Above: Day 2 at the National Immigrant Integration Conference, via YouTube

Last week the sixth annual National Immigrant Integration Conference attracted hundreds of immigrant rights supporters, elected officials, businesspeople and others to Miami to brainstorm ideas and plans of action for better immigrant integration in the United States.

The conference, held Nov. 17-19 at the Hilton Downtown Miami, featured a diverse lineup of speakers, including Miami author Edwidge Danticat, a 2009 winner of a MacArthur Fellowship; Joshua Hoyt, chief strategy executive for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights; Florida state Rep. David Richardson; Carol Coletta, Knight Foundation, vice president of community and national initiatives; and Knight Foundation President Alberto Ibargüen. Related Links 

“Attracting immigrant talent essential to city economies, Coletta says” by Andrew Sherry on KnightBlog

“Why Knight helps green card holders become citizens” by Marc Fest on KnightBlog

The conference, which is supported by Knight, included five workshop tracks: maximizing citizenship, developing talent, promoting welcoming communities, building organizational capacity, and protecting rights and freedoms. Specific workshops focused on topics such as educational challenges, health care access, using data for successful naturalization, reducing barriers through advocacy, and much more.

Coletta, who opened a session on “Welcoming Cities and Metropolitan Innovation,” focused on attracting and retaining talent as being essential to the economic strategies of communities.

 “If talent and opportunity are the keys to making our communities successful, then place is the accelerator of both,” she said. “Every time we make a place decision, we ought to be asking ourselves three questions: Will this place we are making help increase talent? Will it accelerate the collision and cross-fertilization of ideas? Will it bring people of different incomes and different ZIP codes together?”

Organizers said this year’s conference also made an extra effort to increase the sharing of ideas. The conference provided a forum for immigration programs from across the nation, and on the last day attendees gathered in unconference sessions for small group discussions. The conference also showcased a variety of art, including work created from recycled materials, beautifully crafted bottles and birds and murals by immigration activist and artist Huong.

Lindsay Brown, communications intern at Knight Foundation