Stories
Filipino Immigrant is Among Thousands of International Priests Filling America’s Vacant Pulpits
After the 8 a.m. Sunday mass at St. Joseph Church on Staten Island, Father Rizalino Garcia can often be seen dashing to nearby St. Thomas Church to perform a second mass. “Sometimes you have to say mass and run,” he says with a laugh. With two churches, a school and… Read More
Young Immigrant Entrepreneur Has a Light-Bulb Moment
Viktor Klyachko believes that maintaining a healthy business community is essential to progress. “Business is what propels the world forward,” he says. Klyachko is the founder of Green Ignite, a company based in Utica, New York, that provides LED lighting systems to wholesalers throughout the Northeast. Launched in 2013, Green… Read More
Job Development Expert Says Immigrants ‘Absolutely Critical’ to Economic Vitality
“Immigration is critically important,” says Dr. Ioanna Morfessis, an economic development expert who has helped create 200,000 new jobs as the founder of three high-profile American economic development organizations: the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore; the Greater Phoenix Economic Council; and the Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Economic Development. “Immigration… Read More
Western Michigan University’s Director of the College Assistance Migrant Program is Thankful for President Reagan
From the age of 12, Adriana Cardoso-Reyes spent her summers and weekends picking blueberries alongside her parents and siblings. She was one of the almost 100,000 migrant workers who support Michigan’s $100-billion-a-year food and agriculture industry. Now a trained social worker and the director of Western… Read More
Immigrants Vital to Help Tech Startups Become Multibillion Dollar Companies Here in the U.S.
From the moment he was offered a job at a tech startup in San Mateo, Calif. in 2013, Brazilian-born software engineer Rocir Santiago, worried that U.S. immigration policy would create unnecessary obstacles for his family and career. “The visa process is complex and uncertain. It discourages people from moving to… Read More
A Young Syrian Helps Shine Light on the Immigrant Experience
For Doha Salah and her family, arriving in the United States as refugees was a lesson in blind trust. “We had no one in this country, no friends or family,” says Salah, who was 9 years old when she was admitted to the country in 2008. When they landed at… Read More
Former Dean of Yale Law School Says to Reject Immigrants is to Reject ‘Exactly the Thing That Makes Americans Unique’
Harold Hongju Koh knows exactly how much the children of immigrants are capable of achieving in a short period of time. “Through educational opportunities, [they] have extraordinary upward mobility in one generation,” says Koh. “My own family is proof of that.” His parents, who met after coming to the United States… Read More
Real Estate Tycoon, Philanthropist, Immigrant: America Would Be Crazy to Refuse People Like Him
The night before Sunil Puri’s father passed away, at the age of 94, he called his son to say goodbye. Speaking by phone from Mumbai, India, the retired yarn-trader offered a few final words of advice to his son, a multimillionaire property developer and business owner. Puri’s father urged him to embrace the United States and… Read More
This Immigrant Researcher is Changing the Future of Cancer Treatment, But Immigration Slowed his Progress
Radiology researcher Anthony Chang came to the United States from Taiwan in the 1990s to study at Vanderbilt and Yale, earned a PhD in experimental physics from the University of Texas, and was hired to direct the imaging laboratory at the Van Andel Institute in Grand Rapids, where he researched… Read More
He Won the Lottery: One Congolese Man’s Incredible Diversity Visa Story
Bozi Kiekie grew up in a poor farming community in the war-torn Democratic Republic of The Congo, helping his family work the land while also selling bread, gasoline, and fish in order to scrape together enough money to pay for his studies. “I struggled, as everyone in the country did,”… Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
