Thursday, June 24
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THE FORUM DAILY

The so-called Migrant Protection Protocols, also known as the "Remain in
Mexico" policy, are back in the spotlight: A migrant woman attempted
suicide while waiting in Monterrey, Mexico, for her asylum decision,
Stef W. Kight reports in Axios
.
 

"While the administration has said it would improve protections for
enrollees in MPP, this incident reflects the stresses migrants still
endure while waiting - and holes in a system intended to catch
red-flag cases," explains Kight. The woman was treated at a hospital and
has come to the U.S. under medical parole. 

"People on MPP we serve suffer from anxiety, stress, and a sense of
hopelessness, and often, helplessness," said Blanca Lomeli, director of
the Mexican branch of HIAS, which serves refugees. "The reality is that
the prolonged stay in Mexico is negatively impacting their mental
health."

International Organization for Migration data indicates that 5,600
asylum seekers have been returned to Mexico since a court forced the
Biden administration to restart the program in December. That compares
with an estimated 70,000

from the program's start in January 2019 through its suspension after
Biden took office. 

And as Sofía Mejías-Pascoe reports in inewsource
,
shelters at the border are struggling to meet the basic needs of people
waiting in Mexico under MPP or being turned back at the border under
Title 42. 

Welcome to Thursday'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]
. 

103 COMPANIES - The nonprofit Tent Partnership for Refugees has
enlisted 103 companies, including Delta, Pfizer, and Marriott, "to
commit to reducing barriers for refugees looking for jobs and helping
them integrate into the U.S. economy," Jalen Small reports in Newsweek
.
Under the moniker Coalition for Refugees in the U.S., the companies
commit to offering mentorship and training opportunities to all refugees
in the U.S. The businesses' commitment is timely not only as the U.S.
works to resettle refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine in particular,
but also amid a worker shortage. "In states with labor shortages, we
have seen governors of both political parties increasing the admissions
of refugees in the last year, partly because they need to," said Gideon
Maltz, executive director of the Tent Partnership. 

**LOOMING DEADLINE** - The one-year deadline to apply for asylum and
avoid deportation is nearing for hundreds of Afghans living in
Wisconsin, reports Erin Sullivan for WMTV
.
With a limited number of immigration lawyers in Wisconsin, Grant Sovern,
president of the board of directors at the Community Immigration Law
Center in Madison, has partnered with immigration and legal
organizations across the state to create a training program to teach
non-immigration attorneys about the asylum application process. "We've
gotten a really great response but still we need hundreds of lawyers to
do this," he said. An Afghan Adjustment Act

would solve many of these challenges. 

Elsewhere in local welcome:  

* In Cleveland, disaster relief nonprofit Team Rubicon continues to help
newly arrived Afghan families secure housing, with nearly 30 volunteers
"meeting multiple days per week to collect donated items, manage
inventory, and move families into their new homes." (Sam Allard, Scene
) 

* Medical students at the University of Washington have partnered with
Refugee Connections Spokane to help Afghan refugees navigate medical
records and receive services in both Dari and English. (Treva Lind, The
Spokesman-Review
) 

**PRIVATE PRISONS** - Whether states have a say in the federal
government's use of private prisons for immigration detention is at
the heart of a lawsuit in California, Rebecca Schneid reports for The
Los Angeles Times
.
A panel of judges voted that the state's ban on for-profit prisons
must exclude federal immigration detention centers, but the case is
being appealed. The lawsuit's outcome could "indicate how much
discretion states have when it comes to regulations that might affect
the federal government's immigration detention centers" across the
country, said Michael Kaufman, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of
Southern California. 

NOT CHEAP - Newly obtained state records show that Texas Gov. Greg
Abbott's (R) order to bus undocumented immigrants from the border to
Washington, D.C., has cost more than $1,400 per rider, a team at NBC
DFW 
reports
- more than the cost of a first-class plane ticket from some Texas
border towns to D.C. Moreover, the state's taxpayers may have to foot
some of the bill: Abbott's effort to raise private funds has netted
$112,000, while the trips' costs exceeded $1.6 million in April and
May alone. And Abbott's punch is not landing on the federal
government, as he'd hoped: Local organizations in D.C. are helping
migrants reach their final destinations (including - wait for it -
in Texas).  

AGING OUT - From age 10, Kartik Sivakumar grew up in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, with a dependent visa connected to his father's temporary visa.
His father applied for a green card in 2015 but is still waiting - and
Sivakumar, now 21, aged out of his dependent-visa eligibility in
February and self-deported to India, leaving his senior year at the
University of Iowa behind. His story is not unique, as Teresa Mathew
writes in The New Yorker
:
One estimate puts the number of "documented Dreamers" at more than
250,000. A bill in Congress would offer a solution to some documented
Dreamers, but its prospects are uncertain. Sivakumar was able to return
to the U.S. on a student visa - but that's also temporary. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

 

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