Friday, July 29
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THE FORUM DAILY

A settlement reached Thursday should limit the amount of time
unaccompanied children spend in government custody, Adolfo Flores
reports for BuzzFeed News
. 

Under the settlement, the government has one week to schedule
fingerprinting appointments for parents and sponsors, and 10 days to
process them. The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the
Department of Health and Human Services, which temporarily houses
unaccompanied migrant children, will be required to track and report how
long fingerprinting takes. 

The Trump administration instituted a requirement that not only the
sponsor of an unaccompanied child, but also all household members, be
fingerprinted and have an extensive background check. The policy
resulted in children spending additional weeks or even months in ORR
custody. 

"Even Trump's ORR said this was not workable," said Stephen Kang, an
attorney for the ACLU. "Our hope is that the settlement enshrines
certain deadlines and time requirements for when fingerprints need to be
processed." 

Added Blanca Ortiz, a plaintiff in the case whose sons were in ORR
custody for four months: "I'll always remember the months when the
government kept me separated from my two sons. There is no greater pain
that can be caused than when you separate a child from their mother." 

Welcome to Friday'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] . 

ELDER CARE STRAIN - Immigration reform is necessary to counter labor
shortages hitting the home health care industry as hundreds of thousands
of workers exit the caregiving sector, reports Alexandra Moe for
Politico
.
Since January 2020, 400,000 nursing home and assisted living staff
have quit, citing
pandemic exhaustion
,
low pay and limited opportunities for career advancement. The drop comes
as the need expands rapidly, given the U.S.'s aging population and low
birth rates. And immigrants have long been crucial to the sector.
Threaded throughout Moe's piece is the story of Certified Nursing
Assistant Momah Wolapaye, 53, who works at Goodwin Living in Richmond,
Virginia: an immigrant from Liberia who has no plans to leave his job,
and whose patients he considers "to be like my own people." 

SEMICONDUCTORS - The scarcity of semiconductors is causing continual
delays in key industries: medicine, defense, communications, and cars. A
new report
from
the Government Accountability Office offers immigration reforms as one
solution, per Nicole Rosenthal of Law360
.
"All of the experts interviewed highlighted the importance of workforce
policy options," the GAO said. "These policy options included training
programs and immigration reform to ensure that the semiconductor
industry has enough trained workers to meet its needs." Among the
recommendations are for the U.S. to stockpile its resources, update
international trade agreements, and invest in research and
development. 

**MISLEADING** - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) touted false and
misleading information about undocumented migrants in speaking about a
June law enforcement operation that led to 22 arrests, Ana Ceballos of
the Miami Herald

reports. When discussing data surrounding the arrests, DeSantis omitted
that about two-thirds of the people arrested were living in the country
legally. And according to arrest records, none of the seven undocumented
migrants arrested faced drug-related charges, as DeSantis implied. "The
remarks illustrated just how much political weight DeSantis is giving to
the issue of immigration as he seeks reelection," Ceballos writes.  

CLIMATE-DISPLACED PEOPLE - According to a report this year from the
U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 143 million people
are likely to be uprooted by rising seas, drought, searing temperatures,
and other climate catastrophes in the next 30 years. But governments
face challenges in defining and identifying climate-displaced migrants,
Julie Watson reports for the Associated Press
.
"The whole definitional issue isn't a trivial question - how can you
develop a policy for people if you aren't clear on who it applies to?"
said Elizabeth Ferris, a research professor at the Institute for the
Study of International Migration at Georgetown University. Watson's
piece helps identify various aspects of a rapidly evolving phenomenon. 

'I FIGHT FOR EVERY HUMAN' - "I fight for every human. Not just an
Afghan, Ukrainian or American, but for every human," said Jalal Noory,
an Afghan refugee in Ukraine who is serving in the Ukrainian armed
forces, per Natalya Kushnir of ABC News
.
Noory fled to Ukraine in 1999, 20 years after the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan. Up to 10% of Afghanistan's population died in the ensuing
conflict. While in Ukraine, Noory became a successful athlete, got
married and started a family. Feeling a strong sense of patriotism for
his adopted country, Noory did not hesitate to be a part of war,
protecting what he considers the most important thing in life: freedom.
"If you don't have freedom, you have nothing. So I must be free and my
children have to be free," he said. 

In local welcome:  

* "It's really fun to get them out in the community and participate in
America's favorite pastime," said Rachel Gorman, a Toledo, Ohio,
native who volunteered to take a group of resettled Afghans to their
first Toledo Mud Hens baseball game on Wednesday. (Willie Daniely III,
WTVG
)  

* Catholic Community Services in Salt Lake City, which has helped
resettle Afghan evacuees in the past year, is planning to assist 300
newly arriving Ukrainians via the Uniting for Ukraine program. CCS is
now asking the community to help via donations and sponsors. (Linda
Petersen, Intermountain Catholic
) 

* Hickory Grove United Methodist Church in east Charlotte, North
Carolina, partnered with a group of Latin American organizations to set
up a donation closet with "good quality clothing, toiletries and other
essential items," in hopes of "assist[ing] immigrants who arrive in
Charlotte with little money and few possessions. (Kayla Young, WFAE
) 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

P.S. National security leaders are out with a strong statement in
support of "Documented Dreamers." Read the Council on National Security
and Immigration statement here.
 

 

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