We'll take 'em all!

Nolan Finley has a great column calling on Kwame to open the doors of Detroit to Iraqi immigrants to help build a new life - both for the immigrants and for Detroit - here. It's a great idea and should definitely be considered.

Rebuild Detroit with immigrants
The Detroit News

Warren Mayor Mark Steenbergh says he doesn't want a flood of new Iraqi immigrants overwhelming his city. His loss. Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick should stand up and shout, "I'll take 'em all!"

A massive influx of immigrants looking to build new lives and willing to help rebuild an old city would fit right into Kilpatrick's plans to revive Detroit's neighborhoods.

Immigrants are already proving they can make a difference in Detroit. Drive out Vernor Highway from the near west side to Dearborn, first through the Hispanic neighborhoods and transitioning to the Arab community, and you'll see once abandoned storefronts filled with small businesses -- bakeries, markets, dry cleaners, auto shops -- serving their new customers.

Or go to the growing ethnic enclave around the State Fairgrounds for a look at the ability of Iraqi newcomers to make something out of nothing.

The refugees arriving from the turmoil in Iraq could repopulate city blocks that have been losing residents for nearly 50 years.

The immigrants would bring with them children to fill the 60,000 empty seats in Detroit Public Schools classrooms and, if they are anything like their predecessors, an undeniable entrepreneurial drive to strengthen the city's small business base.
Most will be educated and have skills attractive to employers.

Actively recruit refugees

Detroit should be actively recruiting these Iraqi immigrants, and others from around the world, offering relocation and acculturation assistance. The city should put together a package of enticements to make sure they land here instead of somewhere else.

For example, the large inventory of city-owned abandoned homes could serve as bait to lure immigrants. Give them the keys to a house and tell them to fix it up and return it to the tax rolls within three years and it's theirs to keep -- free. That's a better option than continuing to roll bulldozers through Detroit's blighted neighborhoods.

Immigration could be a growth industry for Detroit. But becoming America's new immigrant capital will require the city's leaders, specifically some members of the City Council, to get over their Afrocentric vision of Detroit and recognize that diversity is a route to revival.

As long as a growing immigrant population is seen as a threat to black political power rather than an opportunity to build a culturally rich city, the new arrivals are going to choose more welcoming locales.

Already, resentment is rising among Detroit's Latino and Middle Eastern populations over a lack of political representation and the perception that their needs get a low priority from City Hall.

When Detroit was booming, it was because migrants from everywhere -- Poland, Italy, Germany, Ireland, the American South -- swarmed to the city searching for security, hope and opportunity.

Now, 40 years after the '67 riots pushed down the accelerator of decline, Detroit has a chance to boom again on the strength of new immigrants seeking those very same things.