The Forum Daily, formerly Noorani's Notes
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

 

THE FORUM DAILY

 

Deadline extended! We've been getting such great feedback on our Forum
Daily survey that we're extending
it through Friday (April 29). Thank you!
Americans can now privately sponsor refugees from Ukraine, Camilo
Montoya-Galvez reports for CBS News
.

Those who are interested can apply via an online portal
, which DHS portrays as the main way the
government will meet its commitment to resettle 100,000 Ukrainian
refugees. Only potential sponsors, not Ukrainian refugees themselves,
may apply. The process will involve vetting both would-be sponsors and
refugees.

(Right on time, our policy team is out with an explainer about private
sponsorship programs for refugees
,
which covers both the current effort and Sponsor Circles for Afghans.
More on the latter below.)

The new DHS program is designed to be temporary - American officials
say that Ukrainians who want to come here "are generally seeking a
temporary safe haven, not permanent resettlement," Montoya-Galvez
reports.

It's also designed to deter Ukrainians from flying to Mexico and
coming to the southern border to seek refuge in the U.S.

Welcome to Tuesday'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
spread the word. They can subscribe here
.

**STEPPING UP** - All over the country, Americans have stepped up to
welcome Afghan refugees as part of Sponsor Circles, filling a void left
by the Trump administration's gutting of the existing refugee
resettlement system. In The New Yorker
,
Eliza Griswold highlights the stories of four Afghan women who were
forced to hide for months after the Taliban took over, then escaped and
landed in Duluth, Minnesota, in February. "We Googled Duluth and saw how
much snow there was," one of the women, Halima, said. "But their letter
also said that they could help us continue our education, and that was
most important." Although the program has its challenges, around 1,500
people have formed 175 Sponsor Circles in more than 25 states - and
have welcomed several thousand Afghans.

Speaking of local welcome: 

* Since the start of the year, the all-volunteer Lincoln Bike Kitchen in
Nebraska has donated more than 50 bikes to local Afghan refugees,
meeting a major need. (Peter Salter, Lincoln Journal Star
)

* Sulaman and Arzo Akbarzada were forced into hiding in Afghanistan on
their planned wedding day in August. Soldiers, State Department
officials and volunteers organized a traditional ceremony for the couple
at Camp Atterbury in October, but it wasn't official. Finally, with
the help of a pastor and his family, the couple married (again) earlier
this month. (Rashika Jaipuriar, Indianapolis Star
)

* Local organizations have stepped up to help the 200 or so refugees who
have resettled in the Harrisonburg, Virginia, area: with housing, needed
items, English language instruction and more. (Randi B. Hagi, WMRA
)

**BORDER** - Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is
preparing for three House hearings later this week that will likely
focus on border policy. In the meantime, a federal judge has said he
intends to grant a temporary restraining order that eventually could
block the CDC's ending of Title 42 on May 23, CNN
's
Priscilla Alvarez reports. On the border itself, the mayors of Tucson,
Arizona, and Brownsville, Texas, have come out in support of Title
42's end, Rafael Bernal reports in The Hill
.
"Congress should work on real immigration reform that doesn't exploit
an arcane public health authority to deny people their basic, human
right to seek asylum," the mayors wrote. We'll also be keeping an ear
out for takeaways from a White House briefing this afternoon about plans
surrounding the end of Title 42, as reported by Alvarez at CNN
.

**THANK YOU, GOV. ABBOTT** - (Words I never thought I'd write.) To
much fanfare, last week Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced he was going to
"take the border to President Biden" and bus migrants to Washington,
D.C., once they had been processed by U.S. Customs and Border
Protection. Well, as The New York Times'

Eileen Sullivan and Edgar Sandoval report, turns out that both the Biden
administration and migrants are deeply appreciative. After an eight-week
journey from Brazil, Chadrack Mboyo-Bola was greeted by volunteers as he
stepped off a 33-hour ride in a charter bus paid for by the state of
Texas. "I would like to say thank you to the governor of Texas,"
Mboyo-Bola told The Times.

**SCOTUS** - Remember "Remain in Mexico"? This afternoon the Supreme
Court will hear arguments on whether the Biden administration
appropriately tried to end that border policy, Suzanne Monyak reports in
Roll Call
.
Earlier court rulings have kept the policy in effect while the judicial
challenges play out. In her analysis, NPR's

Nina Totenberg poses an important question: "At the heart of all this is
a separate legal question: whether the courts should second-guess the
foreign policy judgments that undergird this and other immigration
policies." In this case, both the U.S. and Mexico see Remain in Mexico
as a "flawed program in which migrants in squalid camps at the border
have little ability to find lawyers or information for their hearings
and are subject to violent attacks, kidnapping, extortion
and rape by
criminal cartels."

Thanks for reading, 

Ali

 

DONATE

 

**Follow Us**

 

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

National Immigration Forum

10 G Street NE, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20002

www.immigrationforum.org

 

Unsubscribe from The Forum Daily

or opt-out from all Forum emails.

 
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

National Immigration Forum, 10 G St NE, Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20002, United States