Tuesday, August 30
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THE FORUM DAILY

More and more companies are hiring refugees, which "not only alleviates
worker shortages but also helps avoid future openings as these new
employees tend to be exceptionally loyal," reports Paul Keegan for
Bloomberg
. 

The nonprofit Tent Partnership for Refugees
, started by Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi
Ulukaya, now helps 250 companies worldwide find, hire, and train people
who have been forcibly displaced. And membership in Tent's Coalition
for Refugees in the U.S. launched last September, has grown to more than
100 businesses.     

Azimullah Zarifi, one of the last evacuees to flee the Taliban amid the
U.S. military withdrawal, now works at global packaging company Amcor
Plc. in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Since starting, Zarifi has been promoted,
has a new prosthetic leg and health insurance, and is able to send some
money back home in Afghanistan for his family. 

For people such as Zarifi, "It's a new beginning," Ulukaya said. "A
whole new life." 

Speaking of addressing worker shortages and their effects: In an op-ed
for The Hill
,
Rebecca Shi, Executive Director of the American Business Immigration
Coalition, writes about how immigration reforms could help.   

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] .  

**MPP** - Despite a Supreme Court ruling ending the Migrant Protection
Protocols
,
hundreds of migrants who were enrolled are still waiting to be removed
from the program officially, reports Jasmine Aguilera of TIME Magazine
. "When
they put me in [MPP] ... Well, everything that I fled in Colombia I'm
scared of facing here in Mexico," said Maria, an asylum seeker
identified by her middle name for her and her family's protection.
Maria has shown up to her scheduled court dates in El Paso, Texas, twice
now, and each time, officials have sent her back to Mexico. Her next
court date is next month. According to DHS data, 1,115 MPP cases for
people waiting in Mexico remained open as of July 19. 

**PASSPORT DELAYS** - Guatemalan nationals in the U.S. are
experiencing extensive delays in obtaining passports from their home
country's consulates, reports Soudi Jiménez for The Los Angeles Times
.
The delays are especially distressing for "doubly undocumented"
migrants, who don't hold official status in the U.S. and are waiting
for proper identification from Guatemala. While the delays began during
the pandemic, a shortage of books used to print passports exacerbated
the issue, resulting in a backlog of almost 118,000 passports pending
delivery as of July 15. "It's a shame, it's a sign of inefficiency
and little empathy towards migrants," said Jordán Rodas, Guatemala's
former human rights ombudsman.  

**MENTAL HEALTH** - Some 26,500 Latino or Hispanic individuals live in
Spartanburg, South Carolina, according to the latest U.S. Census data
.
But the community's needs for mental health services and support are
largely unmet, reports Eva Wen of The Spartanburg Herald-Journal
.
"In our immigrant communities, mental health challenges, struggles, and
illnesses go untreated, a lot of times until the symptoms are chronic or
severe," said Gia Quiñones, one of only a few Spanish-speaking Latinx
clinicians serving the area. State lawmakers failed to pass a bill
last
year that would have helped by permitting Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) recipients to receive professional licenses in 40
occupations, including in mental health, nursing, and teaching, notes
Wen.  

**SIX-YEAR ODYSSEY** - Zahra Amira and her family fled Afghanistan six
years ago after her father and main provider died. They trekked through
four countries - 7,000 miles - while waiting for their refugee
applications to the U.S. to be processed before finally resettling in
Denver, Colorado, recounts Maya Yang for The Guardian
.
"I did not want to end up ... jobless and uneducated, so I chose to
become a refugee," Zahra said. Her family, along with the more than
76,000 Afghans who have arrived in the past year, are "set to contribute
nearly $200 [million] in taxes and $1.4 [billion] to the American
economy in their first year of work," according to data released in
August

by the International Rescue Committee. A separate read that deserves
attention: The U.S. appears to be shutting down operations for Afghan
evacuees temporarily housed in the United Arab Emirates, leaving
thousands in limbo, Mindy Belz writes in The Dispatch
. 

Locally: 

* Thanks to Catholic Charities of Louisville, Kentucky, Afghan evacuee
Mohammad, who spent many years working for the Afghan National Army, and
most of his family have been able to relocate. "We feel better, we feel
good. Everything is good," Mohammad said of his new home. He is still
hoping to bring his two oldest children from Afghanistan to the U.S.
(Monica Harkins, WDRB
) 

* 72-year-old Manuel Vera of Silver Spring, Maryland, picked up a
heartwarming retirement hobby: repairing bikes, 40 of which have gone to
Afghan families. "I just want to be able to give them something that
makes them happy right now," Vera said. (Héctor Alejandro Arzate, DCist
)  

* With support from Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service in
Baltimore, Aziz Salehi was able to land a job at Johns Hopkins Hospital
and get back on his feet. (Stetson Miller, CBS News
)  

**FOOD FOR THOUGHT** - In 2020, refugee Meymuna Hussein-Cattan opened
Flavors From Afar in Los Angeles, a restaurant with changing monthly
menus that highlight dishes from an immigrant or refugee chef's
homeland, reports Kathleen Toner for CNN
.
"For all refugees - and immigrants - food is a sense of self
preservation," she said. "As long as you preserve those family recipes,
it really instills a sense of rootedness (and) feeling connected to your
cultural upbringing. ... Here, [refugees] are the star." 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

 

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