Welcoming in the News
Media inquiries: Please contact Communications Director Deborah Hakes.
The welcoming movement is growing across the United States and across the world. Here are some media coverage highlights to inspire and inform your own community’s welcoming movement.
Code the Dream in Durham helps immigrant and refugee communities give back and diversify tech world
With laptops open, rapt students watched as lines of code stretched across their screens. They were gathered in the American Underground to take part in classes organized through Code the Dream, a program set up to steer people from immigrant, refugee and minority communities into computer programming jobs and tech careers. The classes are being offered through Uniting NC, a Welcoming America member, and the American Underground, a startup incubator.
As United States cracks down on refugee resettlement, the ‘Ellis Island of the South’ keeps open arms
Clarkston, Georgia’s main streets are dotted with community centers and immigrant and refugee-owned businesses, including Asian grocery stores, halal restaurants, and African handicraft shops. “The future is going to look more diverse, more ethnically complex,” Mayor Ted Terry said. “If we can make that work in Clarkston, then it gives me hope for the rest of the world.”
Global Cleveland spotlighting immigrant and refugee-owned businesses
Global Cleveland is spotlighting Northeast Ohio's international entrepreneurs by compiling and promoting a directory of more than 75 local restaurants, shops, and businesses started by immigrants and refugees. The list is the first of its kind in Greater Cleveland. Besides ethnic restaurants and supermarkets, the directory also lists auto dealers, barbers, stylists, and business services.
Americans are welcomers, not wall-builders
Although the expansion of intolerance and xenophobia in America today is disturbing and, unfortunately, familiar, there is a counter-narrative that has also run through our history as a nation. This is the story of the “Welcomers,” those who have led the charge for inclusion — be it of immigrants, African Americans, Jews, LGBT-Americans, or the many other groups who have faced prejudice and persecution in our country.
Immigrants are bolstering the Pittsburgh metro area population
Without an influx of international migration to the Pittsburgh metro area, the region would have lost 36,580 residents since 2010. This would have been far and away the largest population decline of any large U.S. metro area over that time span. Luckily, enough people came across borders to the Steel City, drastically cutting into the figure, and stemming some the region’s population decline.
Immigrants revitalize Detroit
Immigration has been quietly powering the population growth, neighborhood revitalization, innovation, entrepreneurship, and broad diversity upon which a bright future for Detroit’s neighborhoods and current residents can be secured. Not only do immigrants in Detroit make up an outsized percentage of the self-employed but they are also preventing the city’s population from shrinking.
Photo series highlights success of welcoming initiative in Dayton, OH
Dayton has long been considered an immigrant-friendly community. In the mid-1990s, Dayton helped end the Bosnian War with peace talks. In 2010, then-Dayton Mayor Gary Leitzell and a Turkish native started the Welcome Dayton initiative. In 2017, a local photographer decided to turn the lens on immigrants in Dayton to hear from them about how they’ve been welcomed in the city.
Why Houston is becoming more accepting of immigration
The continued growth in positive attitudes toward immigrants is thanks largely to a younger generation of Houstonians that is more diverse and more comfortable with diversity than older generations. For example, 37 percent of the baby boom generation and 35 percent of Gen Xers felt immigration into the country mostly threatens American culture, but only 13 percent of millennials agreed.
Hamtramck, MI: An evolving city of immigrants
Pick a street corner in downtown Hamtramck, Mich., and you'll be struck by the incredible mix of cultures crammed into this tiny, 2-square-mile city. What has united all of the immigrant groups who've come to Hamtramck? Good jobs in the auto industry. Hamtramck is surrounded by Detroit, and for decades, car manufacturing was its lifeblood.
Trump may not want immigrants, but Rust Belt mayors do
In the suburbs and countryside of Rust Belt swing states, President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant message may have carried the day, but in the region’s post-industrial cities, it’s anathema. Mayors from Detroit to Cleveland -- as well as northeastern cities like Albany, NY, and Lowell, MA -- see financial salvation in immigrants and are dismayed by Trump’s drive to tighten the borders.
An undocumented high school senior who left Mexico aged 4 has been accepted to Harvard
Victor Reyes arrived in the US when he was four. Today he is class valedictorian, a soon-to-be computer science major at Harvard, and DACA student. "I want to be the one to show them that being undocumented isn’t a disadvantage. Instead, it is a motivator. Being undocumented helps you discover the virtue of hard work and perseverance."
How moms and families can create welcoming communities for immigrant families
As moms we know that the best way to build strong families is to have strong communities. Our strength is grounded in our ability to work together. From those who cook the food that we eat to those who invent businesses, new immigrants realize the value of working hard and doing our part.