Thursday December 1, 2022
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THE FORUM DAILY

"Would you support or oppose Republicans and Democrats working together
now, in 2022, on immigration reforms that strengthen border security,
allow immigrants brought to the United States as children to earn
citizenship, and ensure a legal, reliable workforce for America's
farmers and ranchers?" 

That's the question we asked 1,000 registered voters in new polling
<[link removed]>
together with the Bullfinch Group. The responses send a clear message:
Voters of all stripes still want Congress to act now. 

Support ran 73% overall, 70% among conservatives, and 72% among
evangelical Christians, just for starters. 

Will Republicans and Democrats respond? The odds may be steep, as
Michelle Hackman reports in the Wall Street Journal
<[link removed]>.
But the broad support - not to mention the urgent need to address
Dreamers, farmworkers and the border - should be compelling. 

Reforms could address many economic issues, including food prices and
inflation, as my policy colleague Arturo Castellanos Canales highlighted
recently
<[link removed]>.
(Arturo also recently wrote about bilateral labor agreements
<[link removed]>
and is presenting his paper today at the Metropolis Conference
<[link removed]> in
Tijuana. He's available for interview - contact me
<mailto:[email protected]>.) 

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] <mailto:[email protected]>.  

PRECARIOUS - Abdul "Wasi" Safi helped U.S. forces counter the Taliban
before the takeover last year. But because he wasn't paid by the U.S.
government, he could not get a Special Immigrant Visa to flee, reports
Allison P. Erickson of The Texas Tribune
<[link removed]>. Safi
went into hiding with 10 other family members, then began a harrowing
journey of more than 12,000 miles to the U.S.-Mexico border. He
requested asylum but was arrested because he had not presented himself
at a port of entry with required documentation. "I think my brother is
the first in my whole tribe to be in chains, ever," Safi's brother
Sami-ullah said after the court denied Wasi's bond. "It was very
difficult to see him like that. He's not a criminal." Also today, take
a deep breath, then watch the New York Times'
<[link removed]> opinion
video in which American veterans and civilians talk about why they
remain dedicated to saving Afghan allies left behind - and read
allies' text messages. Kirk Semple and Alexander Stockton of the Times
produced the video. 

DETENTION CENTERS - The publicly run Berks County, Pennsylvania,
detention facility is slated to close at the end of January, Karen Shuey
and David Mekeel of the Reading Eagle
<[link removed]>
report. Meanwhile, The Washington Post
<[link removed]>
editorial homes in on President Biden's unfulfilled campaign promise
to shutter for-profit migrant detention facilities. Of about 30,000
migrants in detention, about 80% are in private facilities, the board
notes. And Hamed Aleaziz of the Los Angeles Times
<[link removed]>
reports that ICE mistakenly published the identities of more than 6,200
asylum seekers, all currently in detention centers. The information
included names, case status, detention locations and other information.
ICE is investigating the incident. 

HARSH CONDITIONS - Some undocumented workers on livestock farms are
living in inadequate housing because they lack legal protections, Lucy
Grindon of NPR
<[link removed]>
reports. "Federal law says H-2A housing has to be inspected annually,
but dairy workers aren't eligible because they're not temporary
workers. They work year-round," Grindon says. A young Guatemalan
woman said that some of the farms where she has lived in New York were
full of cockroaches and bedbugs that made her break out in hives.
"It's certainly up to the farmer on how well they manage that facility
and how good of a communication system that they have established with
the residents," said Rich Stup, an agricultural workforce specialist at
Cornell University. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act
<[link removed]>
could expand the H-2A visa program to include year-round workers, but
for now many undocumented workers live in the shadows.  

COLOMBIA'S REQUEST - Luis Alberto Murillo Urrutia, Colombia's
ambassador to the U.S., recently sent a letter to the Biden
administration requesting deferred immigration enforcement
<[link removed]>
for Colombians already living in the U.S., report Manuel Rueda and
Elliot Spagat of the Associated Press
<[link removed]>. It
is unclear how many Colombians reside in the U.S. without legal status,
they note. Colombia has taken in 2 million Venezuelans who have fled
and is now asking for additional support: "For more than 60 years,
hundreds of thousands of Colombian citizens have been forced to leave
the country because of the conflict seeking to rebuild their lives, many
of the more recently arrived still remain vulnerable and unprotected in
the United States," Murillo Urrutia wrote.  

'A WASTED OPPORTUNITY' - The Boston Globe
<[link removed]>'s
editorial board urges the Biden administration to grant work permission
to Venezuelan asylum seekers. The board cites the story of José, one
of the migrants sent to Martha's Vineyard, who tried to start a life
in Massachusetts but couldn't get hired because of his lack of
documents. "Without a legitimate chance to obtain legal employment,
people like José are going to keep finding illegal work," the board
writes. "It's a massive headache for them and a wasted opportunity
for the economy. Given the current workforce shortages in different
industries across the nation." Asylum seekers must currently wait at
least six months before applying for a work authorization. 

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

P.S. A welcoming community in Owensboro, Kentucky, has helped support
three resettled Afghans who are now opening the first Afghan eatery in
town, reports Keith Lawrence of the Messenger-Inquirer
<[link removed]>.
Check out the story of these three cooks who started as volunteers in a
shelter kitchen and made everyone fall for their food. 

 

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