Stories
Farmer Creates Local Jobs — With Help of Migrant Labor
Jack Hedin is the owner and operator of Featherstone Farm, a four-season farm in Rushford, Minnesota, that specializes in organic vegetable production. The $1.8 million business employs 15 workers year-round and as many as 35 seasonally, the majority of whom come from Mexico on the H-2A temporary work visa. “That… Read More
Immigrants Start Businesses, Don’t Want Hand-Outs
Elizabeth Cervantes is co-founder of the Southwest Suburban Immigrant Project (SSIP), a nonprofit that advocates for immigrant rights. Based in Bolingbrook, Illinois, the organization caters to the fast-growing immigrant population in the suburbs of Chicago. “About 54 percent of undocumented immigrants in Illinois live in suburban Cook county and collar… Read More
Mental Health Counselor’s Life in Limbo Without DACA Solution
The last time Nidya was in Nayarit, a state on the west coast of Mexico where she was born, she was just 2 years old. That’s when she moved with her parents to San Diego. Since then, she has thrived. She attended the University of California, Santa Cruz, and received… Read More
Without Migrant Labor, a Minnesota Resort’s 460 U.S. Workers at Risk
Ben Thuringer is the managing director of Madden’s on Gull Lake, a resort founded by his grandfather in 1929 in the Brainerd Lakes Region of Central Minnesota. The family resort is a seasonal getaway, operating April through October, with more than 1,000 acres and 283 rooms. “Of the 520 people… Read More
Americans Don’t Apply, Wisconsin Dairy Farmer Says
Paul Fetzer is the fourth-generation owner of his family’s dairy farm, Fetzer Farms, which he operates with his brothers in Elmwood, Wisconsin. With 1,350 cows, the business requires 26 full-time employees, and today 18 of those employees are immigrants. “We’ll put ads out locally trying to attract American-born workers, and… Read More
Immigrant Talent Critical To U.S. Dominance, Says Economist
Peter Orazem is an economist and professor at Iowa State University, where he’s taught for 34 years. Orazem’s career has given him insight into how much the United States relies on both high- and low-skilled immigrants to move our economy forward. “We have a country that’s capital rich and labor… Read More
Minister Asks Christian Colleagues to Step Up on Behalf of Immigrants
During his commute to Texas Christian University, in Fort Worth, religion professor Santiago Piñón passes about 20 churches, many of which have billboards advertising the next Sunday’s sermon. “I have never seen one that said ‘Welcome the Stranger’ or ‘Be Kind to Your Neighbor.’ I would have been there. I… Read More
Without More Foreign Workers, Oregon Vintner Asks, ‘What Will We Do?’
In the 1970s, when Patricia Dudley and her husband left academic jobs to grow pinot noir grapes, they ran the small vineyard with family co-owners. “We wanted to be more connected to the natural world and the earth,” says Dudley, president of Bethel Heights Vineyard, in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. “In… Read More
Minnesota Farms Depend on Immigrant Workers and Foreign Students
Jim Riddle is the owner of Blue Fruit Farm in Winona, Minnesota, where he raises organic perennial fruits on a 5-acre plot of land. Riddle and his wife keep the operation small so they can get by on their own labor and that of crew leaders and a handful of… 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
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