Immigrants in Champaign County contributed hundreds of millions to the local economy in 2016 according to a report released in 2019. Immigrants are employed in vital job sectors and keep the county growing, but proposed changes to federal policies and the lack of a county-wide strategy to serve immigrants may harm the success of both immigrants and the overall community, experts say.

The report, produced by the New American Welcome Center (NAWC) at the YMCA of the University of Illinois and New American Economy, represents the first snapshot of the contributions of immigrants in Champaign County. It sheds light on the interdependence between immigrants and U.S.-born residents.

Zoë Foote, Immigrant Services Coordinator at the NAWC, says 1 in 9 people in Champaign were born in another country and that those people are friends, neighbors, and coworkers.

“They’re truly a vital, integral part of our social fabric here,” she says.

Champaign County is home to one of the largest immigrant populations outside of the Chicagoland area and is one of only 13 counties in Illinois to grow in 2016.

Immigrants that attend the University of Illinois make up almost half of immigrants in the community, but the non-college student immigrant population grew by about 6 percent in 2016. This population makes up more than half of the total immigrant population and represents immigrants that are more likely to be longer-term residents.

Waleed Jassim, president of the Central Illinois Mosque and Islamic Center (CIMIC) Board of Trustees and retired mechanical engineer, emigrated from Iraq in 1962. He feels that he and his family have made Champaign a better place. Among his five children, all hold either a doctorate or a master’s degree. One is a dermatologist, another a veterinarian, and another a dean at the U of I college of engineering.

“We’ve contributed to the community here, this country, much more than the average American. This society is better today than if we weren’t here,” he says.

According to the NAWC report, local immigrants are over 50 percent more likely to hold a bachelor’s degree or higher than U.S-born residents. Most immigrants overall are employed in the education sector, and non-college student immigrants work in manufacturing, education, service and hospitality, and healthcare.

Some immigrants have degrees or qualifications from their home country that are not recognized in the U.S. or lack the English language skills to work in their profession in the U.S.

“They’re obviously facing different cultural or linguistic barriers that might mean that even if they were a doctor in their home country, they come here and have to work in a factory because that’s the kind of work available to them,” Foote says.

According to Lisa Wilson, Director of the Refugee Center, there is a lot of variety in the immigrant community in terms of country of origin, type of employment, income level, and other aspects.

The Refugee Center works with primarily low-income immigrants, and Wilson says many clients work in farming and food processing in Champaign.

“If we didn’t have an influx of immigrants to fill those types of jobs, the cost of the food on your table would rise significantly,” she said.

Lauren Aronson, Director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the U of I, says that the contributions of immigrants in such industries are often invisible to the wider community.

There is a need to improve job access for immigrants in Champaign, says Wilson. Due to low wages, many work several jobs at a time to support themselves and their families.

“It’s rarely that it’s a straight eight-hour shift. We have clients that will work four hours at a shift at this particular employer, and then they have shifts with another employer, or maybe they work for one employer and then they’re driving Uber,” she says.

Working several jobs, often with irregular hours, makes it very difficult for immigrants to take advantage of resources like English language classes, which keeps them stuck in low-income jobs, she says.

Current proposed federal policy changes especially target these low-income immigrants and threaten their crucial roles in Champaign and all over the U.S. These policies are intended to not only prevent new people from immigrating, but to prevent immigrants that are already here from accessing benefits or becoming citizens.

“It has been very debilitating for our clients to be facing a constant onslaught of negativity and sentiment and in regulation,” says Wilson.

One of the most damaging proposed changes would discontinue fee waivers for applying for immigration documents through the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), even if immigrants met poverty guidelines in the U.S., she says.

The cost of legal permanent residency, or a green card, and applying for citizenship is also proposed to increase alongside the removal of fee waivers. It currently costs $735 to apply for citizenship and the proposed increase is over $1100.

Additionally, agencies that provide immigration assistance are overburdened. Aronson says aside from the Law Clinic, there is no other pro bono all-legal immigration service provider. The Immigration Project, which provides immigration legal assistance, charges low fees but is over capacity, and the NAWC has just recently been able to increase their capacity to offer free legal services, she says.

The NAWC, the Refugee Center, and the Immigration Project are all nonprofit organizations. Foote says funding is a challenge as the NAWC gets most of their funding from grants, and she would like to see immigration assistance diffused more throughout the community.

“A lot of this work has been led by nonprofits that are niche, dedicated to the immigrant experience,” she says.

Although Champaign has many resources for immigrants, they haven’t been adapted to meet the growing numbers of immigrants coming into the community, especially those who didn’t have access to English language instruction and those who are low-income, she says. Both the overall Champaign population and the population of immigrants in the community are increasing.

English language resources in Champaign include Urbana Adult Education, the First Presbyterian Church of Champaign, and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign. Some are free, but most are volunteer-based and may be inconsistent.

The NAWC is conducting a county-wide survey to determine the needs of immigrants and develop a strategic, institutionalized welcoming plan.

Without immigrants, Champaign would be a much weaker community, says Foote.

Immigrants bring new ideas and values to the community. Jassim says he taught his children honesty, compassion, appreciation of freedom, and to not take things for granted. He taught them to help their neighbors if they are ever in need, and by neighbors, he means people living within 40 houses in every direction around their house, not just the people on either side.

He also says immigrants are industrious and resourceful. “People that come from overseas, they have a vision and they see the opportunities that people living here can’t see,” he says.

Many immigrants are employed in jobs that U.S.-born residents are less likely to hold or are small business owners.

The NAWC report finds that immigrants have helped create or maintain 1,104 local manufacturing jobs that would have “vanished or moved elsewhere.”

Marwan Yousef, board member, treasurer, and security coordinator at CIMIC, has been living in Champaign for about 45 years. He emigrated from Jordan to study to be a computer engineer and decided to stay. He says his family values giving back to the community.

His daughter used to be the director of the immigrant office for Congressman Rodney Davis, and now works for the United Nations, traveling to different countries to serve refugees.

“My wife opened a daycare, so part of that giving back was to take care of little kids, babies and above,” he says.

He has also worked to foster understanding about Islam in the community by connecting the Muslim community to the community at large, he says.

Immigrants of all backgrounds are deeply interwoven in Champaign’s social fabric, and their existence is essential to keep Champaign growing and thriving.

Despite the proposed federal regulation targeting immigrants, Wilson says the community can focus on the positive by building relationships with immigrants to help them moving forward.

“The bright spot is that our state and our local government is very supportive of immigrants,” she says.

Foote says that Champaign County is fairly welcoming and she is hopeful for the future of the county and implementing the welcoming plan.

“I’m excited to see what happens. It’s definitely great that there is a lot of community buy-in already to work as a counter force to all the negativity surrounding immigrants and immigration.”