We’ve talked about the push for immigration reforms as a marathon. Now we’re hoping that Congress is ready to sprint the final mile on some specific measures before the holidays. New polling reaffirms Americans’ support (stay tuned for more on that this week).  

In an op-ed for Fox News, our friend Matthew Soerens of World Relief urges Republicans to recognize that support and seize the moment: "The border needs real solutions — but if Republicans want to provide them, they should act now. They cannot wait for the new Congress when partisan stalemate between the two chambers will make actual legislation all but impossible," he writes.   

The answer could lie in bipartisan border solutions together with bills that help farmers and offer permanence for Dreamers, he writes. That combination was top of mind for Kathryn Freeman of Waco, Texas, when she visited her senators’ offices during our Leading the Way convening before Thanksgiving, as Alicia Naspretto of KXXV reports. "The majority of Texas wants both border security and immigration reform," Freeman said. "They don't feel like it's a choice of either/or. We can have both and that's the voice I wanted to represent when I went to DC." 

Regarding farmers: Ag groups and farmworker organizations are making a final push for the Farm Workforce Modernization Act this year, with their sector one of the most affected by labor shortages, Kristina Peterson and Michelle Hackman report in the Wall Street Journal. The bill passed the House last year with the support of 30 Republicans. 

Elsewhere in the Wall Street Journal, Carine Hajjar focuses her column on the administration’s lack of action to address both labor shortages and immigration-system failings. Backlogs in employment authorization for new arrivals who qualify are depriving employers of willing workers, she writes: "The system fails migrants and strains social services while depriving American businesses of the labor they need." 

It’s time for Congress to act — and the president could do more to bring legislators to the table.  

Welcome to Monday’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].   

TEXAS JOBS AT STAKE — In a Dallas Morning News op-ed, a quartet of Texas business leaders urges Congress to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, noting recipients’ role in the economy. "Without a solution from Congress, Texas could see 5,000 jobs vacated each month and 1,000 U.S. citizens could see their spouses subjected to deportation risk each month for the next two years," they write. "The U.S. economy could suffer from as much as $11.7 billion in lost wages annually from previously employed DACA recipients, equating to roughly $1 billion a month." The editorial board of the Austin American-Statesman sounds a similar theme. 

‘CLOUD OF UNCERTAINTY’ — Passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act is urgent lest we forget our Afghan allies, Elliot Ackerman writes in The Atlantic. "Those tens of thousands of Afghans we evacuated have been living under a cloud of uncertainty, and they will soon be subject to deportation unless Congress acts by adjusting their status," Ackerman notes. "The Afghan Adjustment Act — a bipartisan, bicameral piece of legislation introduced this past August — aims to do just that. Astonishingly, it’s struggling to pass." Separately, Arezou Rezvani, Fazelminallah Qazizai and Claire Harbage of NPR file an in-depth report on the struggles of former Afghan army officers who remain in Afghanistan — another group the Afghan Adjustment Act would seek to help. 

MIGRANT CAMP EVICTED — Mexican police violently evicted hundreds of Venezuelan immigrants from a camp along the Rio Grande that started in October, Daniel Borunda of the El Paso Times reports. Tents were burned and scuffles broke out during the eviction on Sunday. Juárez government officials said migrants will be sent to shelters. Thousands of Venezuelan migrants remain in limbo in Mexico after being returned from the U.S. border. Last week, Mexico's National Institute of Migration said more than 16,000 migrants were detained in a four-day span, of whom nearly 5,000 were Venezuelans, per Reuters. 

FAMILY SEPARATIONS — More than 5,500 children were forcibly separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy in early 2017. Family separations are still happening, albeit on a much smaller scale, report John Washington and Anna-Catherine Brigida in an investigative piece for the Texas Observer. From January 2021 through August 2022, at least 372 cases of family separation have been reported by U.S. authorities — and the Observer has identified additional cases. One contributing factor: Title 42, under which minors can be separated from parents and allowed into the U.S. as "unaccompanied" while their parents are turned back to Mexico. "[Border Patrol] told me that the child was staying with them, and I said ‘No, you have to deport me with him,’" recalled Raquel Andrade, who was separated from her 8-year-old grandson. "He started to cry, and he hugged me, but they practically took him from me by force." We must do better. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

P.S. On a more positive note: In the midst of the World Cup, Daniel Beekman of The Seattle Times reports on Cultures United, a semiprofessional soccer club founded by a Colombian immigrant two years ago. The group develops young players on its men’s and women’s teams at no cost while also training them to become community leaders.