Immigrant Entrepreneur Says Immigration Reform Will Keep U.S. Businesses Competitive
Fernando Gaxiola is a San Diego-based Mexican wine importer and travel entrepreneur working hard to change Americans’ cultural impressions of Mexico. Several times a month, his company Baja Wine + Food offers trips to the Valle de Guadalupe about an hour south of the California border to explore the region’s… Read More
Immigration Lawyer Sees How Immigrants Boost New Orleans’ Economy
As acting director of the Stuart H. Smith Law Clinic & Center for Social Justice at Loyola University College of Law in Louisiana’s 1st Congressional District, Ramona Fernandez oversees between 400 and 500 cases at a time. Roughly 40 percent of those are part of the clinic’s immigration law branch,… Read More
Administrator at Public University Sees Firsthand the Limited Options Available to International Students After Graduation
Richard Porter spends his days with some of the brightest, most ambitious minds in the nation. As an administrator over International Student and Scholar Service offices at several large public universities over the past Porter works to help international scholars excel in their studies and, upon graduation, look for work. Read More
“Talent Does Not Have a Zip Code” Says Mobile Advocacy App Founder
When Ximena Hartsock first began looking for a solution to the lack of digital grassroots tools for advocacy in late 2012, she quickly learned she was up against some major obstacles. She was a Latina woman, with no entrepreneurial or tech experience, in a room full of skeptics. Hartsock was… Read More
From Experience, Doctoral Student Knows More Immigrants Would Love the Chance to Study, Work, Pay Taxes
When Mariana Ocampo was growing up in Texas, she and her siblings longed for part-time jobs similar to the ones their teenage friends held. They wanted to work, they wanted to spend their earnings, and they wanted to contribute to their family. But since Ocampo and her siblings… Read More
First-Generation American Chef Says the Restaurant Industry Depends on Immigrants
Chef James Montejano has worked in some of the best restaurants in San Francisco and San Diego and knows that their success depends on talented trained kitchen staff performing daily miracles. Yet as the restaurant business continues to boom, chefs and restaurant owners are scrambling to find and retain the… Read More
A Former Undocumented Immigrant is Behind One of Kansas City’s Most Popular Youth Soccer Facilities
Raul Villegas had been living in America as an undocumented immigrant for more than 20 years when he decided to build an indoor soccer facility in Kansas City, Kansas. That was in 2013, long before the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, removed the threat of deportation for… Read More
College Director Has the Answer to Firms’ Worker Shortages: Let Undocumented Immigrants Go To School
When Julio Hernandez was growing up around gangs in San Antonio, his parents made it clear that college would be in his future. His peers seemed surprised. One even teased him: “How can you go to college? You rich or something?” As the son of Mexican immigrants who worked… Read More
Immigrants Mean Strong Economy and Tax Base, Says Leader of Alabama Nonprofit
Isabel Rubio, a second-generation Mexican American and executive director of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama (HICA), believes that when we give all Americans – immigrants or otherwise – equal opportunities, the entire country benefits. “Forget what side of the immigration line you’re on, this is an economic issue,” says… Read More
Miss Michigan 2016 Just Happens to Be an Automotive Designer–and a Chinese Immigrant
This summer, Arianna Quan was crowned Miss Michigan — but the 23-year-old, who aspires to be an automobile designer and is paying for her studies with the tens of thousands of dollars she’s won from competing with the Miss America Organization, didn’t have a typical “Toddlers & Tiaras” upbringing. Quan,… Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
