Biden administration asks Congress to approve temporary housing for migrants

President Biden has called upon Congress to approve a program that would provide temporary housing facilities for migrant families who have crossed the border to seek asylum. According to the administration, it is an alternative to traditional detention and would provide more freedom for the families to come and go during the day, but would require them to check in and stay in the facility at night. This temporary housing proposal would help immigration agencies more easily keep track of families throughout the asylum process and could ease the burden on shelters who are often filled to capacity with migrants who have recently arrived to the U.S. In addition, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials say that this type of housing would meet the requirement for properly housing children. The program is part of the administration’s larger emergency funding request which includes almost 3 billion dollars for DHS border efforts.

Forty-one people died after a boat carrying migrants capsized in the central Mediterranean

According to 4 survivors, a boat carrying 45 migrants set off from Tunisia on August 3, but was overturned during the night by a large wave, leaving 41 dead. The survivors used innertubes and were able to climb onto another empty boat nearby. They were rescued by the Italian Red Cross and the Sea-Watch humanitarian rescue group and taken to the Sicilian island Lampedusa. According to the International Organization for Migration, the central Mediterranean is one of the most dangerous routes for migrants, with 22,000 people reported dead or missing since 2014.

Report on refugee admissions for July has been released

July admissions totaled 6,468, making it the 5th consecutive month with the number of admissions over 6,000. The total number of refugee admissions for fiscal year 2023 is now 45,123, already more than the full year’s worth of admissions each year since 2018. The largest populations of those resettled in July were from the Democratic Republic of Congo (1,610) and Syria (1,334). 777 refugees were admitted from Afghanistan and 1,558 arrivals came through the SIV program.