The Forum Daily | Tuesday, August 18, 2026https://www.forumtogether.org

Wendy Domingo’s parents were detained the day after she turned 18, leaving her to care for her four younger siblings, Valentina Palm of the Palm Beach Post [link removed] reports. 

The Lake Worth Beach, Florida, family was driving from church when Border Patrol agents stopped the vehicle and detained the parents in their children’s presence, Palm reports. All five children are U.S. citizens. 

"My parents had the American Dream," Domingo said. "They thought we could have a good future here and be financially stable. But where exactly is the American Dream now? How exactly is it making America great?" 

Roughly an hour to the northwest, in Indiantown, the parents of two boys with a rare neurological disorder face deportation by the end of the month, Jack Lemnus of Treasure Coast Newspapers [link removed] reports. 

Their father is in detention, and their mother must self-deport by Aug. 27 or she too will be detained, Lemnus writes. Their departure could force the boys into state custody, the family’s attorney said. 

And in Fort Worth, Texas, 19-year-old Dulce Zepeda takes care of her sister, 13-year-old Maria, after their parents were deported nearly a year ago, a team at NBC 5 DFW [link removed] reports. Both daughters are U.S. citizens. 

Advocates say the case is an example of a new kind of family separation and that the deportation of parents, often rapidly, can leave families without plans for children’s care. 

In a small bright spot, Maria recently was able to visit her parents in Honduras — her first time in the country. 

Meanwhile, the hurdles for migrant children to be able to stay in the United States are getting higher, Eric Bazail-Eimil of Politico [link removed] reports. 

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. 

**LEGAL IMMIGRATION DOWN** — The Trump administration is now restricting every kind of legal immigration, Stuart Anderson writes in Forbes [link removed]. "The policies affect U.S. citizens sponsoring spouses, children and other family members to join them in America, as well as employers seeking workers," he writes. "Analysts note the U.S. economy requires more workers to grow, but the administration’s actions reduce the labor supply." Shifra Dayak of Pew Research Center [link removed] looks more closely at the decrease in refugee admissions specifically. 

**PATH BLOCKED** — For Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients married to U.S. citizens, an administrative ruling last week makes legalization and eventual citizenship more difficult, Andrea Castillo of the Los Angeles Times [link removed] reports. The change shrinks the number of DACA recipients who can get advance parole [link removed], which allowed them to leave the country for certain reasons and return without penalty. Without it, many face a 10-year bar from re-entering the U.S. and applying for citizenship, Castillo notes. 

**FRUITLESS SEARCH** — The Trump administration’s search for noncitizen voters has come up almost completely empty, a team at ProPublica [link removed] reports. The search represents a shift in focus for Homeland Security Investigations, which was "established to combat drug cartels, terrorism and other cross-border criminal enterprises," the team notes. Despite internal warnings, the administration has invested a great deal of time and resources, with "meager" results, they report. 

**BACK HOME** — A last-minute reprieve averted the deportation of a U.S. soldier's wife, and she now is back home, Jack Brook and Safiyah Riddle of the Associated Press [link removed] report. A phone call during the deportation flight resulted in Maisa Lopes Eliaser staying on the plane and returning to the U.S. after other deportees deplaned in Brazil. She was one of "dozens of spouses or parents of U.S. troops [link removed] who had been detained" after the administration reduced protections for military families, Brook and Riddle note. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

**P.S.** Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pennsylvania) led a bipartisan letter this month urging the administration to continue and broaden Temporary Protected Status for Ukrainians, Fallon Roth of The Philadelphia Inquirer [link removed] reports.

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