Better Approaches to Welcoming New Immigrants
In 2023, Immigration Research Initiative began to convene meetings together with colleagues from the Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment to explore how to better manage a sudden increase in new immigrants that had begun in the prior year.
The meetings began in New York City and focused on shelter and housing. We then broadened our scope to include discussions on jobs, longtime residents and receiving communities, and quickly expanded to include people from around the country by alternating between in-person and virtual meetings. These meetings were a collaborative space where we engaged diverse perspectives from architects, tenants’ rights activists, city planners, housing policy advocates, direct service leaders, emergency response planners, and developers.
Since that time, the context has changed in a number of ways. By the middle of 2024 Biden Administration policies reduced the number of new arrivals to very low levels, and they are expected to be all but halted in the Trump Administration. Yet immigrants who have come are still here, and challenges about immigrant integration remain.
On this web page, we present an overview of what we have learned. What’s here is a collaborative effort. Think of the page as a kind of magazine that is continually updated, with many writers, and Immigration Research Initiative staff serving as editors. We welcome others who will treat it as a resource, a reference, and a source of inspiration. If you write something based on this, or know of something that you think belongs here, send us a note to let us know!
Here are our overall lessons learned:
- Done right, we can address housing, work, education, health care, and legal services in ways that could improve conditions for all of us. The policy proposals and real-life examples below prove that we can manage this.
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Challenges can bring out the best (though also the worst) in local communities.
- New immigrants can be assets in creating solutions.
- In the long run, this will be good for our communities and our economy.
Local responses to the sudden increase in new immigrants provide evidence that we can, in fact, welcome new Americans in ways that create long lasting benefits for communities, local economies, and long-term residents. With innovative practices springing from every corner of the country, this is an aggregate of the possibilities that exist when we imagine more for ourselves, the individuals and families that make up our communities.
Housing
- Temporary rental assistance or one-time grants to move out of shelter
- Manufactured and modular housing
- Expanding access to housing vouchers to households in need, regardless of immigration status
- Zoning and other changes
- Basement apartments
- Small apartments
- Air BnB for emergency housing
- New affordable housing development
- Hotel conversion
- One-time grant for first-time home buyers
- Engaging refugee resettlement agencies
- Coordinating and collaborating to move people where there is housing available
Work and Workforce Development
- Training programs that can lead to work and bridge a gap in work permits
- Recognition of degrees and training people already have
- Job-Matching programs
- State agencies to hire people regardless of work authorization
- Worker co-ops
- Self-employment
Education
- State and federal funding to help local schools manage newcomers
- Hiring parents of newcomers to assist in schools
- Ensure student level data is being collected upon enrollment to provide meaningful context to schools as they help students integrate into the American education system
Health Care
- Five states and additional cities give health care to people regardless of status.
- Nonprofit groups help navigate and/or provide services
Legal Services
- Chicago: Under a state-supported effort organized by The Resurrection Project, lawyers from across Chicago have staffed legal clinics to help migrants fill out paperwork.
- Michigan: The Whitmer administration proposes spending $8 million in the upcoming fiscal year to fund legal services that could be lifesaving for immigrants seeking asylum.
- Indiana: Notre Dame Law students assist with asylum applications and eviction sealings at spring clinics
Business, labor, and community working together
- Ellis Island Initiative, a coalition of business, labor, and advocacy groups stressing the ability of upstate New York to meet the humanitarian need in a way that is positive for local economies.
A challenge like this can bring out the best in communities, people really want to help and often volunteer to do so.
- Grannies Respond/Abuelas Responden, creating an “overground railroad” and helping newcomers
- Ulster Immigrant Defense Network (upstate NY)
- NY Times story: They arrived Homeless, Now They’re Helping Others Make New York Home
- Harlem clean-up of streets that engaged longtime residents and new immigrants
We’ve seen this movie before, and it ends well
- What the Mariel Boat Lift Can Tell Us About the Current Trends in Immigration.
- David Kallick on Inside City Hall with Errol Louis, NY1 TV.
- New York Review of Books: People are Not a Crisis.
What we can expect in the future
- Immigration Research Initiative report on long-term employment outcomes and tax revenues
- NY Times: Venezuelan Migrants Could Soon Create New York’s First “Little Caracas”
Areas that have seen population decline have plenty of room for growth in immigration
Areas that have received new Americans see growth in their economies
- Newsday article: Report: Migrants Pump Millions Into LI Economy
- CBS News radio: Report Says Migrants Pump Millions into Long Island Economy
- Politico: Immigrant Contributions (scroll down to “immigrant contributions: Newly arrived immigrants boost New York local economies…”)
If you write something based on this, or know of something that you think belongs here, send us a note to let us know!