Posted by Peggy Strom on May 09, 2023
Our speaker today was Veena Iyer, Executive Director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota.  ILCM works at a systems-level to promote fair and just public policies that support immigrant and refugee communities. ILCM works directly with the immigrant community, immigrant advocates, nonprofits, business and civic leaders, law enforcement, and policymakers to increase awareness of the contributions and needs of immigrants and refugees and to advocate for welcoming policies at the local, state, and federal levels.  Veena stressed that foreign born workers are powering our American workforce today.  According to a 2021 report by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, immigrant households paid $4.5 billion in taxes in 2019 and have higher rates of workforce participation than native born communities; they’re also more likely to work for service and production businesses that would otherwise find it very difficult to find workers.  As we know, immigration reform has been needed in this country for many years.  This is an extremely complex topic and there has been much talk and hand wringing but very little action since current laws were put in place more than 50 years ago.  Veena feels that reform will not happen based on statistics like these, however.  Change will require individual conversations with individual Americans.