March 1, 2018—Pakou Hang founded the Hmong American Farmers Association, building economic strength through cooperation. Solomon Paul directs Austin’s Welcome Center, offering assistance to immigrants, employers, and to the wider Austin community. Kevin and Kunrath Lam own and operate Cheng Heng restaurant in St. Paul, and support charitable organizations in Minnesota and in their native Cambodia. Refugees from around the world, now settled across Minnesota, enrich both our state’s culture and its economy.

“Every refugee has a story to tell, and every refugee has a contribution to make to Minnesota,” said John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. “They help build Minnesota’s economy, they are crucial colleagues and board members at ILCM and many of our partner organizations, but their personal and cultural contributions are even greater.”

Economic contributions of refugees to Minnesota can be difficult to measure. The Office of the Legislative Auditor for Minnesota has concluded that data on costs and benefits of refugees in Minnesota are not adequate to assess the economic impact of refugee resettlement. In part, that is because of “the limited extent to which refugee-specific data on costs or revenues are collected in public agencies,” and in part because it is “difficult to fully identify which Minnesota residents are currently—or once were—refugees.”

Arguments about refugee resettlement continue across the state and country. The key difference between the argument that refugees generate a net economic benefit and the argument that refugee resettlement costs too much is in the time frame.

After the first few years of resettlement, refugees work, start businesses, and contribute greatly to the economy. “The net fiscal impact of refugees was positive over the 10-year period, at $63 billion,” according to a 2017 report by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (Because the conclusions of the report were not what it wanted, the Trump administration blocked its release.)

When refugees arrive after spending years or decades waiting in camps, they do need assistance. That assistance typically does not last long. Refugees quickly repay the loans for their airfare to come here, and then proceed to rebuild their lives and contribute to the country, both economically and through their courage, patriotism, and civic participation.

While no one has a specific break-out of economic data for Minnesota refugees, a recent report from the American Immigration Council documents contributions of Minnesota immigrants to the state’s economy and tax base. One example: Minnesota immigrants paid $2.2 billion in federal taxes and $1.1 billion in state and local taxes.

“If anyone doubts the contributions of refugees to the state, I hope they will take time to meet refugees and listen to their stories,” said Keller. “Their stories may begin in flight from violence, but they end in determination and courage and building new lives as Americans. Their contributions make us stronger as a state and as a nation.”

Refugees stories can be found in many places, including:

• Solomon Paul Welcomes Immigrants to Austin
• Eh Mwee: Building Bridges in Five Languages
• Ojoye Akane: Connecting Families, Faith, and Homes
• Edwige Mubonzi: Mobile Doctor
• Pakou Hang: Activist organizes Hmong-American farmers “at the nexus of history”

Press Release: February 15, 2018 – “We are angered and deeply disappointed by the Senate’s failure to pass legislation protecting Dreamers today,” said John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) this afternoon. “Make no mistake: this is not primarily about the Senate but rather about Trump’s continuing attacks on Dreamers and all immigrants. He precipitated the current crisis by ending DACA.

“Today Trump threatened to veto bills that offered protection to Dreamers, going back on the promises he made just a few months ago to pass a bill of love, take the heat, and sign any bill that Congress sent to him. The Senate, too, failed all Americans when it backed down in the face of his threats and failed to pass and send forward any bill protecting Dreamers.”

The Senate this afternoon failed to reach the minimum of 60 favorable votes for cloture on any of three immigration bills. The only bill that received 60 votes – were 60 senators voting decisively against the White House’s dramatic reductions in legal immigration. Now—after a bare three days of consideration—Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that the Senate will stop even considering any legislation to protect Dreamers.

“McConnell may stop, but we will not stop,” Keller said. “Dreamers and allies will never give up. Nearly ninety percent of Americans want permanent protection for Dreamers – we will all use all of our legal, policy and person-to-person skills to secure a just and lasting protection and future for Minnesota’s 7,000 DACA holders and 15,000 DREAMers.”

In Minnesota alone, Trump’s order devastates more than 7,000 young people – all of whom have or are on track to have a high school diploma, all of whom have had background checks and clean records, all of whom arrived in this country at age 15 or younger.

The state of Minnesota needs Dreamers. We currently are experiencing historic waves of older workers leaving the workforce. According to a December 2017 report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, “immigration has been and will continue to be a vital source of the workforce that employers need to succeed in the state…. Immigrants have become critical to Minnesota’s economy, providing a rapid stream of new workers in the face of an aging native-born workforce.”

Minnesotans with DACA pay $15 million in state and local taxes. According to the Center for American Progress, ending DACA would cost Minnesota more than $367 million in annual GDP losses. Nationally, the loss of DACA would cost the country $460 billion over the next decade. Even the conservative CATO institute supports continuing DACA and warns of a loss of almost $350 billion over the next decade if DACA is ended.

The economic toll of ending DACA is huge, but the human suffering is even greater. Minnesota’s Dreamers grew up here, went to school here, cheered the Twins and Vikings, shoveled snow in Minnesota winters and fished on Minnesota lakes in the summers. Those who have been here the longest have bought homes, married, begun to raise their own children here. This is their home: they have no other.

