Midwestern boomtown claims MORE migrant refugees can help sustain rapid economic growth

The largest city in Ohio is looking to attract more migrant refugees to the area in a bid to improve the city's economic output.

Columbus, already home to 900,000 residents, was recently named as the fastest growing metro area in the country and now city leaders are looking to continue such growth - and they say attracting immigrants is the answer.

Donald Trump won the largely red state by 8-percentage-points in 2020, yet despite its Republican leanings, the state's capital has become welcoming towards migrants.

But there are real concerns from Ohioans about how the city might meet the needs of a sudden influx of refugees with worries over a possible rise in crime, not to mention the language barrier with just 3 percent the state's residents able to speak Spanish.

One Republican, Bernie Moreno, took to X last month claiming that because of the current administration's policies, migrants have 'destroyed' Ohio communities. 

Moreno, himself a migrant, is a Cleveland businessman and is running to win the seat occupied by Democrat Sherrod Brown since 2007 in one of the most closely watched in the country.

Moreno did not go into specifics as to which cities have been 'destroyed' but his comments appeared to stoke fears of migrants arriving following a surge at the southern border earlier in the year.

Some have claimed that undocumented migrants commit more crime than people born in the United States, although research from 2021 suggested such claims were false.

Moreno has been vocal in his use of rhetoric over immigration repeatedly referring to what has been occurring at the southern border as an 'invasion'.

Although Columbus does not refer to itself as a sanctuary city, it does follow sanctuary policies. 

It means Columbus displays a particularly welcoming attitude towards migrants arriving in the city. 

In 2015 a Police Division Directive was adopted that banned local law enforcement from detaining or arresting illegal aliens for ICE without a warrant or observation of a crime.

The directive also rules out the use of city funds or personnel 'for the sole purpose of detecting or apprehending any person based on … suspected immigration status, except in response to a court order.'

'We are in an economic and cultural boom. It also comes with its challenges. More people need more homes, more transportation, more child care, more health care and more teachers. Businesses tell us every day that they need more people in the labor force,' Columbus' Democratic Mayor Andrew J. Ginther and Don DePerro CEO of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce wrote in an op-ed for USA Today.

'As two proud leaders ... we need to continue welcoming refugees. Our American-born labor force is aging, and Ohioans are having fewer children. Welcoming refugees is not just the right thing to do, it also makes economic sense.'

The pair also provide some convincing statistics to try and persuade Ohioans that migrants can help boost the economy. 

Columbus is becoming an increasingly popular destination for migrants. More than 9,000 immigrants had a Columbus address in new immigration court proceedings in fiscal year 2023, a 350 percent increase from fiscal year 2019, according to immigration court data made available by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Overall in Ohio since the start of the 2024 fiscal year, the Biden administration has issued around 16,300 work permits to asylum applicants and certain people who received humanitarian parole, including under the new legal pathways, a Department of Homeland Security official said. 

Around 3,700 more permits were granted to applicants for Temporary Protected Status.

According to 2022 data from the American Immigration Council, 97 percent of refugees in Ohio are employed paying $418.4 million in annual taxes into the system. 

'America needs more immigrants: Misinformation that immigrants do not pay taxes or that they drain resources is not only untrue but harms society,' Ginther and DePerro state.  

'When refugees come here after fleeing war and persecution, they demonstrate a determination and grit many Ohioans would recognize in themselves. And in doing so, they become our colleagues, customers, business partners and neighbors.'

The pair of leaders are now calling on President Biden to 'invest in a robust, well-funded and sustainable federal system' to welcome people seeking safety and help in order for them to rebuild their lives in Ohio. 

'It's time we prioritize a solution that not only brings people to safety and makes a significant change in the lives of individuals, but also makes central Ohio – and the whole state – stronger.'

But the arrival of record numbers of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has posed a political problem for Biden against former President Trump, who has made cracking down on immigration a top issue in his campaign.

A White House spokesperson said the Biden administration has called on Congress to pass bipartisan immigration reform legislation that has been stymied by Republicans. 

