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.