Johnson County Board of Supervisors hears proposal for immigrant welcome center

The Johnson County Board of Supervisors heard a proposal for an immigrant welcome center on Wednesday.

At the board’s work session June 4, executive director of the Immigrant Welcome Network of Johnson County Mazahir Salih and executive director of the Center For Worker Justice of Eastern Iowa Ayman Sharif outlined their vision.

“Transitioning into a new culture is always very difficult,” Mr. Sharif said, citing economic difficulties and language and cultural barriers faced by many immigrants. “The center is important because a central goal for all of it would be to address these needs and enable immigrants to build leadership capacity at the community level.”

The center would be an immigrant-led community hub and “one-stop” resource for housing support, employment and job readiness services, ESL and adult education, health and legal navigation, and myriad of other support services.

It would not only act as a hub for resources, but would foster relationships, connections and advocacy for immigrants through a multi-lingual staff who have navigated the immigration process before.

“We value all the amazing resources that Johnson County already has to offer, but we believe immigrants should have a seat at the table from the very beginning and not just as an afterthought,” said Grace Kelly, one of the presenters. “The center will enhance coordination, improve accessibility, and overall, build trust that's essential for impact.”

Immigrant Welcome Network of Johnson County

Johnson County’s foreign-born population is significantly higher than the state average — 10% compared to 5.9%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and 13.7% speak a language other than English at home.

Through the Immigrant Welcome Network of Johnson County, immigrants and refugees can find housing, employment assistance, community resources and translation services through the help of “navigators.”

“We have housing navigators, employment navigators, social service navigators,” Ms. Salih said. “(They’ve) already built a very trusted relationship between organization(s) such as General Assistance, (the) CommUnity Crisis center – all those people, because we go there and bring people (to them) all the time.”

Presenters at the meeting pointed to Indianapolis’s Immigrant Welcome Center as a model for Johnson County. The Center, accessible by foot and public transportation, connects immigrants to vital services while partnering with local nonprofits, attorneys and employers to maximize its impact.

And in Des Moines, Global Neighbors is opening an immigrant and refugee welcome center through Polk County.

“When we talk about what home means and what those supports look like, we are really trying to establish a sense of structure and systems to help people successfully integrate into their new communities through a lens of culturally appropriate services ― primarily when we talk about the different backgrounds people are coming from, but also what languages they speak and what cultures they represent," Mak Sućeska, manager of operations for Global Neighbors, told the Des Moines Register in a Jan. 21 article.

County slim on social service resources

Supervisor vice chair V Fixmer-Oraiz thanked the presenters and shared some of their own challenges as the child of a Philippine immigrant.

“I know right now it takes a lot of courage to even propose this idea. Truly,” they said. “I mean, targets are on people's backs, and so the courage that it takes and the vision that it takes to put this together and to present and to bring the community to us, I cannot thank you enough for that.”

The proposal comes at a time of anti-immigrant sentiment in the White House. Since taking office, President Trump has launched an aggressive campaign to crack down on illegal immigrants, leaving many immigrant communities on edge.

In January, the administration halted funding for refugee resettlement programs as part of a broad pause on aid, sending organizations scrambling to finalize resettlement for refugees they began assisting. Some were forced to initiate heavy lay-offs to compensate for the lack of funding.

As presenters proposed their vision for an immigrant welcome center to the Board of Supervisors, President Trump was signing a proclamation barring travelers and immigrants from a dozen countries while partially restricting entry from seven nations, with a few exceptions.

Supervisor Rod Sullivan cautioned presenters that the county’s resources are already stretched thin in regards to social services.

“We're imagining, unfortunately, that in the state of Iowa and in the U.S., it's going to get worse before it gets better,” he said, suggesting that pointing to the county’s current resources may be key right now, rather than duplicating existing services.

“I think the whole idea of navigation is the key to the whole thing, rather than a parallel system, because I think a parallel system, first of all, is too expensive for us, and second of all, doesn't build that cohesion that we want,” he added.

Ms. Salih, who also serves as Iowa City mayor pro tem and council member at large, said the organization was not asking for money or grants that day but support for the idea of a county welcome center for immigrants and by immigrants.

“We don’t want to create another thing,” Ms. Salih said; instead, the organization is asking “how can we improve the current thing so it can reflect the community?”

Since the presentation did not include a specific request, supervisor chair Jon Green suggested that a couple supervisors brainstorm with the organization on how they and the county can work together “to ensure that, whether it be a service contract with money attached to it, or more formal public working group or whatnot, that we can get that developed in a way that's going to work to everyone's mutual benefit.”