Side by side with Dreamers, we will continue to fight for their future—a future right here, with a path to citizenship. That is the path and the future that the vast majority of all Americans of all political parties want for Dreamers. They will not give up. We will not give up. Dreamers are here to stay.

“In high school, I always saw the recruiters come into our school. I was always excited about joining, about serving.”

Back then, Samuel* couldn’t enlist. He felt that the United States was his country. He had lived here since he was nine years old. But he had no legal status.  He didn’t even have a work permit.

“There was no way I could even approach them without telling my story,” he recalls, “and I was afraid of being turned in [to immigration authorities.]”

Then came DACA—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—in 2012. Samuel filled out the forms, paid the $495 fee, waited, and finally got his DACA status and work permit and social security number.

He headed for the U.S. Marines recruitment office.

“I wanted to join the military,” he says. “I wanted to serve the country, to prove I was loyal to the country, that I didn’t have no other home but this home that I knew.”

The recruiters processed his paperwork, his social security number. Then they hit a snag. The paperwork came back—declined because of a limit on his social security number, they told him. There was a limitation noted, one that said “work authorization only.”

Sorry. No enlistment. Not until you can get that off your social security number.

So now Samuel waits again. He graduated from high school, has a responsible job and his own home. But he can’t enlist in the military to prove his loyalty to the country he knows as home.

One of his brothers is a U.S. citizen. That brother “put in a request for us to have a brother-to-brother case, legal status.”

The family reunification visa that Samuel is waiting for is part of the program Trump vilifies as “chain migration,” saying it gives immigrants an easy way to bring in distant relatives.

Samuel thinks of the visa as brother-to-brother, which doesn’t feel like a distant relative at all. His visa process is not easy or quick.

“The waiting period is ridiculous,” Samuel says. “They’re working on cases back in 1999 now. So I still got five more years to go.” Samuel thinks the program should be reformed, so that people do not have to wait 20 or 25 years to get a visa.

* We have changed Samuel’s name in this story. As a matter of policy, we usually change the names of immigrants when telling their stories. While the stories are real, and while the individuals have agreed to let us use their stories, we choose to protect their privacy by not using their real names.

“I fear for my life right now,” Samuel* says. “We are in limbo, all the DACA applicants … People’s lives are at stake.”

Samuel started in the United States when he was 9 years old, brought across the border while he slept. He’s one of the young people called Dreamers, who came to the United States as children, without legal permission to stay.

“I was 16 years old when I started working,” he says. “I was still going to school. My summer times were spent in the fields, picking up potatoes, and doing lawn mowing. In the winter, I removed snow. I was always trying to get money somehow.”

Samuel worked all the way through high school, and volunteered as a tutor at the same time. He graduated with honors, “as a role model student for the accomplishments I already had.”

Despite those honors, he had no security. He was undocumented. That was something he could not change.

Then came DACA—Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals—in 2012. He seized the chance.

“When they told me about the process it took to be approved for DACA, they said I had to prove I wasn’t a burden to the country. I was actually a role model. I had tons of proof. I had tons of letters—from even Republican candidates that sent me a letter when I graduated.

“I wanted to live in this country and I didn’t know anything outside of this country. I don’t know how to live in Mexico, I don’t know how things work down there.”

The DACA permit came, and with legal permission to work, Samuel “got a really good-paying job being an interpreter, translator, and contact specialist for a collection agency…. I finally bought my first car, which was another milestone in my life.”

Now he could work on another long-time dream: a home of his own.

“When I was 14, I looked at what the requirements were to have a house. Work for at least two years, credit had to be at a peak, best of the best. At a young age, I went to talk to a banker and asked how I could work on my credit score, so one day I could purchase a house. They suggested that I start a prepaid credit card.

“I put all my savings on the credit card. … That credit helped me to get a job, get a car, and ultimately I built it strong enough to get a house.”

Now Samuel fears that he may lose everything he has worked for, his American dream.

“If I were to lose my work permit, I lose my driver’s license,” he explains. “If I lose my work, I can’t pay my mortgage. I go back to zero. Back to where I started. Nobody wants to go back to where they started.”

The Trump administration has rescinded DACA, effective March 5, 2018. Congress has waffled and dithered and failed to pass any relief for Dreamers like Samuel.

When Samuel visited Congressman Tom Emmer’s office last year, he told his story, and asked Emmer to support legal status for Dreamers.

“If you guys don’t do something about this,” he told Emmer, “I’m going to end up on the streets. Not even here, but on the streets of Mexico, which is worse. You are basically giving me a death sentence, that’s how bad it is.”

* We have changed Samuel’s name in this story. As a matter of policy, we usually change the names of immigrants when telling their stories. While the stories are real, and while the individuals have agreed to let us use their stories, we choose to protect their privacy by not using their real names.

Does the hot-button issue of 2018 really split the country? Or just the Republican Party?

