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In Afghanistan, Dr. Wessal Mukhtar was a successful doctor for 20 years. After coming to the United States 10 months ago, he and his family have struggled just to pay rent.

Mukhtar was among the panelists in San Francisco last week for a program titled Refugees in the Bay Area: Welcoming Our Neighbors, held at the Mission District community space and caf Mannys.

Members of the local immigrant community and their supporters gathered to tackle questions of resettlement, immigration policy and how Bay Area residents can best help their new neighbors, and the space was filled to capacity as Mukhtar told his story.

Along with his wife and six children, Mukhtar fled Afghanistan in March 2022 after the fall of Kabul seven months earlier.

After arriving in San Francisco, the Mukhtars were helped by Jewish Family & Community Services East Bay, which helped them secure housing, jobs and schools for the children. But complications and hardship soon followed. Despite his education, Mukhtar cannot practice medicine due to visa regulations; he cannot buy a home with no credit history in the U.S.; and two months ago, his youngest daughter passed away.

I have to be strong, Mukhtar told the audience. I am here in this region [so] my children can grow.

San Francisco Supervisor Myrna Melgar, a Jew from El Salvador who emigrated in the 1980s to escape civil war, hosted the panel, which also included Joe Goldman of HIAS (a Jewish nonprofit that aids refugees and asylum seekers) and Robin Mencher, CEO of JFCS East Bay.

I think Jews understand more than most people the harm that occurs when refugees are not welcome.

State Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco dropped in before things got underway to shake hands and promote his recently proposed State Senate Bill 85, which would grant refugees and asylum seekers an additional 90 days of case management support on top of the 90 days given by current policy.

The work of immigration reform, Wiener said, is intimately tied to his Jewish identity.

I think Jews understand more than most people the harm that occurs when refugees are not welcome, Wiener said.

Many of the hardships faced by refugees like Mukhtar and his family are the direct result of United States policy, Goldman pointed out.

He said that HIAS which considers itself the worlds oldest refugee agency and was founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in 1902 is heavily involved with not only resettlement, but also with advocating for legislation that would make things easier for refugees seeking to enter the country. Goldman encouraged the crowd to get involved in local politics, contact representatives and advocate for change.

We should be welcoming far more people into California, said Goldman, community engagement director for the Western region of HIAS.

Mencher praised the work JFCS East Bay is doing on the ground to help refugees after they arrive in the Bay Area. The agencys mission is to help those in need flourish with dignity, a process that is different for every family, she said.

Over the course of the event at Mannys, which is owned by Manny about town and observant Jew Manny Yekutiel, it became clear that, despite the efforts of agencies such as HIAS and JFCS, much is still needed when it comes to a family like the Mukhtar family.

When asked what he wanted to leave the audience with, Mukhtar, through a translator, said that although the assistance he has received has been life-changing, there need to be more resources for families like his.

[I want] the government as well as these organizations to look into the possibilities of increasing these services, furthering the assistance programs and helping refugees, Mukhtar said.

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In Afghanistan he was a doctor. Now he struggles to pay rent. J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

For the first time ever, two of the largest associations representing the home-based care industry have joined together on a call to action regarding the workforce shortage.

On Monday, the National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) and the Home Care Association of America (HCAOA) released a report that details the needs of the nursing and home care aide workforces and specifically recommends policy changes and operational practices that can be implemented to address the workforce shortage in home-based care.

What I think is truly innovative with this report is the collaboration of it, Kristen Wheeler, NAHCs executive director of private duty home care, told Home Health Care News. This really brought the associations together in a way that hasnt been done before.

Industry leaders from across the home-based care space came together to form working groups to strategize and solidify actionable steps to address the issue, Wheeler said.

Some of the recommendations include higher wages and immigration reform, which are familiar concepts. Others, however, are more fresh.

Those include: creating agency-based peer mentoring for new hires during the first 90 days of employment; replacing weekly or bi-weekly pay with daily or on-demand pay; and engaging with nursing schools to institute rotations in a community or home care setting as part of a nursing school curriculum.

The industry also has to do a better job of educating policymakers about the financial implications that come with low-paying home care jobs while demand continues to rise, according to the report.

