Center for Immigration Studies
DACA Recipient Teaches So He Can Give Back to the Community That Welcomed Him
When Julian Cortes was eight years old, his father began receiving death threats from corrupt individuals who worked in his company. Fearing for their safety, the family moved from their native Colombia to Redmond, Washington. “We came on tourist visas and when those expired, we were undocumented,” Cortes… Read More
Personal Stories and Hard Facts Motivate an Evangelical Congregation to Push for Immigration Reform
Mike McClenahan, the senior pastor of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, in the affluent North County region of San Diego, has watched his community’s opinions on immigration reform change dramatically over the last five years. Many of his congregants, including conservative businessmen who initially resisted the subject, have come… Read More
CEO of $40 Million Company Says Keeping Undocumented Immigrants in the Shadows Wastes Talent and Stalls Business Growth
Thirteen years ago, Colombian-born entrepreneur Claudia Mirza and her husband, Azam, a native of India, co-founded Akorbi, a language-translation business based in Plano, Texas. Today, Akorbi has grown into a global business-solutions firm, providing localization services and multilingual staffing and marketing to companies such as Google, Aetna, and Blue Cross… Read More
After Surviving Brutal Kidnapping, Colombian Immigrant Becomes Successful Miami Entrepreneur
Cristhian Mancera loved his native Colombia and had planned to stay there forever. But when he was kidnapped at age 28, he lost faith in his country. “I was held for 10 hours and thought I was going to die. I was hit in the head multiple times,” he… Read More
Weekend Reading: Highlights from this week’s immigration news (March 21 – 25)
In his March 24 column, the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby argues that mass deportations would leave America poorer. Jacoby cites a 2015 study from the American Action Forum that says it would take 20 years to expel all undocumented immigrants living in the United States and would “cost… Read More
Mexican Immigrant Creates Jobs and Opportunity for American Workers in Greenville
When Mexican native Ruben Montalvo first came to the United States at age 24, he was so sure his visit was temporary that he kept an open return ticket home. As valedictorian from his university, where he had received an engineering degree, he’d been reluctant to leave his cushy… Read More
Story by Story, Pastors Move Skeptics to Embrace Immigration Reform
In 2007, when pastors Juan-Daniel Espitia and Tom Theriault began inviting congregants to learn about the immigrant communities in and around their church, they never expected to gain the attention of former President Barack Obama. Espitia had come to the 1,300-member Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, located outside San Diego, to… Read More
Study: Immigrants Founded 51% of U.S. Billion-Dollar Startups
A new non-partisan study on entrepreneurship gives some credence to the tech industry’s stance that American innovation benefits from robust immigration. The study from the National Foundation for American Policy, a non-partisan think tank based in Arlington, Va., shows that immigrants started more than half of the current crop… Read More
‘Polish Cowboy’ and Entrepreneur Says Immigration Policy Stifles Economic Growth
“I’ve always dreamed of moving to the United States and building my company here,” says Damian Nowak, the Polish co-founder and CEO of Virtkick, a startup that helps businesses set up their own cloud-hosting networks. This dream became a reality when Virtkick became one of 10 companies selected—of 1,100 that… Read More
Idaho Veterinarian Sees Troubling Labor Challenges in Clients’ Businesses
Elizabeth Kohtz grew up on a family farm in Idaho where her father relied on migrant workers to keep the dairy running. Immigration policy limited his access to workers. Today, Kohtz works as a dairy veterinarian and sees the same troubling labor challenges play out in her clients’ businesses. When… Read More
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