The Forum Daily | Friday, September 26, 2025https://immigrationforum.org/

**THE FORUM DAILY**

At a side event during the United Nations’ annual gathering, top White House officials urged other countries to join the United States in rolling back asylum protections, report Humeyra Pamuk and Ted Hesson of Reuters [link removed].  

Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau told the international gathering that the system is outdated and being abused, claiming it is now mainly used by economic migrants and criminal groups.  

Refugee Council USA sent a letter to the White House this week, urging the president to respect standing asylum accords. “Any attempt to withdraw from or circumvent international and domestic refugee law undermines U.S. global leadership and our respect for the rule of law,” the group wrote.   

Meanwhile, it has been more than six months since the federal government began asking unauthorized immigrants to leave the country voluntarily, with an offer of $1,000, travel assistance and an erasure of immigration fines.  

Sarah Matusek of The Christian Science Monitor [link removed] examines how the program has worked.  

José, originally from El Salvador, and his family moved to Europe despite his wife and daughter being U.S. citizens. “The American dream was a lie,” he said. And now, “Nobody’s hunting me anymore.”  

Welcome to Friday’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 Marcela Aguirre, Masooma Amin, Jillian Clark and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. 

**NO REUNION YET** — A family in Chicago waits to be reunited with their 19-year-old daughter and sister, four years after they were separated during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Nell Salzman reports for the Chicago Tribune [link removed]. Fleeing because they feared Taliban retribution for the father’s work protecting U.S. military personnel, the family was separated in the Kabul airport bombing. Daughter Bahara’s immigration process was proceeding, albeit slowly, but seems to have stopped this year, Salzman reports. 

**DIFFERING ACCOUNTS** — Footage and eyewitness accounts raise questions about the government’s explanation of an ICE officer’s fatal shooting of a 38-year-old father near Chicago, report Renee Hickman and Brad Brooks of Reuters [link removed]. Meanwhile, the perpetrator of the shooting at a Dallas Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility left notes indicating he was targeting agents, reports Penelope Rivera of KERA [link removed]. As Priscilla Rice of KERA [link removed] reports, the shooting, which killed one immigrant detainee and injured two more, has exacerbated fears in immigrant communities. 

**SCHOOL DISTRICT PROTECTIONS** — One California school district is continuing to protect its students, no matter their immigration status, reports Lynn La of CalMatters [link removed]. Los Angeles Unified School District serves 500,000 students and is the second largest district in the country. The district has vowed to protect students from immigration enforcement on campus and set up a hotline for families seeking immigration-related assistance.  

**AMERICAN TAPESTRY** — Anthony J. Principi, Secretary of Veterans Affairs during the George W. Bush administration, cites the U.S. military service of noncitizens in his op-ed for The Boston Globe [link removed] — and points to President Ronald Reagan’s farewell speech as a guidepost on immigration. “We must secure our borders from those who would do us harm. But we must do so in a way that maintains our nation’s ideals,” Principi writes. “By deporting hard-working immigrants who have done nothing wrong while in this country, we are tearing the tapestry that has made America great.”   

Thanks for reading,  

Dan 

**P.S.** Pope Leo’s first appointed American bishop, former refugee Michael Pham, is committed to protecting the vulnerable and those seeking safety, report Amna Nawaz, Karina Cuevas and Jenna Bloom of PBS News [link removed]. 

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