"The children of many long-term nonimmigrant workers face tremendous obstacles staying united with their families in the U.S. due to the ever-growing immigrant visa backlogs and archaic rules that punish them for merely growing up," the letter said. 

"Immigrants have been vital to Google's success, and companies like ours need to attract and retain high-skilled workers from all over the world to compete," said Karan Bhatia, Google's VP of government affairs and policy. "Unfortunately, the current immigration system often fails to adequately provide for H-1B Visa holders and their families."  

The story of 23-year-old Athulya Rajakumar brings this home. For The Wall Street Journal, Michelle Hackman, Teresa Mettela, and Nitashia Johnson report on Rajakumar’s fear that she will have to self-deport to India. "I don’t have a support system there, and I’m not a native speaker," Rajakumar said of her legal status ending in December. "I genuinely don’t know what to do." 

Welcome to Wednesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected].  

DACA — First, an invitation: At 2 p.m. Eastern today, the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration and several partners are hosting "DACA’s Precarious Future: A Conversation with Legal Experts and Advocates." The briefing is open to the press and the public. Register here. On the news front, would-be DACA recipients requested Monday that a New York court order interim relief for roughly 80,000 who are currently in limbo, reports Andrew Kreighbaum of Bloomberg Law. The group applied after a court ruling in December 2020 that the government must reopen the program to new applicants — and before a different court halted new applications again in July 2021. For more on where DACA stands in the courts, read our state of play.  

IMMIGRANTS WHO SERVE — Immigration enforcement generally should steer away from putting immigrant members of the military and veterans, as well as their families, in deportation proceedings, according to an ICE memo published Tuesday. In the memo, interim ICE Director Tae Johnson says that his agency will not pursue deportation of active-duty service members unless there are "significant aggravating factors," Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports in CBS News. Johnson also wrote that agents and prosecutors should seek approval from leaders within ICE before pursuing deportation orders against military family members.  

SUMMIT’S FOCUS — Migration is a main topic of conversation at the Summit of the Americas, reports Elliot Spagat of the Associated Press. Before the week is out, watch for the Los Angeles Declaration, likely to be "a brief call to action that supporters hope will guide countries on hosting people fleeing violence and persecution and searching for more economic stability." Said Brian Nichols, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs: "[W]hat we’re doing is saying, ‘Let’s come together in a coherent way and construct a framework so we can all work together to make this situation more humane and more manageable.’" 

DEFINING WELCOME — Once a stay-at-home mom, Ann Wittman of Ellisville, Missouri, has now become immersed in helping Afghan families as a Welcome Neighbor STL volunteer, reports St. Louis Public Radio’s Kayla Drake. She has helped almost 20 Afghan families resettle in the area, bought the Waridk family a house, and in the past eight months alone "has spearheaded six community car donations, purchased 11 plane tickets to reunite relatives and recruited several friends to volunteer." Stay tuned for the full interview tomorrow.  

Elsewhere in local welcome today: 

• Pastor Andrew Hinman will go on an almost 20-hour bike ride from Oswego to Silver Bay in New York, raising funds to help Oswego Welcomes New Americans sponsor an Afghan family of five. (Xiana Fontno, Oswego County News Now) 
• Resettled Afghan youth are finding community in skateboarding, thanks to nonprofit Skateistan, a new pilot program in Rochester, New York. "I’m so happy, I’m skateboarding, I’m teaching, and also I’m learning," said Farzad Sharafi, an instructor with the program. (Gino Fanelli, CITY News) 

LATINO MEDIA NETWORK — The newly formed Latino Media Network, a group of Latino investors from across the political spectrum, plans to buy 18 radio stations in 10 cities, reports Suzanne Gamboa for NBC News. The stations would reach about 20 million Latinos, or a third of the nation’s Latino population. Amid concern about disinformation aimed at Latinos, "We hope to create relevant content for radio and other audio platforms with content that our community can trust and rely on," co-founder Jess Morales Rocketto said.  

Thanks for reading, 

Dan