Already, migration is an important part of the North American Leaders’ Summit. 

On Monday, President Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador "reaffirmed their commitment to use ‘innovative approaches’ to reduce irregular migration," Dave Graham and Jarrett Renshaw report for Reuters. They also discussed increasing the countries’ collaboration to stem drug trafficking. 

CNN’s MJ Lee, Priscilla Alvarez and Kevin Liptak offer a good recap of the challenges President Biden is facing on immigration and border security in the context of his visit in Mexico. But they note that finding integral solutions requires Congress' support. 

"While he is being blamed for record migrant surges, it’s a problem he cannot solve by himself. He will look to Congress and US neighbors in the region, namely Mexico, to step up as well," the team writes. 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will join Biden and López Obrador today. Although both Canada and the U.S. have labor shortages, Canada has found a solution by increasing legal migration, Julia Ainsley, Joel Seidman and Didi Martinez report in NBC News. 

"Trudeau’s new immigration goal, which is focused not only on opening more pathways to refugees and low-skilled workers, but also attracting highly educated workers in sectors like health care and technology, enjoys broad-based support," they note. 

The U.S. could benefit from working to improve labor mobility, as our policy expert Arturo Castellanos noted yesterday in a Twitter thread.  

Welcome to Tuesday’s edition of The Forum Daily. I’m Dan Gordon, the Forum’s strategic communications VP, and today the great Forum Daily team also includes Clara Villatoro and Katie Lutz. If you have a story to share from your own community, please send it to me at [email protected]. 

TAXPAYERS’ MILLIONS — Floridians could pay an additional $1 million for legal representation to defend the state in a lawsuit related to the relocation of 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard last Summer, reports Douglas Soule of the Tallahassee Democrat. The transport by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) already has cost taxpayers a lot of money: The state paid $1.6 million to an aviation company to transport the migrants. On the legal side, the state has paid nearly $112,000 so far to firms Consovoy McCarthy and Campbell Conroy & O’Neil to represent DeSantis and other state officials. The firms have agreed to work with the state for up to three years — and up to half a million dollars each. 

CUBAN MIGRANTS' DEPORTATION — Cuban migrants who recently arrived in Florida are being subject to expedited removal, Ivan Taylor of CBS Miami reports. "[I]t’s a deportation order," said Willie Allen, a local immigration attorney. "It's concerning[,] what they're getting without a hearing in front of an immigration judge." On Sunday, state authorities reported that 53 Cuban migrants had arrived in Key Largo and Marathon, adding to hundreds in recent weeks. Separately, Ruaridh Nicoll of The Guardian analyzes how the return of full consular services in Havana comes alongside new policies that impact the migration of Cubans. In the past year, 250,000 Cubans have been detained after attempting to cross the U.S. border, Nicoll notes. 

FREE SPEECH — Encouraging people to come or stay illegally in the country is a crime under a 1986 law. Now the Supreme Court is set to hear a case that challenges the law, as Adam Liptak analyzes in  The New York Times. The main argument has been that the law "violated the First Amendment by turning commonplace statements into felonies." A few years ago the court questioned the law, though it ultimately decided not to rule in that case because the parties had not raised the free-speech question. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was among the justices who raised questions, asking about " ‘a grandmother whose granddaughter is in the United States illegally.’ Would it be a crime, he wanted to know, if she told her granddaughter that she missed her and encouraged her to stay?" 

INNOVATION — Economists are trying to measure the critical role of immigrants in innovation and technical advancements, David Brancaccio, Chris Farrell and Ariana Rosas of Marketplace report. Farrell, the show’s senior economic contributor, points out that 38% of Nobel Prizes won by Americans in chemistry, medicine, in physics were awarded to foreign-born newcomers and that immigrants represent a quarter of the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce. "It’s not a zero-sum game," he says. "So, if you’re having skilled immigrants coming in here and bringing in their ideas, and they’re working with innovators who are native-born, everyone sees the benefit, particularly the U.S. economy." 

Thanks for reading,  

Dan 

P.S. With the NFL playoff picture set and, more importantly, with Damar Hamlin showing remarkable progress, take a minute to read the story of the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joseph Ossai, as reported by Jay Morrison in The Athletic. Originally from Nigeria, Ossai talks about the challenges his family faced upon immigration — and how football was a turnaround from the bullying he had experienced.