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Prominent Nebraska Nursery Struggles to Find Enough Workers
After 60 years of steady expansion, Mulhall’s Nursery may have to face stagnation, says co-owner Dan Mulhall. Why? Lack of immigrant labor in an industry in which the American-born seem less willing to work with each passing year. “Who will do the work?” he asks. In 1951, former U.S. Navy Secretary Francis P. Matthews assumed […]
Read MoreThis Entrepreneur Wants the U.S. Immigration System to Better Reward Hard Work
Jennifer Lucio Vargas has entrepreneurship in her blood. The founder and CEO of Miami’s 305 Communications and Events was born to immigrant parents from Cuba, and her father worked tirelessly to put himself through Harvard undergraduate and law school. “He worked cleaning toilets while he was in school,” she says. “But he eventually opened his […]
Read MoreOnce an Undocumented Immigrant, Pennsylvania Town’s First Lady is Giving Back to Her Adoptive Home
In 2007, when she was in her mid-twenties, Brazilian immigrant Gisele Fetterman read an article about Braddock, Pennsylvania. “I wrote a letter, and the mayor, John Karl Fetterman, wrote back,” she says. Her initial fascination with Braddock was sparked by a magazine article she read about the town. She learned that a lot of steel […]
Read MoreWhy California’s Bill Allowing Undocumented Immigrants to Purchase Health Insurance is Good Policy
Governor Jerry Brown of California signed a historic law which could make his state the first to allow undocumented immigrants to purchase health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. SB10 directs the state to negotiate a waiver with the federal government to allow this population to purchase insurance on the state’s Covered California Health Insurance Exchange. […]
Read MoreGeorgia Farmer Says Broken Immigration Policy Hurts His Bottom Line
Bill Brim is a lifelong Georgia farmer who’s beyond frustrated with the immigration system’s agriculture guest worker program. Brim relies on the H-2A visa program to hire about 600 migrant workers from Mexico to help harvest the bell peppers, squash, watermelon, broccoli and other produce that grows on his 6,000-acre, Tift County farm. But Brim […]
Read MoreGot Milk? In 2014, Half of All U.S. Dairy Workers Were Immigrants
Olga Reuvekamp is among dozens of immigrants who have bought dairy farms in South Dakota since 2000, helping to stem the decline of milk production in the state. Her 4,500-head farm is dependent on immigrant labor, though, and she says there are no good visas for dairy. In the early 2000s, South Dakota initiated a […]
Read MoreFamily Reunification Policy for Filipino WWII Veterans Takes Effect
Beginning June 8, 2016, through the Filipino World War II Veterans Parole (FWVP) executive action, Filipino-Americans who bravely fought for the United States during World War II will be allowed to request that their family members, with approved visa petitions, come to the United States and avoid further delay in long visa backlogs. This policy […]
Read MoreStarting a Promising Firm Didn’t Insulate this Iranian Scientist from Visa Worries
In 2004, Mehdi Yazdanpanah triggered a chemical reaction in a University of Louisville lab that, to his surprise, created tiny, metallic points. Intrigued, he devised a way to form individual needles – microscopic in size, yet conductive and strong, a unique combination that could advance cancer and other microscopic research. “I think,” he told his […]
Read MoreJamaican Immigrant Helps U.S. Kids to Help U.S. Companies
Peter Burns was born in Kingston, in Jamaica, and moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. Today, Burns works for Nokia, bringing communications infrastructure to cities across the country. In this position, he has seen the great degree to which the nation’s immigrants benefit the economy. “We work with 30 countries […]
Read MoreFarmer: Immigrants a Valuable Resource, Not a Problem
When 60-year-old Bert Lemkes sees Hispanic immigrants working in the fields around his home in western North Carolina, or in the greenhouses and nurseries he helps manage, he’s reminded of his own arrival in the United States. “I always compare myself to those people who come here to work and make money, because I came […]
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