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Last call for 2025! If you appreciate this daily summary of key immigration news, please consider including the Forum in your year-end donations. Thanks in advance!
We wish you all possible light and joy as we send this last edition of 2025. Today we’re including some of the harder-hitting news as a P.S., with stories specific to the season otherwise.
In The Washington Post, María Luisa Paúl, Rachel Hatzipanagos and Laura Padilla Castellanos take a look at how individual families are adjusting tonight’s Nochebuena celebrations — and persevering.
For African Christian immigrants living in the United States, Christmas includes a more religious focus alongside their adopted country’s more secular traditions, notes Todd Vician of World Radio.
And in Maine, churches are addressing the intersection of the Christmas season and immigration realities, reports Sophie Burchell of the Portland Press Herald.
At the Congregational Church of Gorham, pastors are reading letters that immigrant detainees have shared with them and leading prayers for people in custody.
"By no means are we perfect humans, but we are still daughters of God, someone’s mother or sister or spouse, we are still humans," one letter reads.
In the words of Christine Dyke, the church’s lead minister, "May we remember those who are being held away from family and children, and may we work in this season of Advent and Christmas, and in all our days, for freedom and justice for all."
We’ll be back in your inbox Jan. 5. Welcome to Tuesday'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, Nicci Mattey and Clara Villatoro. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].
SCRIPTURE — Daniel W. Ulrich, a professor at Bethany Theological Seminary in Richmond, Indiana, turns to Scripture in a piece in The Journal Gazette. "Here, then, is a biblical suggestion for anyone who wants to welcome Jesus this Christmas: Get to know a recent immigrant or, if possible, a whole family," he writes. "Be patient while building trust and overcoming any language barriers. Listen to their stories. ... When you welcome them, you will also be welcoming Jesus."
A HOLIDAY APPEAL — More than 50 Catholic priests and other leaders stood outside a federal facility in Chicago requesting permission to bring Communion and other pastoral care to detained immigrants on Christmas, reports Camillo Barone of the National Catholic Reporter. In Florida, Catholic bishops appealed to the president and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to pause immigration enforcement during the holidays, reports Jimena Romero and Sergio R. Bustos of WLRN. The White House brushed off the appeal, as David Crary of the Associated Press reports.
LOCAL SUPPORT — Neighbors are spreading joy and welcome at a difficult moment for immigrants. They include the Posada Comunitaria event Lorena Rivas organized in Oklahoma City, as Alex Gladden of The Oklahoman reports, and the delivery of Christmas dinners in the New Orleans area, per Alyssa Gomez of WDSU News.
TESTIMONIALS — For a little more cheer, read the newest testimonials from graduates of our English Advance work, in which the Forum partners with businesses helping their employees improve their English. Herminio Santiago is grateful for the support of his co-workers, his family — and his employer, Los Tacos No. 1. For Sergio Lopez, who works at Albertson’s, confidence is replacing a lack of connection with customers: "I am now more inclined to tell the customers ‘Good morning’ and ‘How may I help you."
Thanks for reading,
Dan
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