It also emphasizes the importance of collecting data that will show how the cost trend factors in home care are threatening the affordability of family-funded or private-pay care. Higher prices for care would then lead to more need for Medicaid support, something policymakers would have no choice but to pay attention to.

One of the main sticking points, Wheeler said, was for the industry to change the public perception of direct care workers and to put their struggles in the limelight.

Two of the work groups focused on supply, benefits and retention and two of them focused on elevating the profession and really getting a more positive image of the profession out there, Wheeler said. Particularly for the direct care workers. Everyone understands what a nurse is and what they do. Oftentimes, theres confusion out there as to what a home care caregiver or home health aide really does and what kind of skill level they actually operate under.

Wheeler pointed to one comment specifically, made by Pattie Rodgers, the VP and director of operations at the Pennsylvania-based home care provider Waverly Care.

The way private home care is paid can be contributing to misperception of the complexity of what we do, Rodgers said in the report. Clients, who pay $100 or more for a few hours of housecleaning, often balk at paying anywhere near that for home care.

That perception needs to shift, Wheeler said, which is a massive undertaking.

Theres a reason that people arent coming into the industry and its because they dont even understand whats great about the industry, Wheeler said. So its going to take time to get that information out there and into the public, but it has to start now with all of us.

While this latest report is an example of how the industry can come together to try to enact change, its also crucial for states to band together in order to affect change at the federal level.

That could start by getting everyone on the same page with workforce training standards.

I think the federal government really needs to implement benchmarking standards for people providing care in the home, Wheeler said. There certainly are some bad players out there that are in this just to take advantage of these very vulnerable folks and I think a national standard would start to change that. Its astonishing how many states actually have zero regulations when it comes to this level of home care.

Originally posted here:
NAHC, HCAOA Unveil Practical Solutions To Address Home-Based ... - Home Health Care News

Sinema highlighted her focus on delivering lasting, common sense solutions to the challenges impacting housing availability and affordability

WASHINGTON Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema hosted a meeting with members of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) to discuss lasting solutions to the shortage of affordable and available housing options across Arizona.Right now, too many Arizona families struggle to find quality, affordable housing. As rent and home prices continue to rise, Ill keep working to address the affordable housing shortage and help everyday Arizonans feel secure, said Sinema, a member of the Senate Housing, Transportation, and Community Development Subcommittee.Sinema heard from members of NAHREP about their priorities and how they can work together to address their needs and better provide for Arizona families. Specifically, Sinema discussed lasting solutions to the affordable housing shortage across Arizona and the need for comprehensive immigration reform.Last week, Sinema met with the White Mountain Apache and San Carlos Housing Authorities to discuss solutions to housing affordability and accessibility challenges in tribal communities. Sinema discussed successes with both tribal housing authorities including how they built more affordable housing units using the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) alongside the Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG), expanding accessible housing options while supporting careers for Tribal members.Last month, Sinema convened two events with leading housing stakeholders in Phoenix one focused on homelessness and services, and one around housing supply and affordability. Sinema first toured UMOM, the largest shelter services provider in Maricopa County and saw firsthand how their innovative model provides child care and workforce development alongside shelter services. Afterwards, Sinema brought industry stakeholders and affordability advocates together to assess the market in Arizona, identify supply chain challenges that hold capital investment back, and craft solutions to those challenges.In January, Sinema led the largest bipartisan delegation of U.S. Senators in recent memory to the Southwest border in El Paso, Texas, and Yuma, Arizona, to see firsthand the ongoing humanitarian and security crisis that Arizona border communities witness every day. During the Congressional delegation, Sinema convened a roundtable with participating U.S. Senators, nonprofits, local law enforcement, and local elected leaders, highlighting the challenges presented by the ongoing border crisis. Sinema vowed to continue her work with solutions-focused colleagues who understand the need to deliver lasting results to solve this challenge.The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals is a nonprofit 501(c)6 trade association dedicated to advancing sustainable homeownership among Latinos by educating and empowering the real estate professionals who serve them. NAHREP is the premier trade organization for Hispanics and has more than 30,000 members in 48 states and over 70 chapters.

