"That judgment is thwarting the Secretary’s direction of the Department he leads and disrupting DHS’s efforts to focus its limited resources on the noncitizens who pose the gravest threat to national security, public safety, and the integrity of our Nation’s borders," the filing reads.  

In addition to the stay of the judge’s ruling, the administration has asked the Supreme Court to hear oral arguments on the decision itself.  

In the request, the administration also notes a trend in which lower-court judges block nationwide policies, and asks that if nothing else, the ruling apply only to the judge’s district, which includes Texas and Louisiana. The trend of court rulings determining many immigration policies gets a closer look from Ariana Figueroa of the States Newsroom.  

Editor’s note here that Congress could use its power, make better immigration laws, and stem this trend. 

Looking ahead this week: Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and President Biden are slated to meet tomorrow in D.C., as Mark Stevenson and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press report. Migration, as well as food security and economic opportunity, are among the agenda items. 

Welcome to Monday’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]. 

MISTREATMENT — Border Patrol agents lacked clear instructions from supervisors and were following a request from the Texas Department of Public Safety when they "used ‘unnecessary’ force in September against Black migrants," report Eileen Sullivan and Zolan Kanno-Youngs of The New York Times. That’s according to a 500-page report published Friday by Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Four Border Patrol agents now face discipline over the mistreatment of migrants crossing into Del Rio, Texas, last year. "To me, this is less about the individual agents, although they should be held to account for the specific unprofessional actions they took, but a failure of leadership to address a situation that was very much overwhelming the patrol at the time," said Theresa Cardinal Brown of the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

SOUTHERN BORDER — In words and photographs, respectively, Nick Miroff and Eric Thayer of The Washington Post tell the story of several border challenges the Biden administration is facing in southern Arizona. In the Tucson sector, "Smugglers guide [migrants] via cellphone through isolated desert and mountain areas or send them to blitz the border wall in ones-and-twos, stretching U.S. agents whose numbers are spread too thin to stop them all." Over in Yuma, migrant families and children are coming from all over the world in large groups, requesting asylum. Our take: To help address increases in migration, the administration should implement solutions that look beyond deterrence. 

‘UNSUSTAINABLE’ — The American landscaping and gardening industry can meet high consumer demand via increased immigration, Molly John, President of the Ohio Green Industry Association, writes for the Dayton Daily News. "Our country’s current labor crisis is unsustainable, and it has to change now," writes John. "We need new policies but getting there requires a new attitude toward immigration ... I’m asking Ohio leaders to help Ohio businesses. Welcoming policies will save our industry and so many others." Ohio business and faith leaders sounded a similar tone in a meeting last week, as Tyler Thompson of WOSU reported.   

LEGAL COUNSEL — Since New Jersey county jails stopped detaining immigrants for ICE last year, the agency has transferred people to other states, "separating them from free local legal counsel," reports Giulia McDonnell Nieto Del Rio of Documented. As a result, undocumented immigrants like Jose Martin Hercules Aleman, originally from El Salvador, are going to immigration court without legal representation. Aleman was also denied immigration bond. "It’s really scary because you don’t know what you should respond," Aleman said via phone in detention. "You don’t know anything." 

AFGHAN STORIES — For America Magazine - The Jesuit Review, Abi Aswege, a law student with Marquette University Law School in Wisconsin, reflects on her experience volunteering to help Afghans apply for asylum at the Fort McCoy military base. For three days, students listened to their stories and helped thousands with their applications. "Each of us has stories of Afghan guests who impacted us, and will always have a place in our hearts," Aswege writes. Serving others and advocating on their behalf, she writes, "was the way of Christ, who is the model of pure, unconditional love. He was the master of meeting people where they were at, tending to the marginalized, forgotten, shamed and outcast. He showed them love and care regardless of their social or class status, their nationality, or their political affiliations." 

Elsewhere in stories of welcome: 

• The nonprofit Chicago chapter of Islamic Circle of North America Relief (ICNA Relief) hosted a giveaway to Afghan refugees celebrating Eid al-Adha, which began Saturday. "We just want to make them feel a little bit special, so they know that we care for them and we’re there for them," said Beena Farid, ICNA Relief’s outreach coordinator. (Shanzeh Ahmad, Chicago Tribune) 
• The State Department team that worked with nine resettlement agencies to resettle almost 72,000 Afghans in five months is a finalist for this year’s Service to American Medals program. (Tom Temin, Federal News Network) 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

P.S. Congratulations to Ana Isabela de Alba, a daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers who on Friday made history when she became the first Latina judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. Juan Esparza Loera of The Fresno Bee has the story.