Industries
Going From Masters Degree to Meat Processing, But Still Looking Ahead to a Bright Future
Sam Komla Ewu holds a master’s degree in linguistics from one of the best universities in Togo, a small West African country, and has years of experience teaching high school English. Today, however, he makes his living carving up pig carcasses at a JBS meat-processing plant in Beardstown, Ill. —… Read More
What Do Farmers in Michigan Need? ‘Labor, Labor, Labor’
In 2012, a brutal frost destroyed much of Michigan’s apple and cherry harvests, forcing farmers to turn away the migrant fruit-pickers who had traveled up from Texas and Florida. Many of the workers never came back. The following year, a bumper crop of fruit wound up rotting on the trees,… Read More
Founder of $1 Million Startup Forced to Scrap Business Due to U.S. Immigration Policy
Indian-born immigrant Ketaki Desai has made important contributions in her adopted home in America. As executive director of eCenter@LindenPointe, a business incubator in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, she has helped create more than 45 jobs and coached 50 startups, all while maintaining a $300,000 annual budget. She says the incubator’s largest contribution… Read More
A Consultant to Fortune 500 Companies Says Restrictive Immigration Policy Keeps Her From Referring Top Talent
As a consultant who helps businesses solve staffing problems, Letty Velez has worked with several Fortune 500 companies, including Walmart, Macy’s, and Hyatt Hotels. But she’s frustrated: When those companies need to hire personnel, she can’t recommend the most talented people she knows. “I’m meeting incredible people, but I can’t… Read More
Time to Give Back: Working to Send Latino Americans to College
Roger C. Rocha Jr., the national president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), was raised in a poor part of Laredo, Texas, where he saw his peers struggle to help their families survive. “We all knew that education and hard work were the keys to getting ahead,… Read More
Entrepreneur says Immigration Policy Makes It Harder for him to Grow His Business and Create American Jobs
The technology firm FreshAir Sensor recently won a New Hampshire pitch competition sponsored by AOL founder Steve Case that netted the small startup a $100,000 investment and a glowing compliment from the venture capitalist. “If they innovate successfully, they can build a great company, create a… Read More
Belgian Entrepreneur’s Innovation Tracks Vital Health Stats; Company Creates American Jobs
From a young age in Belgium, Pierre-Jean Cobut felt inspired by America’s rags-to-riches stories and was sure he belonged in Silicon Valley. In Europe, he says, “There’s not the same culture of risk taking.” Two years of undergraduate study in the United States confirmed his infatuation, and Cobut got the… Read More
When Delaware State Needed Computer Science Professors, Few Americans Even Applied
David Pokrajac, a math prodigy from the former Yugoslavia, is a success by any country’s standards. After earning a PhD in computer science with a specialty in spatial data mining from Temple University in Philadelphia, he’s now a professor at Delaware State University, where he also serves as assistant vice… Read More
Immigration System Says ‘No’ to Developer Eager to Work at His Own Startup
At the University of Pittsburgh, a small team of software developers has created a clinical data sharing technology that is changing the way researchers access data across institutions. The platform will encourage partnerships across the globe and, in turn, potentially reduce the time it takes to cure many forms of… Read More
Prominent Nebraska Nursery Struggles to Find Enough Workers
After 60 years of steady expansion, Mulhall’s Nursery may have to face stagnation, says co-owner Dan Mulhall. Why? Lack of immigrant labor in an industry in which the American-born seem less willing to work with each passing year. “Who will do the work?” he asks. In 1951, former U.S. Navy… Read More
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