Invested in immigration: Foreign-born workers increasing in Columbus

A local panel of experts discussed how immigration and a diverse workforce will make Columbus more competitive in Indiana and the United States.

Sponsored by the National Immigration Forum, the discussion Thursday at The Columbus Learning Center centered around a discussion about how Columbus can better compete to attract and retain the best workforce.

Although illegal immigration has become a divisive national issue, legal immigration has become vital for the city’s thriving economy, Columbus Mayor Jim Lienhoop told about 40 people at the forum.

“If we were deprived of immigrant labor, we’d all feel it — whether we acknowledge it or not,” Lienhoop said. “We are heavily invested in immigration – whether we understand it or not.”

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The mayor’s remarks came at the beginning of a six-member panel discussion that largely focused on how skilled, foreign-born workers help the city improve its economic competitiveness in a global economy. It was entitled “Challenges and Opportunities: Attracting and Retaining a Diverse American Workforce and a Primer on Immigration.”

More foreign-born workers have come to Columbus than Americans from other parts of the country during six of the past eight years, said Jason Hester, president of the Greater Columbus Area Economic Development Corp.   

That includes a Latino population that has grown by 65 percent during the past 10 years, said panelist Kathy Oren, executive director of the Community Education Coalition.

One of the smaller local firms that hires foreign-born engineers is LHP Engineering Solutions. The company recruits talent from Purdue University and Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, said CEO Ryan Hou, who was also on the panel.

But when LHP representatives visit those Indiana schools and others, they consistently find 90 to 95 percent of the engineering graduates are foreign nationals, Hou said.

While recruiting talent is one thing, keeping them in Columbus for the long term is another. 

A native of China, Hou recalled how it only took him six months after receiving his student visa in the mid-1980s until he was granted permanent residency status.

But today, a Chinese immigrant waits an average of seven years — and immigrants from India won’t get permanent residency for about 10 years, Hou said.

“I can see the fear in my engineers,” Hou said.

There are currently backlogs of five to 20 years for family and employment-based permanent immigration categories, said Angela Adams, an Indianapolis immigration attorney who moderated the panel discussion.

Since Hou’s company must recruit talent to compete globally, he described the situation as a predicament that causes pain and stress for employers. 

Although Cummins Inc. is a much larger company, Bartholomew County’s largest employer is experiencing the same challenges as LHP, said panelist Lorrie Meyer, executive director of Cummins’ Global Talent Management.

While maintaining that Cummins prefers to hire locally, Meyer said foreign-born professional students tend to be extremely intelligent with a strong work ethic.

Beyond their academic excellence, foreign nationals often have diverse cultural backgrounds that make them ideally suited to work with a variety of international clients, Meyer said. 

Over the past five years, the local economic development corporation has surveyed 90 primary local employers who collectively provide at least half of the jobs in the Columbus area, Hester said.

All of them are struggling, especially with such a low unemployment rate, to find qualified, skilled workers, he said. 

“Having a good immigration policy is critically important to support the success of our employers,” Hester said.  

If local high-tech companies cannot attract and retain the talent they need, some may believe they have no choice but to move their operations out of Bartholomew County, Hou said.

That will result in higher unemployment, which will eventually translate into all Columbus area residents paying substantially higher taxes, Hester said.  

While the Canadian government regularly changes immigration policy depending on the country’s workforce needs, the United States hasn’t made substantive changes for more than three decades, said panelist Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.

Since the American government isn’t following Canada’s example, “we are creating a law-breaking society,” Noorani said, with foreign-born workers skirting U.S. immigration laws.

Although only Congress can make the necessary policy changes, community members can play an important role by advocating for strategies that better integrate foreign-born workers into the U.S. economy, Noorani said.   

However, Noorani said he believes many area residents have a substantial fear of immigrants that prevents advocacy for them from gaining ground.

Some Americans view all foreign nationals as people to be isolated, rather than integrated into the community, or as threats to security, rather than protectors, Noorani said.

Although there are authoritative statistics to debunk misconceptions, numbers alone don’t change minds when “everybody has their own set of data they believe,” Noorani said.  

But if local leaders can back up facts with personal stories about foreign-born residents, perceptions can be changed, Noorani said. 

“If we wrap a story around a fact, then it resonates with people,” he said.