The Obama administration’s decision to bring in 110,000 refugees next year, a small percentage of the overall immigration the United States will see from around the world, will benefit America in significant ways.
Refugee resettlement has played a valuable role in revitalizing towns and cities that have declined and stagnated economically. Contrary to anti-refugee rhetoric that shuns and maligns, refugees contribute to job growth, our economy, and our lives.
But Somalis saw a chance to open businesses in a town that had declined since the 1970s with the loss of the mill industry. Restaurants and shops took root in the decaying town center that residents referred to as “the combat zone.” It’s taken hard work and cooperative spirit, but Somalis today are integrated, and some, like Zamzam Mohamud, whom the mayor appointed to the school board, have become icons of community engagement. Crime has gone down, according to the police chief. A few years after Somalis began arriving, Inc. magazine named Lewiston one of the best places to do business in America.
This is not a unique story. St Louis has one of the largest Bosnian refugee populations in the country, many of them Muslims. They began arriving two decades ago and rebuilt their lives and brought prosperity. A local bank took a chance early on, providing loans to buy houses, invest in properties, and open restaurants, bakeries, repair shops, trucking businesses, and cleaning companies. Bosnian entrepreneurship has created jobs and opportunities for other Americans as well. The population of some 70,000 is credited with bolstering sagging school enrollment, invigorating the city center, revitalizing neighborhoods, and stabilizing the city’s decline.
Bosnians in Utica, N.Y., along with Somalis, Burmese, and other refugees stemmed the tide of population decline there and have contributed to such a high degree that the mayor of Utica continues to welcome refugees, including Syrians. A PBS NewsHour report highlights that “Utica’s commitment to resettle refugees isn’t purely humanitarian — its open-door policy is also a pioneering economic tool for revitalizing the Rust Belt.”