Stories
Iowa City Councilwoman Says Immigration Reform Helps Economy and Can Help End Cycle of Abuse
Sara Monroy-Huddleston, a Mexican immigrant and the first Latina woman to run for Iowa’s State House of Representatives, spent years at a local domestic violence agency where she witnessed the systemic obstacles immigrant women faced when trying to escape their abusers. “They face not only domestic violence,” she says. “They… Read More
If Entrepreneur Doesn’t Get a Visa Renewal, Texans Stand to Lose Jobs — and Chocolate
Stefano Zullian never dreamed of being a chocolatier. But the Venezuelan-born mechanical engineer with an MBA from Emory University now runs Araya Artisan Chocolates, a Houston company with roughly $700,000 in annual sales and 11 employees. “It’s way more complex to start a business in Venezuela, and we started thinking… Read More
Citing U.S. Immigration Policy, Award-Winning Entrepreneur Forced to Move 25 Jobs to South America
It’s no surprise that Colombian-born entrepreneur Alex Torrenegra was named one of the World Economic Forum’s 2015 Young Global Leaders, MIT’s TR35 Colombia Top Innovator of the Year in 2012, and one of Business Insider’s 2013 “Badass Immigrants in Tech.” Fifteen years ago, after… Read More
Immigration Policy Stifled the Athletic Ambitions of One of Florida’s Most Promising Tennis Players
Adrian Escarate was three years old when he arrived in Miami from Santiago, Chile with his parents and older brother. The family overstayed their tourist visas and never tried to establish permanent residency. This was in the 1990s when life was manageable for undocumented immigrants. Escarate’s parents were able to… Read More
Immigrants Have Made Important Economic and Civic Contributions to Arizona, Says Head of Promise Arizona
Petra Falcon knows about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. She got her first job when she was just 12 years old, working in an underwear factory, after her father left and her mother suffered a stroke. Today, she is the executive director of Promise Arizona, an immigrant rights organization… Read More
Weekend Reading: Highlights from this week’s Gateways for Growth Challenge (March 28 – April 1)
This week, the Partnership and Welcoming America announced that twenty communities were selected for the Gateways for Growth Challenge, which invited communities across the United States to apply for research, technical assistance, and matching grants to support the development and implementation of multi-sector strategic plans for… Read More
Dr. Miriam Perez: Cleveland Clinic Depends on Immigrants to be World Leader in Medicine
Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Miriam Perez moved from her native Colombia to the United States to study neurosurgery. Then, 29 weeks after getting pregnant, she went into premature labor. “At that time, survival without real complications was unheard of,” she says. But after two months in intensive care, her son… Read More
A Georgia Farmer’s Not So Peachy Ordeal with the Immigration System
Lawton Pearson is a fifth-generation Georgia peach farmer. Even though he left rural Fort Valley, GA to attend college and law school, he couldn’t give up the farming way of life and soon returned. He’s attracted to the high-risk, high-reward stakes of owning his own business. Plus, he loves the… Read More
When a Typo Can Derail a Green Card Application, Reform is Long Overdue
When Darrell Fun was serving in the Air Force JAG Corps in Korea, his fellow airmen would come to the lawyer for advice about marrying people they’d met while serving overseas. At the time, Fun says, “high-school-educated kids could do the paperwork themselves for their own marriage.” But times have… Read More
This Immigration Attorney Says Law-Abiding Undocumented Immigrants Should Have the Chance to Fulfill Their Dreams
When Morella Aguado came to the United States in 1983 from Nicaragua, it was by necessity. She was five months old, and her family was fleeing the Sandanista regime because her uncle was a political prisoner. Life was hard in her new country. Though she received a green card, her… Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
