A bipartisan coalition of more than 70 mayors from around the country recently sent a letter to Congress pushing for reforms to permanently protect Dreamers, reports Sydnee Gonzalez of KSL.com. 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.  

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 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].  

‘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. 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. "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. To make his case, Rogan cites The Penn Wharton Budget Model of the University of Pennsylvania: "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, 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 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, 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 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 and ProPublica. "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, 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