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THE FORUM DAILY

 

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22. Thank you! 

Tensions are heightened as the Biden administration continues to hear
concerns from lawmakers over its plans to rescind Title 42, reports CNN
's
MJ Lee and Kate Sullivan. 

At stake: "Trying to figure out how to get a handle on the congressional
revolt, watching to see what legislative actions related to Title 42
emerge and trying to figure out how to be best prepared for what might
happen at the border next month." 

Over at The New York Times

opinion section, Spencer Bokat-Lindell centers on these broader
questions the administration must answer (and soon): "How much of the
Biden administration's stumbling on this issue owes to factors outside
of its control, and how much of it owes to internal division and
mismanagement? As the midterm election season looms, what more could and
should the White House be doing to improve the situation at the southern
border?" 

For more on the legacy of Title 42, check out this episode of WBUR's
On Point

featuring voices including Eleanor Acer of Human Rights First and Aaron
Reichlin-Melnick of the American Immigration Council. I also shared my
perspective on Title 42 with The Dispatch
's Sarah
Isgur and spoke with WGBH's Boston Public Radio
 about
the impact of Title 42 on asylum-seekers, including the pushback from
Texas and Florida governors. 

For your calendar today: The Global Immersion Project
is hosting a webinar, "How Can We Support
Ukrainians at our Border without Ignoring Everyone Else?" at 8 p.m. ET.
Register here.
 

Welcome to Thursday's edition of The Forum Daily. If you have a
story to share from your own community, please send it to me at
[email protected] .
And if you know others who'd like to receive this newsletter, please
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HIGH-LEVEL SUMMIT - Top U.S. officials attended a summit in Panama on
migration in the Americas, per Al Jazeera
,
with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling for more regional
cooperation. "Here in Panama we talked about some of the most urgent
aspects of this issue including ... dealing with the root causes of
irregular migration by growing economic opportunity, fighting
corruption, increasing citizen security, combating the climate crisis,
[and] improving democratic governance that is responsive to people's
needs," Blinken said.  

YOUTUBE VOTERS - A new report

from Define American finds that YouTube is now a "critical space for
shaping opinion on immigration - and even influencing voting
patterns," reports Sabrina Rodríguez for Politico
.
The report surveyed over 3,200 likely voters in key swing states like
Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and
offers recommendations to combat Great Replacement Theory

rhetoric, which makes up much of YouTube's "most successful
anti-immigration videos." According to the findings, almost 20% of
likely voters said they changed their views on immigration due to
content they consumed on YouTube. And 21% "went so far as to change
their vote for a political representative based on their reaction to
immigration-related content they saw on YouTube." 

**ICE'S ERROR** - A government watchdog report published last week
reveals that ICE paid almost $17 million last year for unused beds meant
to house migrant families in Arizona and Texas hotel rooms, Rafael
Carranza reports in The Arizona Republic
.
The March 2021 contract between San Antonio-based Endeavors and ICE came
at a time when the government "had been struggling to cope with an
increase in minors and families in its custody." But according to
DHS's Office of the Inspector General, from March to June of last
year, at least half of those hotel rooms were empty. Meanwhile, "ICE
records showed that Endeavors had no experience providing the services
covered by the sole source contract," per the report. 

**POINT OF NO RETURN** - For WUSA
,
Tom Dempsey chronicles the harrowing escape from Afghanistan to
Landover, Maryland, for Mohammad Sharif Haidary, his then-pregnant wife,
and their three-year-old daughter. "We're just trying to settle here,"
said Haidary, a former supervisor for the U.S. embassy in Kabul. "I
can't even think about going back." The University of Maryland and
veteran-founded nonprofit React DC are helping

Afghan refugees like Haidary's family find temporary affordable
housing. Afghan refugees also need moral and mental health support,
writes Jonas Bull, Assistant Researcher for the Disability Rights
Division at Human Rights Watch
.
Prioritizing mental health support "marks an important commitment to
long-term integration efforts and establishing a culture of
inclusion." 

On local welcome: 

* More than 500 Afghans have resettled in Nashville, Tennessee, so far
thanks to support from "mosques, teachers, electrical engineers,
activists, grocers and more." (WPLN
) 

* With support from Cornell University and Ithaca Welcomes Refugees
(IWR), Diana Ayubi and eight other Afghan refugee students from
Bangladesh's Asian University for Women were able to continue their
education in the U.S. (Maia Noah, Ithaca Week
) 

IMMIGRANT NURSES - Immigration would help counter the U.S. labor
shortage, particularly in the home health care and nursing industry,
writes Amy Stulick for Skilled Nursing News
.
But "there isn't a lot of political will behind increasing
opportunities for migrants and a lot of these lower skilled health care
sectors, even though there's this incredible demand," said Kristie De
Peña of the Niskanen Center. One of the Forum's policy experts, Dan
Kosten, also dives deep

into the role of immigrants for the future of the home health care
sector. More broadly, JPMorgan's chief global strategist David Kelly
told Madison Hoff of Insider

that speeding up immigration would "could fix this huge excess demand
for labor problem pretty quickly." And while immigration remains
problematically low, the immigrant share of the population is growing in
many U.S. counties, as Hoff points out in another piece for Insider
.
Among the counties with the greatest percentage increases, four of the
top five are rural. 

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

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