Friday, November 11
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THE FORUM DAILY

To our veterans, active military members and their families: Thank you
for your sacrifice and service. 

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Thursday
<[link removed]>
that it is hosting 50 naturalization ceremonies across the country in
honor of the day. 

"USCIS is grateful to all members of the U.S. military, veterans, and
their families who have put their faith and trust in America. We are
honored to have a role in supporting non-citizen service members on
their citizenship journey, so they can become citizens of the country
they have already sworn to protect," USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou said. 

Yesterday the Smithsonian
<[link removed]>
joined USCIS and the Department of Veterans Affairs to host one of the
ceremonies. Among our 25 newest citizens is retired Army Brig. Gen.
Stephen L.A. Michael of Kansas City, whom USCIS honored as an
Outstanding American By Choice
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Michael, born in Guyana, came to the U.S. in 1979, graduated from West
Point and served in the military for more than 32 years - including
deployments to Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Kosovo, Iraq, Ghana, Israel and
Afghanistan. 

The journey to citizenship isn't always smooth, to say the least. In
the San Diego Union-Tribune
<[link removed]>,
David Kinyua Bariu tells the maddening story of how he was deported
after serving for many years, triggered by his having been told,
wrongly, that his student visa allowed him to enlist. (His recruiter was
court-martialed for recruiting ineligible foreign-born students to
receive a bonus.)  

Bariu was deported in 2008 and allowed to return only this year. He will
become an American citizen this coming Thursday. Mr. Bariu, we'll be
celebrating with you. 

In other news yesterday, the Biden administration announced that it
would extend the deportation protections and work permits for some
337,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Nepal, and Honduras who
currently have Temporary Protected Status, Camilo Montoya-Galvez reports
for CBS News
<[link removed]>. 

A reminder that next week the Forum is hosting a convening in D.C.
<[link removed]> to talk about what
happens next in immigration and push for solutions. (Reporters, it's
not too late to contact me for more details
<mailto:[email protected]>.) Because of our packed schedule,
we'll be sending an abbreviated version of The Forum Daily, and no
edition on Thursday. 

In the meantime, welcome to today's edition. 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] <mailto:[email protected]>.  

JAMMED SYSTEM - There are nearly 2 million unresolved cases in the
immigration court system, including 750,000 asylum applications,
per government data compiled by TRAC
<[link removed]> at Syracuse
University. Handling those cases: only about 600 judges
<[link removed]>. And the case
number does not include hundreds of thousands of asylum-seeking migrants
who have been released by U.S. border officials via humanitarian parole
<[link removed]>
with instructions to check back with ICE later for court dates, reports
Camilo Montoya-Galvez of CBS News
<[link removed]>.
That's leaving people in limbo for years, and if their work permit
expires, they're stuck.  

WHAT MIGHT

**HAVE BEEN** - National security leader Stewart Verdery imagines a
world in which broad immigration reform passed in 2007 for an op-ed in
The Hill
<[link removed]>.
[Verdery will be at our convening next week.] Temporary worker programs
could have averted current labor shortages, and Dreamers would have had
a pathway to permanence, he notes. "[T]he failure of Congress to turn
bipartisan support for comprehensive immigration reform into an actual
legislative achievement in 2007 should be considered one of the biggest
missed opportunities in American history," writes Verdery, who is also
an alumnus of DHS during the George W. Bush administration. "Let's
hope that the next window for bipartisan immigration reform opens soon
and that Congress finally achieves what should have happened in 2007."
 

CONSTANT UNCERTAINTY - "Only Congress can secure our future here,"
writes entrepreneur and DACA recipient Monsi Contreras in an op-ed for
the San Antonio Report
<[link removed]>. As
owner of an online business 'Vida Mia Boutique,' she fears what
could happen soon if she loses her legal protections: "I could continue
to operate without DACA, but I'd be doing so in the shadows,
constantly afraid that my thriving business would be dismantled in the
blink of an eye." Over at Refinery29
<[link removed]>,
Estefania Saavedra reflects on the uncertainty she experienced as an
undocumented Ecuadorian immigrant in Florida. "There have been so many
moments throughout my life that made me believe that I was neither from
here nor there, that there was no place for me to exist fully and
safely," Saavedra writes.  

FEED THE PEOPLE - Labor shortages are contributing to higher food
costs, but immigration reforms can help, Maine restaurant owner Keith
Manaker writes in a Bangor Daily News
<[link removed]>
op-ed. "We desperately need Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Angus King to
get behind a Senate version of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act,
which the House already passed
<[link removed]>," he
writes. "The bill would beef up our farm labor supply to help get food
from American farms to our tables, and could also lead to an increased
labor supply in the restaurant industry. ... Immigration has powered
America for hundreds of years. Maine's senators must make sure we have
the immigration laws we need to staff and feed our state." 

WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER - Former "Top Chef" contestant Byron
Gomez - a DACA recipient - wants his new restaurant to be "the next
Shake Shack for Costa Rican chicken," reports Boulder Weekly
<[link removed]>'s
Colin Wrenn. Gomez's new project, Pollo Tico, just opened at the
Avanti Boulder food hall in Colorado, and it's an homage to Gomez's
childhood meals in Costa Rica.  

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

 

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