Monday, December 5
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THE FORUM DAILY

Americans want immigration and border reforms this year. And more
groups are raising their voices to make this message loud and clear. 

A bipartisan coalition of more than 70 mayors from around the country
recently sent a letter
<[link removed]>
to Congress pushing for reforms to permanently protect Dreamers, reports
Sydnee Gonzalez of KSL.com
<[link removed]>. The
list includes Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. 

"Enacting permanent protections for Dreamers is supported by the
majority of American voters and we can no longer wait for Congress to
implement the will of the people," the letter states.  

Elsewhere, DW Gibson, research director at immigration-focused
Ideaspace.com, argues for the bipartisan potential of the Farm Workforce
Modernization Act in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times
<[link removed]>.  

The bill would increase the immigration workforce and lower inflation,
decrease agricultural costs by an estimated $1 billion in just the first
year and increase revenue particularly in more rural, red states where
farmworkers are needed most, Gibson notes.  

"This legislation is an opportunity to address an important piece of our
broken immigration system, to fill farm labor gaps and meet priorities
for both parties," Gibson writes. "Because the bill has already passed
the House, it creates a special opportunity during the lame-duck session
for the Senate." 

Our recent polling
<[link removed]>
finds that 70% of conservative voters want Congress to act on
immigration and border reforms this year. To borrow a phrase from a
former president and CEO, we're talking about good policy and good
politics. 

Welcome to Monday's edition of The Forum Daily. I'm Dan
Gordon, the Forum's strategic communications VP, and the great Forum
Daily team also includes Dynahlee Padilla-Vasquez, Clara Villatoro and
Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please
send it to me at [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>.  

**'SOLUTIONS WE NEED'** - Speaking of support, four in five
evangelicals support the bipartisan Dream Act, the Farm Workforce
Modernization Act and the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act, according to
a recent Lifeway Research poll
<[link removed]>.
Combined, these bills would permit "Dreamers to pursue citizenship,
ensure a reliable number of screened, legal farmworkers and strengthen
border security," writes Benjamin Marsh, pastor of First Alliance
Church, a multiethnic evangelical church in Winston-Salem, North
Carolina, in an op-ed for the Winston-Salem Journal
<[link removed]>.
"Evangelicals are tired of one Congress after another kicking this issue
to the next while blaming the other party. They want Republicans -
including our U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Tillis - to negotiate
solutions with Democrats now," Marsh writes.  

LONG-TERM GROWTH - Immigration reform is not only good policy, but it
would help our nation's economic growth long-term, writes James Rogan,
a former U.S. foreign service officer, in an op-ed for the Washington
Examiner
<[link removed]>.
To make his case, Rogan cites The Penn Wharton Budget Model of the
University of Pennsylvania
<[link removed]>:
"GDP increases. Immigrants work more in order 'to save wealth for
later consumption.' The model shows that an increase in labor supply
lowers wage inflation. Capital returns would be higher ... Higher
capital returns would also attract more foreign capital necessary for
new investment and to fund the structural budget deficit." In the
business-to-business QSR Magazine
<[link removed]>,
John Dorer writes about how EB-3 visas (his area of expertise) could
help combat labor shortages in the restaurant industry over the long
term. 

'CHAOS' - The fallout from the air transport of migrants to
Martha's Vineyard continues. Mary Ellen Klas and Ana Ceballos of the
Miami Herald
<[link removed]>
report on additional payments the state made to its vendor for the
flights, upping the total price to $3.4 million - with much of the
money still unaccounted for. And on Thursday, a Boston law firm and a
Harvard institute filed a new federal lawsuit against Florida officials
who were involved, reports Jeremy C. Fox of the Boston Globe
<[link removed]>,
citing the federal government's role in immigration law. "Florida will
and has already directly created chaos in the achievement of Congress'
objectives," the lawsuit reads in part. "Consider the chaos which would
ensue if every state had attempted transport to another state those it
deems to be 'unauthorized aliens.'"

PRIVATE WALL - A 404-page report
<[link removed]>
by the global engineering firm Arcadis reveals that a privately built
wall along the Rio Grande in South Texas could collapse during major
flooding. Moreover, the report confirms that the Justice Department
tried to hide the findings from the public for over a year, report
Jeremy Schwartz and Perla Trevizo of The Texas Tribune
<[link removed]>
and ProPublica
<[link removed]>.
"Every single conclusion in the report points to it not needing to be
there and shows it is actually negatively affecting the area," said
Adriana E. Martinez, a professor and geomorphologist at Southern
Illinois University Edwardsville. "We know that there are more extreme
hurricane seasons that are occurring due to climate change, so we know
that it's more likely that the fence is going to get flooded out in
the Rio Grande. It's just a matter of time before something
happens." 

COMMITMENT, CHALLENGES - Several U.S. companies associated with the
nonprofit Tent Partnership for Refugees - including Pfizer, Amazon and
Marriott International - pledged to hire more than 22,000 refugees
over the next three years. In HR Magazine
<[link removed]>,
from the Society for Human Resource Management, Theresa Agovino looks
into the commitment and challenges of undertaking such endeavors for
refugee hires. "This isn't easy," said Mindi Cox, chief marketing and
people officer for O.C. Tanner Co., a Salt Lake City-based software
company. "If you're serious about enriching your teams and your
culture with people with such a diversity of experience, there are going
to be some exceptional lengths you have to go through to make sure that
it works." But the effort can pay off with better retention - and with
an added sense of purpose at the workplace, as Cox's final quote
captures perfectly.   

Thanks for reading, 

Dan 

 

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