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
Pastor Sees Immigrants Through Lens of Bible — and the Economy
Dr. Carl Ruby, a conservative Christian pastor at Central Christian Church in Springfield, Ohio, believes that immigration reform is a civil rights issue. It was a lesson he learned decades ago, when he first read Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” “I saw that it was an issue… 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
Thanks to Migrant Workers, Minnesota’s Lake Resorts Are Open for Business
Matt Kilian is president of the chamber of commerce in Brainerd Lakes, Minnesota, a popular tourist destination known for its lakeside resorts and family getaways. “Ask anyone in the region what the quintessential vacation destination is, and it’s the Brainerd Lakes area,” he says. “I’d guess that two-thirds of all… Read More
Guatemalan Immigrant Works to Boost Earnings for Small U.S. Farms
Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin was born and raised in Guatemala and came to the United States in 1992 after his wife, Amy, who was born and raised in the United States, enrolled in a master’s degree program at the University of Minnesota. “We had made education part of our promise to each… Read More
Utah Farmer: ‘Not Once’ Has an American Applied to Milk My Cows
In November 2016, shortly after the presidential election, Ron Gibson had to reduce his Utah dairy farm’s milking schedule from four times a day to three times a day. There weren’t enough people on staff to do the work, as many immigrant laborers had disappeared from the area after the… Read More
Migrant Worker Shortage Increases Strain on Oregon’s Dairy Farmers
Under the current agricultural guest worker program, farmers can hire foreign laborers for a maximum 10-month season only. But try explaining that to the cows, which must be milked year-round, two to three times a day. “The guest worker program doesn’t meet the needs of dairy farmers,” says Tami Kerr,… Read More
War Refugee Trains Americans to Fill Buffalo’s Skills Gaps
Bassam Deeb arrived in the United States as a teenage refugee. It was 1976, and his family had fled Lebanon, a country mired in a civil war that would last until 1990 and cost the country an estimated 120,000 lives. Deeb, 15 at the time, spoke no English and… Read More
Thai Doctor Served Where Many U.S. Physicians Don’t: In Rural Kentucky
Dr. Manosh Vongvises, a retired ear, nose, and throat specialist, has seen the number of medical professionals in Pikeville, Kentucky, multiply in the last 30 years — and many are immigrants like him. According to a report by New American Economy, 21.6 percent of the doctors in… Read More
Retired Teacher Now Teaches Refugees, to Town’s Benefit
Nearly 10 years ago, when Dr. Lois Todd-Meyer was a high school English teacher, one student in particular left an impression. “She’s what would today be called a Dreamer,” Todd-Meyer recalls. The student, brought to the United States at a very young age, was determined to become a doctor. But… Read More
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