It was the deadliest school shooting in Texas history and the deadliest shooting since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012. 

According to a law enforcement official, one Border Patrol agent rushed into the school without waiting for backup, taking down the shooter, per Acacia Coronado and Jim Vertuno of the Associated Press. 

Uvalde, a predominantly Latino community, is home to about 16,000 people and about 75 miles from the border with Mexico, they note.  

A "small, working-class city," where more than a quarter of city residents are children, census data shows Uvalde is also home to "a large Mexican American population," report Robert Gebeloff and Jacey Fortin of The New York Times. 

"This is just evil," Rey Chapa, an Uvalde resident told The Times’ Josh Peck and J. David Goodman. "I’m afraid I’m going to know a lot of these kids that were killed," adding that his nephew was in the school at the time of the shooting but was safe. 

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Becka Wall, Vice President of Digital Communications at the Forum. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].  

MIGRANT CHILDREN — A Los Angeles U.S. District judge is slated to consider a proposed settlement between the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, revolving around standards for safe and sanitary detention of unaccompanied migrant children, reports Spectrum News 1. Per court documents obtained Monday, the 61-page agreement comes after two years of the Center challenging the conditions in which children were separated from their parents and held in Texas Border Patrol facilities during the Trump era. Separately, the director of Casa del Refugiado — El Paso’s largest migrant shelter network — is planning to end operations in July, unless the city and county can step in, reports Julian Resendiz of Border Report. 

HUMAN SMUGGLING — Strict U.S. immigration laws and limited pathways for legal migration have made migrants more reliant on human smugglers, writes Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, in an op-ed for Reason Magazine. According to DHS data, smuggler usage rates have not only increased steadily over the last five decades, but the percentage of migrants turning to smugglers has also increased — "from 40 percent to 50 percent in the 1970s to 95 percent by 2006, coinciding with increased federal spending on immigration enforcement." To truly end human smuggling and provide migrants security, "U.S. laws and policies must provide significantly greater avenues for individuals to live and work legally in the U.S. and to gain access to human rights protections," writes Anderson. 

REFORMS — Given Florida’s 2022 legislative session passing anti-immigrant legislation blocking migrants from seeking refuge, Congress needs to step up and pass long-lasting immigration reform, writes our friend Ted Hutchinson, Florida State Immigration Director at FWD.us., in an op-ed for the Orlando Sentinel. "Congress can enact immigration reform — it only needs the will to do so. With an overwhelming majority of Americans in support of immigration reform, there is no reason for Congress to delay sending a real legislative solution to President Biden’s desk," he writes. "… I urge Congress, especially Sens. Rubio and Rick Scott, to stand with the American people and commit to reforming our nation’s failed immigration system." 

SISTERHOOD — With a lack of government assistance, Members of Sisters of Service, an organization of American female veterans, have stepped up to support Afghan women soldiers they worked alongside to navigate the immigration and resettlement process, reports Madeline Lyskawa of Law360. "As U.S. troops started withdrawing from Afghanistan, we came together as a loose network of U.S. women talking with these Afghan women and deciding we need to do something — these women are going to be extreme targets as Afghanistan falls to the Taliban," said co-founder Ellie, a U.S. service member. "We are not legal experts, we are not immigration experts; we are just military women that really care about our Afghan sisters."   

More on local welcome: 

• In New York, Oswego Mayor Billy Barlow endorsed the nonprofit Oswego Welcomes New Americans’ efforts to sponsor an Afghan family of five and help them resettle. (Xiana Fontno, Oswego County News Now) 
• Nonprofit Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services in Florida’s Tampa Bay area has supported recently resettled Afghan refugees with "health screenings, registering kids in school, and helping people get ESOL classes," but like other local charities, need more volunteers and donations to continue their efforts. (Lissette Campos, 83 Degrees Media) 

Thanks for reading, 

Becka  

P.S. Check out this cool story about Texas’ first Japanese immigrants who built its multimillion-dollar rice industry, per the Houston Chronicle’s Ryan Nickerson.