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."