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