State and Local Initiatives
They say all politics is local, right? While most of the debate about immigration focuses on congressional action (or inaction), local communities across the country are the ones who feel the value of immigration most tangibly. Now active in more than 50 communities – more than 80 percent of which are in conservative states – the NAE State & Local team works with policymakers, business, and civic leaders to promote policies and programs that help create jobs and drive economic growth. You can explore more of our work on the state and local level here.
Immigration Policy Needs to Keep Families Together, Says Ohio Lawyer
Eugenio Mollo says that growing up as the child of Italian immigrants profoundly affected him and his career path. “My parents lacked a formal education, but they are the smartest and most hardworking people that I know,” he says. “And so I grew up seeing immigrants who wanted to work… Read More
Grad Aims for Cop Job to Build Trust With Immigrant Communities
After an impressive series of educational successes, Mexican immigrant Elizabeth Becerra is now applying for a job in law enforcement and hopes to work with either the FBI, the Secret Service or the U.S. Probation and Parole Office. Though the application process is long and difficult, she says, “I know… Read More
New Americans in Birmingham Contribute $3 billion to GDP, New Study Shows
Birmingham, AL– Today, the City of Birmingham and New American Economy released a report documenting the economic impact of immigrants in Birmingham, Alabama. Accounting for just 3.5 percent of the overall population in 2014, the foreign-born of the Birmingham metro area made up an outsize 5.2 percent of the employed workforce… Read More
A sudden paucity of waitstaff, hosts, and housekeepers has Maine’s hospitality industry feeling the heat this year.
It felt like a bad omen that, at the Maine Office of Tourism’s annual industry conference, a late-season snowstorm forced labor commissioner Jeanne Paquette to drop out of a discussion on the conference’s main theme, workforce development. An innocuous-sounding topic, but just the thought of “workforce development” can give innkeepers… Read More
Resettled Refugees Contribute Millions to Wisconsin Economy
Since it first opened its doors in 2012, the Christian nonprofit World Relief Fox Valley has resettled 700 refugees in Appleton and Oshkosh, in Wisconsin. “The communities have been supportive, and anyone who doesn’t support the mission doesn’t understand the program or who refugees are,” says the organization’s director, Tami… Read More
Americans Forget They Descend From Immigrants, Says Minnesotan
Aaron J. Brown, a community college instructor and proud native of Hibbing, Minnesota, says some on the Mesabi Iron Range seem to have forgotten that they are the descendants of immigrants. A century ago, Hibbing was as diverse as New York City is today. “Many great-great-grandparents of Hibbing residents came… Read More
Pastor Sees Immigrants Through Lens of Bible — and the Economy
Dr. Carl Ruby, a conservative Christian pastor at Central Christian Church in Springfield, Ohio, believes that immigration reform is a civil rights issue. It was a lesson he learned decades ago, when he first read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” “I saw that it was an issue… Read More
Santa Fe Mayor Finds Economic Strength in Diversity
Santa Fe’s mayor, Javier Gonzales, has made inclusivity a hallmark of his tenure. This extends to the immigrants who live in the city of 70,000 that he has governed since 2014. “Today, more than 14 percent of our population in Santa Fe is what we call new immigrants, which are… Read More
War Refugee Trains Americans to Fill Buffalo’s Skills Gaps
Bassam Deeb arrived in the United States as a teenage refugee. It was 1976, and his family had fled Lebanon, a country mired in a civil war that would last until 1990 and cost the country an estimated 120,000 lives. Deeb, 15 at the time, spoke no English and… Read More
Argentinian Immigrant Helps Immigrants Contribute in Omaha
As executive director of Justice For Our Neighbors-Nebraska (JFON-NE), Emiliano Lerda helps families build productive lives in Nebraska and southwest Iowa, a move that in turn helps to bolster the regional economy. Take the young immigrant mother of two who fled domestic violence. When the legal team met her, the… Read More
America's story is an immigrant story.