It has also sped up processing work permits and created new legal pathways through which hundreds of thousands of migrants were immediately eligible to apply for permits.

A Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt slammed such efforts as taking jobs from Americans, but in Columbus, local union workers have welcomed the extra hands from migrants and refugees with work permits, union officials say, amid construction labor shortages.

Even with work permits, many new immigrants face barriers such as language and transportation in the car-dependent city. 

Around Columbus, large construction projects abound, including for Intel chip factories that President Joe Biden called 'literally a field of dreams' in his 2023 State of the Union address. 

Help accessing immigrant communities to find workers to hire has been among the top three requests the Columbus Chamber of Commerce has fielded from local businesses in recent years, said Kelly Fuller, the chamber's vice president of talent and workforce development.

Nationwide, the increase in the number of available workers from 2021 to 2023 was the fastest two-year jump this century, with roughly half the growth coming from people born elsewhere, and U.S. Federal Reserve staff recently raised their economic growth estimates to account for higher immigration.   

The expansion of the labor force has kept the economy growing and consumer spending up without driving inflation even higher, said Brookings Institution economist Tara Watson earlier this year.

Immigration is bolstering a U.S. workforce that would otherwise be set to decline as the baby boomer generation retires, she added. 'And especially in some fields, we have long-run structural needs that Americans are just not going to fill,' Watson said, pointing to a lack of home health aides and other direct care workers.

The situation in Columbus could not be more stark to that of Aurora, Colorado, a Denver suburb where there are legitimate fears parts of the city have become  overrun by Venezuelan gangs.

Last month a video was released shot in the Denver suburb of Aurora showing armed men knocking on an apartment door, intensifying fears the Tren de Aragua gang was in control of the six-building complex. 

On Thursday, police in Aurora said the street gang had a small presence in the city and had not taken over the rundown apartment complex.

Nevertheless, the allegations continues to gain steam among conservatives and was amplified by former President Donald Trump in a Wednesday Fox News town hall where he said Venezuelans were 'taking over the whole town.'

Aurora is a diverse city that has long grappled with crime and gangs, and police said they have so far linked 10 people to Tren de Aragua and arrested six of them, including the suspects in a July attempted homicide.

But in a visit to the apartments where the armed men were filmed, interim Aurora police chief Heather Morris said gang members had not taken over and weren't collecting rent. 

The remarks came after Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman said that 'criminal elements' had taken over some unspecified buildings and were extorting residents.

After residents held a news conference to speak out against the gang claims, Coffman, a Republican and former congressman, conceded he was 'not sure where the truth is in all of this.' 

In an interview this week with Denver7 TV station, Coffman said the narrative that all of Aurora was unsafe was not true and harmful to the economic health of the rapidly growing city of more than 400,000 people.

Trump has sought to capitalize on concerns over immigration as he seeks a second term in November. 

At Wednesday night's town hall, he repeated his call for mass deportations after overstating the gang situation in Aurora.

'Take a look at Aurora in Colorado, where Venezuelans are taking over the whole town, they´re taking over buildings, the whole town,' Trump said. 'You saw it the other day they´re knocking down doors and occupying apartments of people.'

The video helping fuel the allegations showed armed men, including one holding a long gun, climbing up the stairs and knocking on an apartment door. 

The former residents who filmed it told KDVR-TV it was taken before a shooting at the complex on August 18 in which a 25-year-old man later died. 

Among the nearly 1 million Venezuelan migrants who entered the U.S. in recent years were suspected gang members tied to police shootings, human trafficking and other crimes - yet there's no evidence that the gang has set up an organizational structure in the U.S., Jeremy McDermott, the Colombia-based co-director of InSight Crime,  told the Associated Press this summer.

He published a recent report on Tren de Aragua's expansion.

Social media posts about a video purporting to show migrants taking over a school bus in San Diego and a 911 call reporting Venezuelan migrants taking over an apartment building in Chicago have also received attention lately. Both were unsubstantiated.

Many of the immigrants from Venezuela and other Latin American countries who live in the Aurora complex say there are no gangs there, and they are being unfairly painted as criminals.