Brad Johnson: South Dakota business leaders spearhead immigrant effort

A coordinated effort to make South Dakota an attractive place for legal immigrants to live and work is gaining steam because of Ukraine’s war.

Motivated by the refugee crisis, a group of South Dakota business, education, social services and government leaders informally have named the project Freedom’s Haven for New Americans Workforce.

Group leaders are not ready publicly to identify themselves, but are willing to share general plans and goals.

With tens of thousands of jobs open, and millions nationally, the leadership group recognizes that immigrants are an important part of South Dakota’s future economic growth.

They also mostly wish our U.S. senators and our congressman would see how much damage the federal immigration system is doing to our economy. If only congressional leaders would emerge from their safe spaces to solve the problem, there could be progress, they believe.

But that’s not likely to happen, even though real people are being harmed.

So, this high-level leadership group is seeking a way forward.

The loose-knit group’s original goal was to “Provide a safe, meaningful and comfortable life, even if it is temporary, in South Dakota for 5,000 to 10,000 Ukrainians (about 2,500 to 6,500 families) displaced by the war.”

The effort was launched after President Joe Biden said the United States would accept 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. But the snail’s pace with which that federal program is moving, and its complexity, caused the group to broaden its mission.

Now the plan is to target legal immigrants from any country to apply for the open jobs in South Dakota.

But bringing immigrants to South Dakota is not easy and will be costly. For nearly the past month, Ukrainian refugees have been walking up to the U.S. border in Tijuana, Mexico, and being granted humanitarian parole visas. Several have made it to South Dakota.

But earlier this week, the Biden administration closed that border, telling refugees to apply through the “Uniting for Ukraine” program.

While promoting it as a streamlined process, it appears to be another bureaucratic roadblock. According to the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service website, any new Ukrainian refugees first must have a U.S. sponsor who can transport them to initial housing, help them apply for such things as Social Security cards, ensure “the beneficiary’s health care and medical needs are met for the duration of the parole;” (two years) and assist “the beneficiary with accessing education, learning English, securing employment and enrolling children in school.”

This increases the urgency behind South Dakota’s effort.

Traditionally, Lutheran Social Services of South Dakota has been a leading organization in relocating refugees. But bringing that significant number of refugees or immigrants to the state is beyond its current capacity and would require broad support.

The planning group leading the effort has created detailed strategies broken into four broad categories. Those include identifying what might be needed by a new immigrant or refugee family; finding entities and relationships needed to provide that support; locating housing “temporary and more permanent;” and bringing together “important players on the private side.”

The ambitious plan seeks to pull together perhaps the most innovative and collaborative network of people, businesses and organizations ever assembled in the state. The problem, however, is that the leadership all have demanding, high-level jobs. They won’t be doing the detail work.

Making an immigration plan work will require major financial support funneled toward an organization like Lutheran Social Services to give it staffing capabilities, or creating a new organization staffed adequately to coordinate the effort.

Already, some are saying there must be an easier way – perhaps we can just advertise that we are an immigrant-friendly state and let desired immigrants know we have plenty of jobs available. Most other states are advertising similarly and more effectively.

What would set us apart, however, is seeing this fledgling plan take flight. Let’s identify places for immigrants and refugees to live and work, make it possible for them to attend school and learn English, and enable them to build a future.

Let’s prove that we are a welcoming state of opportunity.

Brad Johnson is a Watertown journalist and businessman who is active in state and local affairs.

This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: Business leaders in South Dakota could use immigrant workforce