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Over the last two decades, waves of immigrants have made rural communities their homes. According to the Pew Research Center, from 2000 to 2018 immigrants accounted for 37 percent of overall rural population growth. Driven by demand for labor in the argricultural, meat packing, and dairy processing industries, this growth has led to an economic revival of parts of rural America where communities were once on the decline.
As discussed in GCIR’s program, Building Immigrant & Worker Power in Rural America, immigrants and refugees add to the diversity of rural communities and help mitigate the negative impacts of a rapidly aging population while also enlivening local economies. The availability of work in manufacturing and agriculture has contributed to the considerable growth of immigrant populations in these communities, with nearly 75% of all farmworkers in the United States being foreign-born.
In this webinar session – a part of GCIR’s series on rural power building – we will explore how detention in rural areas is harming communities; challenges to obtaining legal representation; and how local, state, and national organizations are confronting the harmful impacts of immigration detention on communities across the country.
Join Unbound, GCIR, Four Freedoms Fund and leaders from the field for a conversation on equitable approaches to dealing with the fallout when migration and climate change interact.
Find all program-related materials for GCIR Webinar, "Building Immigrant & Worker Power in Rural America."
Find all program-related materials for GCIR's "Strategies for Resisting Immigration Detention in Rural America" webinar here, including the session recording and PowerPoint.
Find all program-related materials for GCIR's webinar "Promoting the Health and Wellbeing of Immigrant Workers in Rural Communities" here, including the session recording and PowerPoint.