Immigrants in Monroe County

Immigrants in Monroe County

The United States of America is the greatest country in the world, bar none. Full Stop!

Of course, I am biased, but I have lived in four other countries and traveled to several others. We are not a perfect nation by any stretch of the imagination, but we are better than most, if not all others.

That is why immigrants flock to these United States of America. We are a nation of immigrants, this writer not excepted, and it is by virtue of our diversity of cultures, religions, ethnicities, nationalities, races, etc., that we are as strong as we are. There is strength in being diverse as it brings together an amalgamation of factors.

Monroe County, although not as cosmopolitan (an understatement) as some of our neighbors like Ann Arbor, Detroit and Toledo, boasts immigrants from all parts of the world who are employed in various professions and are making positive contributions to the local economy.

Immigrants are the lifeblood of our great nation — that has been the case since our founding.

There are only two groups who are not immigrants, those who were forcibly brought here as slaves, and those who were inhabiting this land before anyone else arrived to colonize it. That topic is reserved for another time.

Certainly, the migrant population is important, as in many instances, those are “the hands that feed us,” as they work primarily in agriculture. However, here, I focus primarily on first-generation professional immigrants.

Nationally, there are many famous immigrants. I do not have to tell you their professions, and you will know who they are. They include, with country of origin in parentheses, Albert Einstein (Germany), Henry Kissinger (Germany), Madeleine Albright (Czech Republic), Elon Musk (Canada), Rupert Murdoch (Australia), and the list goes on and on.

There are many organizations in Michigan and Monroe that would be hard pressed to function effectively without immigrant contribution. Think of our local healthcare organizations, educational institutions, and numerous industries and companies.

At the recent Mackinac Policy Conference, a report titled Contributions of New Americans in Michigan was presented. Without immigrants, Michigan would not be growing. Immigrants accounted for almost 60 percent of Michigan’s population growth over the last 10 years, based on 2022 data. Here are few facts from the report:

• The most common countries of origin are India, Mexico, Iraq, Canada, and China.
• Immigrants represent almost 10 percent of Michigan’s labor force.
• Immigrants in Michigan paid $5.5 billion in federal taxes and $2.6 billion in state and local taxes.
• Also, “… immigrants helped create or preserve 31,600 manufacturing jobs that would have otherwise been eliminated or moved elsewhere by 2022”.
• Immigrants comprised 28.2 percent of all software developers and 24.3 percent of mechanical engineers working in Michigan.

I wish I could say I had similar data for immigrants in Monroe County, but unfortunately, I do not. So, my information is anecdotal and by observation of the county.

Here in Monroe, just as in many other parts of the nation, immigrants come from all nations. In Monroe they represent countries such as Ghana, Nigerian, Cameroun, Congo, Malawi, Morocco, Egypt, Jamaica, Germany, Greece, Haiti, England, France, Denmark, Canada, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, India, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and many more. Please forgive me if I forgot to list your nation of origin.

In Monroe, and all over the nation, immigrants abound in various professions. Some of these professions include, academicians/educators, CEOs of various organizations, community leaders, counselors and psychologists, clergy, physicians, entrepreneurs and many more.

Immigrants from all over the world have been the lifeblood of our nation for centuries, and that is not likely to change, whether we are talking about the nation, the state or our own local community, Monroe.

—Kojo Quartey is president of Monroe County Community College and an economist. He may be reached at kquartey@monroeccc.edu