Friday, October 21
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THE FORUM DAILY

In an essay for The New York Times
<[link removed]>,
Megan K. Stack analyzes what the recent migrant transport of buses
really means and what it is showing about the immigration system.  

There is the reality at the border: Thousands are showing up and there
are not enough shelters to welcome all of them.  

In El Paso especially, the city government, including nongovernmental
and faith groups, have stepped up - and in - to operate a
large-scale interstate busing operation for the increasing number of
asylum-seeking migrants in need. 

"Letting people get released out in the streets is not acceptable, not
as an elected official and not as a fellow human being," said Peter
Svarzbein, a member of the El Paso City Council. "You can disagree
politically and say they don't have the right to be here, but we see
them here, and we feel an obligation to do something." 

The operation itself is not "free, or even cheap" as Stack points out.
In fact, Annunciation House, a non-profit that has worked for decades
resettling migrants, announced its decision to close its largest shelter
at the border due to maintenance issues and insufficient helpers. 

"[I]f people don't have places to go, what are we supposed to do?"
added Kari Lenander, executive director of Border Servant Corps, who
runs the Las Cruces migrant shelter. "I think everyone is circling that
question," and considering "what must be done." 

We need better policy solutions to fix our broken immigration system -
one that centers on the human dignity of migrants - as noted in our
policy explainer
<[link removed]>
and healthier border dialogue paper
<[link removed]>. 

Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, Michael F. Olson
thinks so too: In an op-ed for The Wichita Eagle
<[link removed]>, he
writes: "Government policies that respect the basic human rights of
migrants and refugees are necessary and must be directed to maintaining
the cohesive family unit, especially for those with young children.
Regardless of their legal status, migrants, like all persons, possess
inherent human dignity that should be upheld at every stage of the legal
process." 

Welcome to Friday's edition of The Forum Daily. I'm Clara
Villatoro, the Forum's strategic communications manager. If you have a
story to share from your own community, please send it to me at
[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>. 

AGENCY CHALLENGES - The Department of Homeland Security has stopped
the initial plan that would have flown migrants to remote cities within
the U.S. for processing. Officials tell CNN
<[link removed]>'s
Priscilla Alvarez that they're halting those plans partly because the
administration "grew hesitant over the complicated logistics."
Oftentimes DHS produces a plan to manage the border, but struggles to
get approval from the administration, causing frustration, notes
Alvarez. Still, Abdullah Hasan, a White House spokesperson underscored:
"Encouraging robust debate, hearing different ideas, and getting lots of
expertise before making policy decisions that impact millions of lives
is a feature, not a bug. And it is through this smart, deliberative, and
collaborative approach that we have seen significant progress in
rebuilding the immigration system the prior Administration gutted." 

NO PLACE TO CALL HOME - Thousands of Afghans continue to await
resettlement in the U.S. while temporarily living in cramped conditions
in a third country, writes columnist Lynne O'Donnell for Foreign
Policy
<[link removed]>.
"The U.S. immigration system has been plagued by staff shortages since
policy changes introduced by the Trump administration, exacerbating the
frustration of people waiting to be processed for resettlement out of
interim housing," O'Donnell writes. "We never saw the sky. People
literally went crazy because of the uncertainty about how long they
would be there," said Horakhsh Amini, a refugee who spent a year in a
camp in the United Arab Emirates. Separately, in Chicago, Afghan
refugees are urging Congress to pass the Afghan Adjustment Act
<[link removed]>,
sharing their stories with Democratic Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky and
Sen. Dick Durbin at RefugeeOne headquarters on Thursday, per Elvia
Malagón of the Chicago Sun-Times
<[link removed]>. 

Locally:  

* The Iowa Migrant Movement for Justice, the University of Iowa and
Drake University launched the Afghan Legal League of Iowa (ALL Iowa)
<[link removed]>, a program that offers Afghans access to
immigration legal services. (Archie Wagner, The Daily Iowan
<[link removed]>)  

* Louisiana State University (LSU) is supporting Afghan refugees in the
community by hiring some of them as part of the LSU dining
team. (Miranda Thomas, WAFB
<[link removed]>) 

HURRICANE IAN

**IMPACT** - In the aftermath and recovery of Hurricane Ian,
Florida's undocumented immigrant communities are facing barriers to
receiving federal relief and support, in addition to experiencing food
insecurity, reports Michael Sainato of The Guardian
<[link removed]>.
"The ongoing crisis is acute and it's impacting immigrants in a
disproportionate way," said Felipe Sousa-Lazaballet, executive director
of the non-profit Hope CommUnity Center in Florida. "Undocumented
immigrants and others with immigration statuses such as temporary
protective status or DACA may actually not qualify for relief as it is
now, and money for hurricane relief is typically run through the state
- and we know the governor is extremely anti-immigrant,"
Sousa-Lazaballet noted.  

REFORMS - Antonio De Loera-Brust, the former special assistant to the
U.S. secretary of state, writes a powerful op-ed in Foreign Policy
<[link removed]> about
the need to recognize and honor farmworkers amid labor
shortages through immigration reforms. "As the world receives a
real-time lesson on the relationship between food security and
geopolitics, the time has come to recognize how much the world owes the
farmworkers who put the food on America's table," he concludes.
Separately, three senior living advocacy groups sent a joint letter to
Congress
<[link removed]>
this week proposing immigration programs that build pipelines of trained
caregivers as an alternative to face the workforce shortage in the aging
services industry, reports Kimberly Bonvissuto of McKnights Senior
Living
<[link removed]>.
 

Thanks for reading, 

Clara  

P.S. In San Jose, California, DACA recipient Flor Martinez Zaragoza, 27,
has been "using social media as a tool to educate others about the
hardships of a workforce population that is, and has been, aggressively
exploited." For the full interview, check out Alan Chazaro's piece in
KQED
<[link removed]>.  

 

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