IMMIGRANT

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENTCommunit y Colleges – Community colleges can serve as critical gateways for educating,training, and preparing refugees for success in the workforce. Community colleges provide an ideal venuefor educating refugees as the largest providers of adult English language instruction, an array of academic andvocational programs, as well as a full set of job skills training, civics education, and a range of academic,employment, and social support services. 27 The Community College Consortium for Immigrant Education(CCCIE) is a national network of 23 community colleges and other professional and research organizations thatlocal economic development agencies and community colleges can access to attain information, research, and anetwork of best practices to assist in developing local programs to prepare immigrants and refugees for successfulintegration into the regional workforce.Distilling the broad range of community college programsthat prepare working-class Americans (both U.S.-born andimmigrants) to best practices that can assist local immigranteconomic development initiatives is a topic worthy of its ownresearch and toolkit.Worker Centers – Exploitation of vulnerable immigrantworkers is an issue for economic development practitioners andpublic policy makers not only because of the impacts on immigrantworkers and their families, but the threats to honest businessesfrom unfair competition. 28 When unscrupulous employers or theunderground economy are able to pay workers well below theminimum wage, take advantage of public worker compensationand health care systems, and avoid paying taxes, honest businessesin the formal economy and public systems end up paying morethan their fair share.The exploitation of immigrant workers is certainly not new—earlier waves of immigrants also faced discrimination and took upsome of society’s dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. The institutions,civic groups, political parties, and especially labor organizations thatonce existed to help immigrant workers integrate, however, are fardifferent today than they were a century ago. One modern emergentinstitution that plays an important role in helping working-classimmigrants is the worker center. 29Like other immigrant service organizations, worker centers engagein service provision. As work is the primary focus of life for manynewly arrived immigrants, it is also the locus of many of the problemsthey experience. For this reason, worker centers focus on work,but also have a broad orientation and respond to the variety of issuesfaced by recent immigrants to the United States.El Sol: Jupiter,Florida’s NeighborhoodResource CenterIn Jupiter, Florida in 2006 an “open-air labormarket” began to develop on Center Street.Hundreds of day laborers (primarily Mayanimmigrants from Guatemala and SouthernMexico) congregated daily on Center Street inan unorganized outdoor labor market whereemployers picked them up for work. Neighborscomplained to town officials about traffic safety,loitering, and a drop in real estate values. Laborerswere subject to wage theft, unsafe workenvironments and abuse. The cultural tensionsin Jupiter were escalating.A group of residents, immigrants, faith-basedgroups, and university and town officialscoalesced to address the problem. In 2006, thatgrassroots, public/private coalition resulted inthe creation of El Sol, Jupiter’s NeighborhoodResource Center. El Sol was formed as a resultof a community effort to transform the problemof an unsafe and contentious open-air day-labormarket into a safe and productive resource centerin which all people can achieve their highestpotential. In 2012, El Sol matched 10,616workers with employers — pumping about $1.2million into the local economy.27Jill Casner-Lotto, “Increasing Opportunities for immigrant Students: Community College Strategies for Success,” cccie.org. Community CollegeConsortium for Immigrant Education, November 2011, p. 1, http://www.cccie.org/images/stories/Increasing_Opportunities_for_Immigrant_Students_2011.pdf.28“Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South,” splcenter.org. Southern Poverty Law Center, April 2009, http://www.splcenter.org/sites/default/files/downloads/UnderSiege.pdf.29Janice Fine, “Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream,” epi.org. Economic Policy Institute, December 13, 2005,http://www.epi.org/publication/bp159/.WELCOMING AMERICA | GUIDE TO IMMIGRANT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | CHAPTER 5.3.6