families, groups respond to immigration traffic sweep: 'Kidnapping our people' [link removed] (Liam Adams and Diana Leyva, Nashville Tennessean) 

* Washington’s Hispanic community fighting fear and rallying help as rumors of an ICE crackdown bubble [link removed] (Ashraf Khalil, Jacquelyn Martin and Nathan Ellgren, Associated Press) 

* ‘America is the greatest democracy in the world,’ Rümeysa Öztürk says as she returns to Massachusetts [link removed] (Camilo Fonseca and Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio, Boston Globe) 

 Thanks for reading,  

Dan 

**P.S.**New this morning: Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Arizona) has introduced a plan that would combine border security, asylum reform, legal immigration and ways for for some immigrants to earn citizenship, reports Rebecca Santana of the Associated Press [link removed]. While we await details, we are encouraged by the effort.

[link removed]

[link removed]    [link removed]    [link removed]    [link removed]

[link removed]

Unsubscribe from this email list [link removed] or opt out from all Forum emails [link removed]

National Immigration Forum<br>10 G St NE<br>Suite 500<br>Washington, D.C. 20002<br>United States
www.immigrationforum.org [link removed]