Michigan is encouraging residents to welcome migrants into their homes to help integrate them into society. Michigan, like many other states, is experiencing an influx of migrants traveling north from the southern border as they await asylum claims.
Shelters in Detroit are over capacity, leading to migrant transfers, which send migrants to hotels or other shelters with room. The city is directly asking residents to help ease the influx.
Michigan’s Labor and Economic Opportunity Department explained how residents can help through a sponsorship program called “Welcome Corp.”
Sponsors would be asked to pick migrant families up from the airport, secure a place for the migrants to stay temporarily, enroll migrant children in a local school and help adults with employment opportunities. Volunteers must commit for at least 90 days.
The U.S. State Department launched the Welcome Corp in 2023. There are partnerships across Minnesota, Massachusetts and New York. The migrants that families sponsor come from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua or Venezuela.
“I’m confident if you join the Welcome Corp, you won’t just change the lives of the refugees you help, you’ll change your own lives as well,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said of the group.
Residents are not required to help house migrants, however, similar requests are getting more common across the U.S. as crossings at the southern border increase.
“Expanded refugee resettlement pathways empower more Michiganders to support our state’s growing refugee population and build a more welcoming and inclusive Michigan for all,” Poppy Hernandez, Michigan’s chief equity and inclusion officer, said after news of the state’s volunteer request.
