Stories
Louisiana Crawfish Industry Needs Foreign-Born Workers, Says Local Mayor
Sherbin Collette is the mayor of the Henderson, Louisiana, a small town in the heart of Louisiana crawfish country. He is a commercial fisherman who also serves on the Louisiana Seafood Marketing and Promotion Board. And he has deep concerns about the sustainability of the crawfish… 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
One Refugee Couple, Dozens of Entrepreneurial Stories
Nadia Kasvin came to the United States under the terms of the Lautenberg Amendment, a 1989 policy that allowed Jews and other religious minorities facing persecution in the former Soviet Union to seek asylum in America. Three years after applying, and after numerous background checks and interviews, Kasvin and her… Read More
Immigration Key to Future of Rural Appalachia
Jenny Williams, an English professor at Hazard Community and Technical College, knows that immigration has been crucial to rural Perry County. Her father was a doctor in the 1970s, when the region lacked qualified medical professionals. Then Appalachian Regional Healthcare began recruiting foreign-born doctors, primarily from India, to practice at… Read More
Chamber Executive: It’s Amazing What Immigrants Can Accomplish
Wilma Cartagena grew up in Puerto Rico and moved to Washington state when she was 22 years old, still struggling to learn English. “People always tell me I have an accent, and they can be so dismissive,” says Cartagena, who went on to earn a degree from the University of… Read More
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
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
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