Monday, June 6
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THE FORUM DAILY

Refugees are transforming communities in the best ways. 

Pocatello, Idaho became a destination for Afghan evacuees who needed
places to go, as Alexa Liacko reports for Scripps National News.

Pocatello town leaders formed an interfaith coalition that is helping
families resettle, and there's a waiting list for people who want to
donate to and mentor refugee families. "What we're doing is
participating in hope," said Deacon Scott Pearhill of Holy Spirit
Catholic Community Church. 

Resettlement is nothing new in Utica, New York, Susan Hartman reports in
The New York Times

(with great photos by Todd Heisler): Refugees make up about 25% of the
population of 60,000. "The refugees stemmed the [town's] decline,"
said Shelly Callahan, whose nonprofit has resettled about 17,000
refugees there in the past four decades. 

That's especially welcome news as the number of Ukrainians who have
fled their home country approaches 7 million (though some have
returned), as Khaleda Rahman writes in Newsweek
. 

Welcome to Monday's edition of The Forum Daily. I'm Becka Wall,
the Forum's digital communications VP. If you have a story to share
from your own community, please send it to me at
[email protected] . 

**SUMMIT** - The Summit of the Americas begins today in Los Angeles,
and leaders should seize the opportunity to launch a more regular and
robust conversation about migration in the Western Hemisphere, Carrie
Cordero and Cris Ramón (a Forum alumnus) write in Just Security
.
With both the causes and the scope of migration having increased
markedly this century, individual nations have established forums, but
Cordero and Ramón argue that more engagement is necessary: "[T]he
United States, key countries in the region, and international
organizations like the IOM should use this year's Summit of the
Americas to establish an annual hemispheric meeting on migration that
produces actionable policies and provides a venue for meaningful
coordination."  And ICYMI, our own Arturo Castellanos-Canales also
highlighted how this is an opportunity

for world leaders to address hemispheric migration.  

'GOD IS WITH YOU' - We hear about asylum seekers at the border,
but what's the reality on the ground? Kirsten Luce and Eileen Sullivan
of The New York Times

illuminate the journey and challenges they face in pictures and words,
respectively. Meanwhile, priests at the border are concerned for
migrants as Title 42 restrictions remain in place, David Agren reports
for Catholic News Service
.
"The heat waves are the most difficult thing here," said Rosabla
Peralta, who fled violence in Honduras and was returned to Reynosa,
Mexico, when she reached the U.S. border. " ... We're all here with
the same dream, the same hopes." Said Father Louis Hotop of the Diocese
of Brownsville, Texas, "(We) say pretty much the same homily over and
over and over again: 'God is with you, God did not abandon you, God
accompanies you.' " 

**POLITICS** - With leadership lacking from both Republicans and
Democrats, other issues threaten to push immigration aside this primary
season, Candy Woodall and Phillip M. Bailey report in USA Today
.
"Immigration may be on the back burner now, but the consequences of
inaction are not on the back burner," said Clarissa Martinez, deputy
vice president at Unidos. But as my colleague Laurence Benenson points
out, there's still hope for smaller-scale immigration reforms this
year: "[I]f you get down to it, there is agreement, in general terms,
on getting a permanent solution for Dreamers and filling those needed
workforce gaps to address labor shortages, through promoting legal
immigration." 

**FUTURE OF AG** - To fix our immigration system, we need to address
the labor shortage, especially in the agricultural sector, write Douglas
Baker, a member of the Council on National Security and Immigration
(CNSI), and Chuck Conner, a former government
official, in an op-ed for Fox News
.
"Any immigration solution for the agricultural industry must give
workers the chance to get right with the law, commit to continuing doing
agricultural work, pass a background check, and pay a penalty," they
write. Passing the Farm Workforce Modernization Act

could help, "represent[ing] a unique opportunity to make progress on a
priority that is vital to the future of agriculture and our economy."  

**AFGHAN EVACUEES** - Some Afghan evacuees who were sent to an
American base in Kosovo for additional vetting are still there and
getting frustrated, Ben Fox reports for the Associated Press
.
In a written statement, the National Security Council says that "[w]hile
the vast majority of Afghan evacuees have been cleared through this
process, the small number of individuals who have been denied are
examples of the system working exactly as it should." For those who have
come to the U.S., Kyle Dunphey of The Deseret News

examines what an Afghan Adjustment Act could look like.  

More on local welcome: 

* The Detroit Department of Transportation is offering Afghan refugees
looking for a fresh start the opportunity to work as Coach Service
Attendants, cleaning buses for around $13 an hour, "help[ing] to create
a safe environment." (Ingrid Kelley and David Komer, FOX 2
) 

* Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts visited
Worcester to welcome the many Afghan refugees who have resettled in the
Bay State and to thank local organizers for helping them resettle. (Will
Katcher, MassLive Media
) 

* Shekeba Samadzada, a hospital chef at UW Health in Madison, Wisconsin,
won a national award for her vegetable korma recipe, which aims to give
pediatric Afghan refugees "a taste of home." (Trevor Hook, Wisconsin
Public Radio ) 

Thanks for reading, 

Becka 

 

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