Instead of where is Waldo? === its time to ask, where is Cleveland? Despite catastrophic depopulation and erosion of tax base, Cleveland City Council and Mayors Office still are sleep on immigrant-friendly conversation ---- not so in Detroits City Hall (and now City Halls in Pittsburgh, Dayton, Toledo, Columbus, St. Louis, Philly, Baltimore....). Tired of race-based politics? In Michigan, Tobocman said Detroit City Council members Andre Spivey and Raquel Castaneda-Lopez have convened a new task force working on immigration reform. “I believe you’ll see Mayor [Mike] Duggan announce strategies soon of how the city, given its limited resources, can embrace immigration reform.” Spivey was at the Global Great Lakes Network conference too, and he impressed Tobocman with what he had to say on a panel discussion about relations between working-class African Americans and the immigrant community. Strategies are needed to support what Tobocman calls “incumbent talent” so that economic gains brought by a more welcoming immigration policy are leveraged and shared with low-income, non-immigrant communities. “It’s an issue we’ve been eager to tackle,” Tobocman said. “In some communities, it’s the number one issue. Largely, we’ve not seen organized opposition to Global Detroit’s work in Detroit. In suburban and rural areas, people will sometimes say immigration reform is good, but what are you doing for non-immigrants?” Tobocman said during the administration of former Detroit mayor Dave Bing, Global Detroit couldn’t get support for a city immigration affairs office because Bing was afraid of how it would play out with African American voters. “Duggan doesn’t seem to share that concern, but I think that has more to do with Duggan’s comfort as mayor and the wide margin of victory he had in the election,” Tobocman added. Elsewhere in Michigan, a group of technology leaders, including the biosciences industry organization MichBio, are hosting a roundtable discussion on immigration reform at 10:30 a.m. on June 27 at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce in Lansing. In addition to MichBio, the attendees will include members of Michigan’s congressional delegation, the Michigan Farm Bureauthe Detroit Regional Chamber, and members of the immigrant community. Tobocman said the June 27 event is another indicator that there is growing movement on immigration reform in Michigan. More and more people, particularly outside the Beltway, consider their economic future the most important political issue, he believes, and they see how immigration reform can play a role in rebuilding cities plagued by population loss, disinvestment, and unemployment. “That’s why it’s important to see places like New York City, Minnesota, and Toronto doing so well with robust immigration,” he said. xconomy/detroit/2014/06/20/immigration-reform/2/
Posted on: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:11:24 +0000