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Sinema Discusses Solutions to Arizona's Affordable Housing ... - Kyrsten Sinema

Every year the United States spends many billions of dollars securing the 2,000-mile border it shares with Mexico. This perpetually growing investment hasmade Customs and Border Protectionwhich is staffed by more than 60,000 federal employeesone of the largest law enforcement organizations in the world.

But you wouldnt know that by tuning in to Fox News, which depicts the US-Mexico border as an unmonitored wasteland where all are free to come and go at will. Since just before the 2020 election, the term open borders has been featured in right-wing media with startling frequency: From November 1, 2020, through March 16, 2023, Fox News pundits used the phrase a whopping 3,282 times, according to data compiled by Americas Voice and Media Matters, while Newsmax clocked 2,727 mentions over the same period. This coverage, according to Americas Voice, aired during time slots collectively valued at nearly $27 million for advertisers.

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While right-wing medias open borders messaging has proven salient for stateside viewers, theres also reason to believe that its impacting perceptions of the border abroad. I met with migrants in Costa Rica that were turned back, and their sense was that they will be able to enter freely, RepresentativeAdriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat, told me, arguing that the confusion stems squarely from right-wing disinformation. The perception from them was that the border is open and they could just walk through.John Modlin, a chief Border Patrol agent,shared a similar insight last month. Testifying before the House Oversight Committee, he relayed how detained migrants often said they were led to believe the border was open.

Just how this misinformation is reaching migrants is not entirely clear. But its well known that human smugglers, who ferry migrants across the border for a fee, have widely promoted the open borders lie as a way of driving business, according toDylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, a nonprofit that works with migrants. Smugglers are constantly peddling that type of misinformation because theyre looking to feed their bottom line, he said, noting that traffickers falsely advertise open crossings to migrants desperate for a way into the US. The open borders myth is alsospread on Facebook and WhatsApp, where it reaches unwitting migrants. We had a group of Venezuelans who approached a bridge because they had seen something online and were under the notion that the border was open, Corbett added.

Still, Corbett noted that while migrants might latch on to any glimmer of hope that can sustain them on their journey, including bogus conservative talking points that end up on social media, policy debates in Washington and on Fox News is hardly whats fueling the crisis. We know whats going on in their countries: hunger, poverty, and social insecurity, he said. Those are the things that drive migration. Not the political situation in the US.

Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director of Americas Voice, said that she, too, has heard accounts of migrants receiving misinformation about the porousness of the border from social media and smugglers. The best open border propaganda machine is, in fact, the GOP, she said in an interview. We know the impact this disinformation has on migrants, who largely get information through online platforms. And we know that smugglers take this information and use it for their own purposesto recruit and encourage irregular migration.

The open borders narrative, while especially prominent now, has been circulating in the US for years. In the mid-2000s, whenLou Dobbs hosted a nightly show on CNN, he aired a recurring segment called Broken Borders, in which he baselesslyportrayed migrants as disease-ridden criminals. That style ofcoverage, viewedat the time as both disturbing and novel, is now par for the course on Fox, the network Dobbs joined when he left CNN.Tucker Carlson regularly smears South and Central American migrants as invaders freely rampaging across the border, evenclaiming they make the US dirtier and arebeing used by Democrats to replace the current electorate.

For Republicans in Congress, Carlsons prime-time show is considered gospel. During the long series of votes for Speaker, a lot of folks on the floor were saying, Well, well see where the votes land after Tucker is on tonight, RepresentativeGreg Casar, a Democrat whose Texas district stretches from San Antonio to Austin, told me. And this interdependence, said Casar, has crippled any hope of immigration reform. So as Republicans feed anti-immigrant fear, its accelerated by right-wing media, he continued, and then you see the Republican Party becoming more and more extreme on issues like immigration."

For a while, fearmongering around migrants proved useful for riling up the Republican base. During the lead-up to the 2018 midterms,Donald Trump, along with his congressional and media allies, aggressively spun narratives about a migrant caravan homing in on the US. A similar spike in open border warnings occurred ahead of the 2020 election. Open borders is one of their favorite things to resort to when they think its politically advantageous, or when they need to pass a certain Trump litmus test, RepresentativeChuy Garca, an Illinois Democrat, told me, noting how many times hes seen his Republican colleagues lean on the buzzword during Fox News interviews, floor speeches, and committee hearings. But its interesting to see that their messages dont land that well among the American electorate, as we saw in November.

