Mich. among most welcoming states for refugees from Latin America, overseas

Protesters in Vassar, Mich., greeted the
 refugee children from Latin America in 2014. 

Over the past several years, our nation has witnessed several false alarms perpetrated by the xenophobes among us who say those who don’t look like us or dress like us or don’t surrender their cultural heritage are not to be trusted.
Much of this fear-mongering is generated by the echo chamber of anti-immigrant officials and commentators who stereotype and categorize.
Perhaps the most obvious sky-is-falling scenario laid out by these folks occurred a year ago when Latin American children fleeing drug gang violence entered the U.S. in the tens of thousands.

Bridge Magazine this week published a comprehensive piece about Michigan's immigration patterns that recalled how the transport of about 200 of these undocumented kids from the Mexican border to Vassar, Mich., prompted some protesters and officials at the state and local level to label their arrival as an “invasion.” Using the slippery slope argument – as they often do – the intolerance crowd declared that a flood of illegal immigrants would soon follow for many years to come.

State Sen. Mike Green, R-Mayville, was worried. “We don’t know if they have diseases,” he said. Tom Wassa, a Republican candidate for the state House, suggested the children had “known diseases and gang affiliations.”

Of course, none of that turned out to be true.

Nearly a year later, the exodus of minors from violent parts of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico to the U.S. and to Michigan has slowed dramatically, for reasons that appear to be under debate, according to Bridge.

Most of the children brought to Michigan to seek refuge have been connected to relatives or placed with foster families in the state.
And here’s the aspect of the story that I never realized – and I suspect most Michiganders did not know: Michigan is viewed as one of the most welcoming states in the nation, stretching back to World War II, in accepting people, particularly children, fleeing poverty or violence in their countries.

In his excellent piece for Bridge, Jacob Wheeler sums up Michigan’s track record this way:

“In 2007, First United Methodist Church near Grand Rapids helped resettle refugees from the African nation of Burundi following a 12-year conflict that ended in 2005. Pentecostal Christians in Traverse City worked with Bethany to help Ukrainians settle in northern Michigan in the 1990s.
“The Arab-American community in Dearborn welcomed Iraqi refugees following the first Gulf War in 1991. In 1978, Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County created the Soviet Jewry Absorption Committee to help resettle Eastern European Jews, echoing the welcome that Detroit gave Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis before World War II.

“Bethany Christian Services has helped child migrants and refugees since 1956. The numbers increased dramatically from Southeast Asia in 1975 following the end of the Vietnam War. … The organization’s work with Central American children began in the 1980s, when civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala reached their bloody peak.

“Indeed, Michigan is among the most welcoming states in the nation for refugees, according to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR). Last year, Michigan received the second most refugee arrivals (2,753) of any state, behind California, which had 3,068. Since 2007, Michigan has welcomed 18,000 refugees, again trailing only California, which took in more than 25,000.”