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In an essay for The New York Times, 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 and healthier border dialogue paper. Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, Michael F. Olson thinks so too: In an op-ed for The Wichita Eagle, 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 cvillatoro@immigrationforum.org. 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’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. "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, 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. Locally:
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. "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 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 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. 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. |
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