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