Tuesday, August 23
 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

 

THE FORUM DAILY

As Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona have
sent buses of asylum seekers to Washington, D.C., and New York City for
political reasons, the migrants themselves are left in the lurch, Bobby
Caina Calvan and Ashraf Khalil report for the Associated Press
. 

Take Dario Maldonado, who fled autocracy in Venezuela and eventually
came to the U.S., "an odyssey that required him to travel by foot
through Central American jungle infested with venomous snakes and
gun-toting bandits, sometimes sidestepping the corpses of people who
died on the same journey." Maldonado has heard about the political
battle, but to him and many other migrants, the U.S. remains the place
where they might be able to pursue their hopes and dreams - and where
welcome seems a possibility. 

"No one leaves their land because they want to," said Kelin Enriquez,
who helped care for Alzheimer's patients in her native Venezuela. "We
want to work. We want a better opportunity." 

It's clear that we need a better conversation about border management
and security
. 

Welcome to Tuesday'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] .

**CHRISTIANS' WELCOME** - For Christianity Today
,
Emily Belz shines a light on Christian welcome for Afghan evacuees via
the story of three siblings who are now enrolled at Nyack College, a
Christian and Missionary Alliance school in New York. "American
Christians across the political spectrum have welcomed

Afghans, housed them, and provided a surge in donations to resettlement
organizations," Belz writes, and that welcome has changed lives. But
Afghans' resettlement under humanitarian parole is temporary and
requires finding another way to stay here. (Passage of the Afghan
Adjustment Act

would offer the certainty resettled Afghans currently lack.) 

Elsewhere in local welcome: 

* "We can do better," Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said after hearing
about unsanitary conditions at an apartment complex where resettled
Afghans live. The governor also spoke of his state's welcome of more
than 1,800 Afghans: "I had a lot of our military personnel that fought
over there ... reaching out saying, 'Hey, we can't leave these folks
behind and helpless' - and so we wanted to open up. It's just kind
of the Oklahoma Standard," Stitt said. "So we welcome them to Oklahoma."
(Carla Hinton, The Oklahoman
) 

* Guided by her Catholic faith, Ann Wittman of St. Louis began
supporting Afghan evacuees arriving in her hometown, going as far as to
buy one family a house, and encouraging her fellow churchgoers to join
her efforts. "When we're helping them, we're doing it because that's
what Jesus told us to do," Wittman said. (Jonah McKeown, Catholic News
Agency
) 

* After fleeing Afghanistan himself and settling in Pittsburgh, former
journalist and translator Zubair Babakarkhail created a nonprofit that
assists other new arrivals. (WESA
) 

**WELCOMING UKRAINIANS** - Several Louisiana-based aid organizations
have stepped up to welcome Ukrainian evacuees to the state, Joni Hess
reports for Nola.com
.
The North Shore Unitarian Universalists partnered with nonprofits Kryla
and Family Promise of St. Tammany to provide housing, transportation,
food and other essentials to Ukrainian newcomers for at least one year.
Elsewhere, Refugee and Immigrant Services Northwest in Everett,
Washington, has helped more than 400 Ukrainian families resettle in
Snohomish County, Kienan Briscoe of the Lynnwood Times

reports. And in Maine, Ukrainian-American Oleg Opalnyk is housing six
Ukrainian families in Auburn, per James Corrigan of WMTW
.
"When all the people started to leave Ukraine, I sent a message online
saying 'if anybody over there needs a place to stay, I can help
you,' " Opalnyk said.  

**MEAT PROCESSORS** - Immigrants could be part of the solution to
labor shortages at meat processing plants in Minnesota, Noah Fish
reports in The Bemidji Pioneer
.
Producers are facing "limited meat processing access due to closures and
appointment backlogs, and existing processors face difficulties of
retaining workforce and meeting increases in demand," per a recent
report . And that can
affect entire communities where plants are located. One recommendation:
"Demonstrate to people at the high school level and to immigrant
communities that there's an opportunity to grow" in the meat processing
field, said Paul Sobocinski, one of the report's authors and a
livestock farmer in Redwood County. "Besides being an employee, you can
be an entrepreneur - our country was founded on
entrepreneurship."    

**MAREK'S MISSION** - The MAREK construction company in Houston
works with community organizations to enable the hiring of refugees and
other immigrants, reports Maggie Murphy of the Construction Executive
. MAREK
works with organizations including SERJobs, which offers education,
training, and employment to refugees and other economically
disadvantaged individuals, and NextOp, which connects veterans and
service members, including special immigrant visa recipients, to
employment opportunities. "The day we met our very first Afghan refugee
through NextOp, I asked him to tell me his story," says Saied Alavi,
managing director for MAREK and an Iranian immigrant. "I asked him,
'Do you know somebody else like you that we can recruit and bring into
our business?'" MAREK has since hired more than 20 resettled Afghans.
(We aren't regular readers of Construction Executive, so a thank-you
to Stan Marek for sharing this story with us.)  

Thanks for reading,  

Dan 

 

DONATE

 

**Follow Us**

 

[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]

National Immigration Forum

10 G Street NE, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20002

www.immigrationforum.org

 

Unsubscribe from The Forum Daily

or opt-out from all Forum emails.

 
_________________

Sent to [email protected]

Unsubscribe:
[link removed]

National Immigration Forum, 10 G St NE, Suite 500, Washington, D.C. 20002, United States