Report for America

In December of 2016, Mayor Lauren Poe proclaimed Gainesville a "Welcoming City" — Florida's first. But when criteria was developed the next year for cities to become certified as welcoming, local immigration advocates discovered the city was far from meeting them.

On Confederate Memorial Day in 1924, the cornerstone was laid for a monument that, nearly a century later, has caused a twisting, emotional, yearlong debate in Putnam County with no clear end in sight.

On Saturday, history unfolded in Palatka, Florida, as the community gathered to celebrate Juneteenth as a federal holiday for the first time.

Jehad was born into a powerful family in Syria. But in America, where his asylum case has been pending for over eight years with no updates, he learned what it means to be powerless.