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How the Rights Open Borders Myth Might Be Fueling the Migration Crisis - Vanity Fair

During the 2020 campaign, presidential candidate Joe Biden called for immigration reform and a restoration of basic rights for immigrants, including the right to asylum and family unity. He offered his platform as a clear alternative to then-President Trumps immigration policies, which featured the separation of children from their parents, the prosecution and criminalization of border crossers, and the immediate return of asylum seekers to Mexico. One of his first acts in office was to propose a comprehensive immigration reform bill; he also introduced an aid package to address the root causes of migration, especially from the Northern Triangle of Central America.

More than halfway into his term, however, President Biden has switched course on his campaign promises and has returned to some of the enforcement and deterrence policies that characterized the Trump administration.

In January, the Biden administration announced the application of Title 42the obscure health regulation first deployed by Mr. Trump in order to turn back asylum seekers at the border during the Covid-19 pandemicto vulnerable and persecuted populations such as Venezuelans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Cubans.

The use of Title 42 had its intended effect: It decreased the number of asylum seekers from those four countries arriving at the southern border by 97 percent. More recently, the administration doubled down on the denial of asylum at our southern border by proposing to rewrite and reinstate another policy that had been approved by Mr. Trump before being struck down by the courts. On Feb. 21, the Department of Homeland Security proposed a rule that would deny asylum, with few exceptions, to any individual who did not attempt to garner legal protection in a country through which they traveled en route to the United States. This rule ignores the reality that transit countries such as Mexico have very limited asylum systems, so many immigration advocates have labeled the proposed rule as a de facto asylum ban.

Finally, recent media reports have revealed that the Biden administration is considering the detention of families, a practice Mr. Biden promised to end during the campaign. Many Americans should still remember the disturbing images of children being held in tiny cells, with little to eat and nowhere to sleep.

Why has Mr. Biden changed course in such a dramatic fashion, even garnering strong opposition from within his own party? In a word, politics. Polls show that the American public, while supporting positive reform of the immigration system, also wants better control of the borders. As we have seen with past Democratic administrations, the ability of mostly conservative Republicans to demagogue the immigration issue has forced Democrats to abandon our nations history as a safe haven for the persecuted. President Obama, for example, was known as the deporter-in-chief, while in 1996 President Clinton signed legislation that eviscerated due process rights for immigrants.

Still, there is no moral equivalency between Democrats and most Republicans on immigration. In fact, the Biden administration has implemented a lot of positive immigration policies, including the liberal use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to protect displaced nationalities and new rules safeguarding the rights of migrants in the workplace. And should he be re-elected, Mr. Biden likely will make another attempt to pass immigration reform legislation.

In contrast, since the last immigration compromise bill died in 2014, the Grand Old Party has used immigrationand, specifically, the borderas a cudgel to bludgeon the Democrats politically. Instead of coming to the table to find a bipartisan solution to the problem, many (though not all) Republicans would rather use it as a battle cry to pander to their right-wing constituencies. Instead of standing up to the Republicans, past and current Democratic administrations have failed to adequately respond to their anti-immigrant rhetoric.

What is most disappointing is that Mr. Biden, a Catholic, should know better. As an admirer of Pope Francis, he should know that the pontiff opposes such policies. While the church supports the right of a sovereign nation to control its border, it equally supports an individuals right to migrate and seek protection from persecution. Pope Francis has been powerfully clear on this pointand so have his predecessors.

Instead of ignoring the pope and other Catholic voices on this issuenot to mention many in his partyMr. Biden should work with the church to come up with lasting solutions. His recent meeting with Bishop Mark Seitz, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration, in El Paso, Tex., was a good start.

It is well known that President Biden and the U.S. bishops have disagreements over several moral issues, particularly abortion. It should not prevent them from working on another one in which they can find common ground.

[Related: Bishop Seitz on Bidens new asylum policy: Death cannot be the cost of our immigration laws]

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Joe Biden's immigration policy shift is against Catholic teaching - America: The Jesuit Review