Stories
U.S. Policy Asks Foreign Doctor to Serve Rural America but Won’t Let Her Husband Work
Johanne Personna-Policard loves her job as a neurologist. It’s rewarding, even during the one week a month that she’s on call, when she fields middle-of-the-night phone calls that send her racing out the door. She finds some patients on the brink of death, and her quick care—an injection of clot… Read More
Granting Legal Status Would Reduce Gang Crime and Help Economy, Says Prominent Houston Businessman
Stan Marek knows a thing or two about Houston. The long-time Republican is the CEO of the Marek Family of Companies, a group of construction businesses that stretch back nearly 80 years. “My grandparents built this business around developing a skilled labor force and working hard,” he says. Marek takes… Read More
California Peach Canning Association CEO Warns of Industry Decline Without Immigration Reform
Rich Hudgins, the CEO of the California Peach Canning Association, has seen the state’s peach acreage decline by nearly 30 percent in the last decade—a troubling trend he attributes to U.S. immigration policy. “California’s peach acreage has declined by nearly 40 percent in the last decade because growers have… Read More
DACA Recipient Teaches So He Can Give Back to the Community That Welcomed Him
When Julian Cortes was eight years old, his father began receiving death threats from corrupt individuals who worked in his company. Fearing for their safety, the family moved from their native Colombia to Redmond, Washington. “We came on tourist visas and when those expired, we were undocumented,” Cortes… Read More
Personal Stories and Hard Facts Motivate an Evangelical Congregation to Push for Immigration Reform
Mike McClenahan, the senior pastor of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, in the affluent North County region of San Diego, has watched his community’s opinions on immigration reform change dramatically over the last five years. Many of his congregants, including conservative businessmen who initially resisted the subject, have come… Read More
CEO of $40 Million Company Says Keeping Undocumented Immigrants in the Shadows Wastes Talent and Stalls Business Growth
Thirteen years ago, Colombian-born entrepreneur Claudia Mirza and her husband, Azam, a native of India, co-founded Akorbi, a language-translation business based in Plano, Texas. Today, Akorbi has grown into a global business-solutions firm, providing localization services and multilingual staffing and marketing to companies such as Google, Aetna, and Blue Cross… Read More
After Surviving Brutal Kidnapping, Colombian Immigrant Becomes Successful Miami Entrepreneur
Cristhian Mancera loved his native Colombia and had planned to stay there forever. But when he was kidnapped at age 28, he lost faith in his country. “I was held for 10 hours and thought I was going to die. I was hit in the head multiple times,” he… Read More
Weekend Reading: Highlights from this week’s immigration news (March 21 – 25)
In his March 24 column, the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby argues that mass deportations would leave America poorer. Jacoby cites a 2015 study from the American Action Forum that says it would take 20 years to expel all undocumented immigrants living in the United States and would “cost… Read More
Mexican Immigrant Creates Jobs and Opportunity for American Workers in Greenville
When Mexican native Ruben Montalvo first came to the United States at age 24, he was so sure his visit was temporary that he kept an open return ticket home. As valedictorian from his university, where he had received an engineering degree, he’d been reluctant to leave his cushy… Read More
Story by Story, Pastors Move Skeptics to Embrace Immigration Reform
In 2007, when pastors Juan-Daniel Espitia and Tom Theriault began inviting congregants to learn about the immigrant communities in and around their church, they never expected to gain the attention of former President Barack Obama. Espitia had come to the 1,300-member Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, located outside San Diego, to… Read More
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