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Latest Research
Almost 40 percent of Minnesota’s Fortune 500 companies were founded by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant. A new report [2] from America’s Society/Council of the Americas [3] and the Partnership for a New American Economy [4] notes that these Minnesota-based companies employ more than 264,000 people globally and bring in more than $100 billion in revenue each year. Additionally, the report finds that the overall role of immigrants in Minnesota’s economy has resulted in GDP gains, with immigrants contributing more than $22.4 billion to the state’s GDP in 2012, accounting for 7.5 percent of total GDP in Minnesota that year.
News Updates
Immigrants make up outsized share of small business growth. An October 15 article for Vox.com [5] notes that, “over the last two decades, immigrant-owned businesses have made up 30 percent of the growth in the small business economy, a significant chunk given that immigrants only account for 13 percent of the US population.” Furthermore, “their businesses also performed better than your average American. Employees within these small companies earned over $55,000 a year over the median earned income of $41,000 a year.”
State and local immigration policy initiatives offer pragmatic and common sense ideas. The 11th Annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference [6] occurred in Washington, D.C. on October 21. One of the panels featured pragmatic ideas for immigrant integration and local economic development. As Steve Tobocman, one of the panelists, observes in an October 28 post for Global Detroit [7], “What struck me about the work that is happening on the coasts, as well as the work across the Midwest or Great Lakes region is that local politicians, municipal governments, local chambers of commerce, local philanthropy, and others tackle immigration issues with a much more pragmatic and common sense approach that characterizes our national dialogue.” He noted that we can “point to a myriad of common sense actions and endeavors on the state and local level that embrace immigrants as part of a stronger Detroit, New York City, California, and Michigan.”
Midwest cities and states push ahead on immigration reform. An October 22 op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times [8] describes how Midwest cities and states [9] are implementing innovative immigrant integration strategies. “Despite inaction on immigration reform in Washington, local municipal and civic leaders are getting things done,” notes Juliana Kerr of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Paul McDaniel of the American Immigration Council. “Immigrants are a growing demographic in local communities, making immigrant integration a decidedly local concern. The federal gridlock only helps inspire local leaders to tackle what others have postponed addressing.” As Kerr and McDaniel observe, what’s new and novel today is the shift from enforcement-heavy local policy to a series of immigrant-friendly local policies.
The American Midwest is the new microfinance frontier. “Modern microcredit may have been born in Bangladesh but it’s expanding into the Midwest, offering entrepreneurial immigrants a financial lifeline,” Andrew Wainer of Bread for the World states in an October 14 article in The Guardian [10]. The article, as an example, describes microfinance for foreign-born entrepreneurs in Des Moines, Iowa. “Des Moines’ immigrants’ entrepreneurial drive is unfulfilled due to several barriers—one of the primary ones being the lack of access to small business loans. New microfinance organizations like Solidarity are betting that providing microloans will unlock the entrepreneurial potential of the state’s foreign-born residents…Wherever you find immigrant growth you’ll find entrepreneurship,” Wainer notes. “Some of the storefront businesses…in [rural Iowa] would not be there without immigrant entrepreneurs."
Southern cities leading immigrant integration efforts. Southern cities and states are making news on immigration again, “not for an immigration policy that is backwards-looking and inhumane, but for taking leadership in changing the narrative around immigration and creating an environment that is welcoming and inclusive of immigrant communities,” Kate Brick of Americas Society/Council of the Americas notes in an October 1 article in Americas Quarterly [11]. The article describes examples of southern cities leading immigrant integration efforts, including Atlanta’s Mayoral Office of Multicultural Affairs [12], Nashville’s Mayor’s Office for New Americans [13], Charlotte’s Immigrant Integration Task Force [14], and ongoing work in Raleigh, Greensboro, and High Point, North Carolina. As the article observes, immigrant integration “is a challenge that cities have chosen to take on. Stakeholders from different sectors…have decided to come together and talk about what immigration means to their city, and how to leverage the myriad benefits of their diverse population.
North Carolina city leaders discuss immigrant integration at day-long summit. Last month, around 70 community and city leaders from across North Carolina gathered in Chapel Hill to discuss how cities can encourage immigrants and refugees, and benefit from all they have to offer. The day-long summit, co-sponsored by UnitingNC [15] and the Building Integrated Communities [16] initiative of the UNC Latino Migration Project, highlighted several North Carolina “welcoming cities” that recognize the economic, social, and cultural benefits newcomers bring to their communities.
Forum explores maximizing skilled immigrant talent integration. On October 2, World Education Services (WES) hosted their 40th Anniversary Forum [17] to discuss the changing competitive environment for global talent [18] and strategies for attracting and integrating high-performing candidates. The forum convened policymakers, universities, businesses, non-profit organizations and local communities to explore how places can effectively respond to the competitive environment for global talent. Discussion topics included: trends shaping global talent mobility and policymakers responses; implications of immigration policy reforms and their impact on international student recruitment and immigrant integration [19]; and addressing the challenges and creating pathways and advancement opportunities for global talent.
Massachusetts creates innovative visa sponsorship program for foreign entrepreneurs by working with universities. A September 29 piece in CNN Money [20] describes ways in which Massachusetts is cultivating a more welcoming environment at the state level for foreign-born entrepreneurs. This fall, Massachusetts is launching the Global Entrepreneur in Residence program, a three-year pilot program designed to “keep talented entrepreneurs, their innovative ideas, and the jobs they’re bound to create in the country—and in the state” after they earn their degrees. The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative [21] “will work with universities to vet applicants” and the universities will sponsor them. “If the program is a success and if immigration reform remains stalled,” the article notes, “other states could soon follow Massachusetts’ lead in combating brain drain.”
Cities should tap the talent pool of foreign students. An October 1 article and podcast from the Knight Foundation [22] notes that foreign students enrolled in area universities are one of the most important sources of talent for U.S. cities. In the podcast, Carol Coletta of the Knight Foundation and Neil Ruiz of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program discuss Ruiz’s research findings [23] about international students in the U.S., the metropolitan areas where they’re from, the metro areas where they study in the U.S., and how cities and metropolitan areas can grow their competitiveness by tapping into the talent pool that foreign-born students bring. Additionally, in an October 1 piece for the Washington Post [24], Ruiz describes Washington, D.C. as one particular example of how attracting and retaining foreign students is one key to making D.C. a global city.
Build bridges, not walls, for immigrants. An October 16 article in TIME [25] describes foreign-born students studying at colleges and universities in the U.S., making the case for a more efficient process for students trained in the U.S. to be able to stay in the country after graduating. As the article observes, “migrant students build bridges between societies, and over time those bridges carry a lot of economic activity. This means that the United States is, in many cases, educating the future leaders of the world, particularly the future leaders of emerging nations. We currently take in about a fifth of all students worldwide who cross borders to study, though these students still make up less than 4 percent of the entire student population in the U.S.”