Press release, January 26, 2018—The one-page list of demands released by the White House late yesterday represents their continuing attempt to hold Dreamers hostage to their all-out attack on immigrants and immigration.

“This plan offers nothing new,” said John Keller, executive director of the Immigration Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). “The anti-immigrant hardliners are exploiting the crisis they created, offering a limited path to citizenship for Dreamers at the expense of all other immigrants. Their hypocrisy is overwhelming. One example: the section eliminating most family visas is titled ‘Preserving the Nuclear Family.'”

The White House memo calls for slashing legal immigration to the lowest level since the 1920s, by eliminating most family visas and ending the diversity visa lottery. The plan guts asylum protections, sending Central American men, women, and children back to the violence they fled. It calls for increasing enforcement and streamlining deportation, while wasting $25 billion on a border wall. In exchange, the plan offers a 10-12 year path to citizenship for Dreamers, hedged around with eligibility requirements and provisions for revocation of status on several largely undefined grounds.

“The hard-liners created this crisis by ending DACA,” said Keller. “Now they are holding Dreamers hostage to get Congress to pass their racist and anti-immigrant agenda.”

Some 86 percent of all Americans want legal protection for Dreamers. It’s time to stop the hardliners in the White House and in Congress from holding Dreamers hostage. Congress must act now to protect Dreamers and end the crisis that the White House created by ending DACA.

Press release—January 23, 2018—Yesterday we did not get the protection for DREAMers that 86 percent of Americans, including 79 percent of Republicans want. Nor did we get a long-term budget for other critical needs, just another kick-the-can-down-the-road, three-week extension that nobody wants.

Today is a new day and we start again. “In Minnesota, we don’t let a foot of snow stop us,” said John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM). “When it blows and snows, we just keep shoveling. We are not going to let one more bad vote in DC stop us—we will keep on fighting, keep on calling, keep on pushing ahead.”

Dreamers teach our children and care for our family members. They are leaders in our companies and brave members of our military. Every day that passes, another 122 DREAMers lose DACA protection and work permission. Starting very soon, 1,200 Dreamers will fall out of status each and every day, will lose their jobs, and will face deportation to countries they have never known. Every day the shutdown continues without a solution devastates Dreamers, their families, their communities, and our economy.

“This is a national disaster, not a natural disaster,” Keller said. “This disaster is made by politicians, and it can be reversed by political action. We need to keep calling every single Senator and Representative to tell them again: I am one of the 86 percent of all Americans who want legislative protection for DREAMers.”

Congress needs to act NOW. We call on everyone in Minnesota to call every Minnesota Congress member and Senator. Tell them protecting DREAMers is a priority for you and you want them to make a clean DREAM Act their priority, too.

For every DREAMer and every family member and every ally and activist—we are in this battle for as long as it takes.

January 19, 2018—As Washington dithered and debated, dozens of Minnesotans stepped up to help Dreamers pay their renewal application fees. Within a few days of an initial Twitter appeal by immigration attorney Kara Lynum, Minnesotans sent thousands of dollars to help DACA recipients pay the $495 renewal application fee required by the federal government.

The story began when Lynum, speaking in an MPR interview, mentioned the difficulty for DACA recipients in paying the high fee. Someone called her to see how they could help. Lynum put out a call on Twitter, and pledges started rolling in. So she contacted John Keller, executive director of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM), to put together a plan to accept donations for DACA renewal fees. ILCM, the state’s largest non-profit provider of immigration legal services for low-income immigrants, represents many DACA recipients who can now apply for renewal under a federal court order issued earlier this month.

“Minnesotans once again are showing their true colors by responding with amazing generosity and speed,” Keller said. “This entire year, Minnesotans have stood and marched with their Muslim neighbors, with persons facing deportation, and again they’re showing up for Dreamers. It’s a beautiful thing and it brings hope and inspiration to both those giving and those who know there are good Samaritans in our communities and state. We all deeply appreciate each and every person’s support.”

Individual Twitter followers contacted Lynum to offer additional ways to combine small donations to help with the fees.

“The money donated for fees is not tax deductible – which makes the generosity even clearer,” said Keller. “We deeply appreciate the donations people have made through our website to help pay for DACA renewal fees. We are also grateful for those who have made donations directly to ILCM to support our statewide work in these challenging times. We’re currently seeing great demand both in representing DACA renewals and in representing Haitians and Salvadorans who were notified this week that they face a March 19 deadline for renewing their Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for one last 18-month period. Our phone lines have been busier than ever this week and we’re hoping to bring on extra, short-term help with these tight deadlines.”

Yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security issued new directives for Haitians and Salvadorans with Temporary Protected Status. The two directives said that both groups must file TPS renewal applications by March 19, in order to keep their TPS and avoid deportation until the 2019 termination dates set by the U.S. government. If they do not file TPS renewal applications by March 19, they will lose TPS status, work authorization, and protection from deportation this year.

“In addition to DACA renewals, any low-income Salvadorans or Haitians with TPS who are Minnesota residents should call the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota for appointments for renewals and screening for any other possible relief,” said Keller.