On Tuesday a sailboat carrying migrants in the Aegean Sea east of Athens capsized and sank. Confirmed deaths number 22, including at least five children, and 34 remain missing, the Associated Press reports. Twelve passengers have been found alive. 

The incident is just the latest in a series of deadly shipwrecks, including two in October in which at least 27 people perished, the AP reports. 

Meanwhile, in the U.K., conditions at an overcrowded migrant processing center have deteriorated, Kylie Maclellan of Reuters reports. "Intended to house around 1,500 migrants for less than 24 hours at a time, numbers have swelled to more than double that, with one Afghan family telling [an official] they had been there for 32 days," Maclellan reports. 

"[W]e need a grown up solution to what is a very real problem," local lawmaker Roger Gale said. 

As for the conversation in the U.S. ahead of the midterms, Elizabeth Trovall of the Houston Chronicle goes beyond the parties’ talking points and shares the nuanced perspectives of Latino voters in the Houston area and border communities. 

Welcome to Thursday’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].  

CANADA’S MODEL — Canada isn’t sitting idly while its neighbor to the south fails to advance immigration reforms that could help address demographic challenges. A new Canadian policy is designed to attract 1.45 million immigrants by 2025 to address labor shortages, reports Vjosa Isai for The New York Times. Canada’s census agency announced just last week that already, more than a fifth of the population are immigrants. "Canadians understand the need to continue to grow our population if we’re going to meet the needs of the labor force, if we’re going to rebalance a worrying demographic trend, and if we’re going to continue to reunite families," said Sean Fraser, Canada’s immigration minister, on Tuesday. (What a refreshing sentence.)  

LOST TALENT — The country is missing an opportunity to add high-skilled workers to the workforce, Stuart Anderson writes in Forbes. Limitations on work permits for spouses of H-1B visa holders are keeping highly educated professionals, primarily women, out of the workforce, according to a new study by the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP), of which Anderson is executive director. "The United States can reap significant economic benefits, ease labor shortages, and attract more workers in the global competition for talent if it expanded current rules on work eligibility for the spouses of H-1B visa holders," said Madeline Zavodny of NFAP. Work authorization requires a separate application and is only granted if the H-1B visa holder is in the queue for a permanent visa, which takes at least six years.  

BECAUSE OF DESANTIS — Newly released documents reveal more details about the migrant flights that started in Texas and stopped in Florida en route to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, Mary Ellen Klas reports in the Miami Herald. The planes’ stopover in the Florida Panhandle allowed the state to treat migrants who’d departed Texas "as if they were Florida-based … and thus eligible to be airlifted out" under its migrant relocation program. Before they could be flown out of Florida, they had to be flown in at taxpayer expense, Klas notes — and Floridians also footed the bill for at least one transport flight that never took place. The new information "raises more questions than answers,’ said Michael Barfield, director of public access at the Florida Center for Government Accountability. 

NOW HOMELESS — Many migrants bused to new cities with "the promise of a new life" are facing severe struggles after they arrive, including homelessness, reports Rick Jervis of USA TODAY. Seeking shelter in an unknown city becomes their reality, especially with limited access to jobs, no work authorization or food. On the flip side, volunteers such as Ariadna Phillips are stepping up to offer assistance and help, Jervis reports: Every day, Phillips works a full day as a middle school teacher, then leaves for what amounts to a second job — including helping migrants who need emergency shelter. "They’ve been assaulted, they’ve been robbed, they’ve been kicked out of the shelter at all hours of the night or refused a bed," Phillips said. "We do rapid response to intercept those people, especially if they’re facing a life threat at the particular shelter they’re at." 

JOIN THE CAUSE — Matt Zeller, a senior adviser for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, continues to travel the country to push for passage of the bipartisan Afghan Adjustment Act, reports Andrea Smardon of KSL Podcasts. "I’m only standing here talking to you right now, because my Afghan interpreter saved my life in a battle 14 years ago, when he shot and killed two people who were about to kill me," said Zeller, a former Army captain who served in Afghanistan. "… [I]f we leave these Afghans truly behind to die, the prevailing narrative around the world will be that we are people who can’t be trusted." Separately, U.S. News & World Report’s Elliott Davis Jr. dives deep into a new report that sheds light on maternal and child mortality rates under Taliban rule. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

P.S. Remember the beautiful digital altar that The Los Angeles Times produced last year for Día de Los Muertos? They produced it again this year — with more color, photos, audio and stories. Poynter’s Kristen Hare has the lovely backstory.