Immigrants welcome in Ohio and Columbus, as they should be

Ask just about anyone to name today's hottest political issues and immigration will be near the top. As perspectives on that subject go, this city and state are on the right side.

During a time when new Americans are not universally welcomed, Columbus and Ohio have national reputations for being hospitable to immigrants and refugees, and that’s a good thing.

What we could use less of is the type of demonstration that broke out Downtown on Monday, temporarily closing Front Street between W. Broad and Gay streets and resulting in several arrests. Protesters described their efforts as a “solidarity rally” to abolish ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Protesters crowded inside an ICE field office in the LeVeque Tower and erected a 32-foot tall tripod of logs in the street outside with a woman harnessed at its peak and a man duct-taped to the base. Similar recent demonstrations across the country included a July 4 protest in which a woman scaled the Statue of Liberty.

While changes are in order, we still need a federal immigration enforcement agency.

Regrettably, the prevailing view in the administration of President Donald Trump is that immigrants are likely to be criminals and a drain on social service safety nets. It is that thinking that fuels his demand for a southern border wall and resulted in policies that separated children from parents earlier this year, an atrocious tactic sure to cause irreparable harm and the target of recent protests.

The more productive activity is to help refugees and other immigrants assimilate into our society so they can rebuild their lives and help improve our communities in the process. That is the laudable goal of the Office of Opportunities for New Americans, an initiative Gov. John Kasich created with a May 15 executive order.

The governor’s order proclaims, in part, “helping new immigrants successfully settle in Ohio will strengthen the fabric of our state and lay a stronger foundation for the ongoing economic success that comes from innovations that can flow from new people and new ideas.”

In fact, according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington-based American Immigration Council, the 500,000-plus immigrants living in Ohio in 2015 tended to be industrious and highly educated, with 42 percent having college degrees compared with just 26 percent of native-born Ohioans. While comprising 4.3 percent of Ohio’s population, they accounted for 5.4 percent of the state’s self-employed residents. Of all greaterColumbus business owners in 2015, 23.2 percent were immigrants, according to the council.

Immigrant-led households in Ohio paid $3.1 billion in federal taxes and $1.3 billion in state and local taxes in 2014 and contributed to the state’s economy with $11.1 billion in spending power, the council says.

Kasich’s new agency brings together leaders of the state departments of Commerce, Education, Higher Education and Job and Family Services, the Development Services Agency and the Office of Workforce Transformation to work with an advisory committee representing immigrants, business leaders and nonprofit advocates.

The state initiative builds on efforts that have given Columbus the nation’s second-largest settlement of Somali refugees and the nation’s largest population of Bhutanese refugees. Only Texas took in more refugees from October through June 30, according to the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

We say keep immigrants coming.