Immigration Reform 2014: Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder Calling for Immigration Reform to Draw Workers to Detroit

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder went to Washington, D.C. last week to push lawmakers to pass federal immigration reform legislation. 

According to NPR, the Republican governor appeared in Washington with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 

Snyder, a member of the GOP's business wing, said he would like to see policymakers in Washington pass comprehensive reform, but he is not waiting around for Washington to make the first move. 

In Snyder's state of the state speech last week, he outlined a strategy for making Michigan more welcoming for skilled legal immigrants, which will boost the population. He sees an influx of immigrants as the key to driving economic progress. 

He has proposed instating certain measures to drive immigrants to Detroit to reinvigorate the ailing city. His goal is to attract 50,000 immigrants over the next five years. 

"They're job generators for Americans," Snyder said of skilled legal immigrants. "So this could be a huge economic boom to help accelerate, jump start the comeback of Detroit."

However, before Snyder can reach his goal, federal lawmakers will have to increase the number of work visas being issued to legal immigrants. 

Snyder is advertising Detroit, and specifically the availability of jobs in certain fields in the city, to those prospective workers. 

"Why don't you just move to Detroit? We have demand for engineers, IT professionals, life sciences, health care people," he said. "Come move to Detroit as part of this 50,000 visa program, set up shop and help generate ... more jobs for the people of Detroit. That's a pretty cool concept."

While Michigan's jobless rate has been falling, it is still at 8.4 percent, which is above the national average. 

Some have suggested simply training Detroit residents in those needed fields. But Snyder said that unemployment will drop even faster and economic vitality will return to the city if there is an influx of people moving to Detroit. 

"We're doing those retraining programs and we're going to continue 'em," Snyder said. "But it's not just about having the retraining program. If we can create much more economic activity by having these engineering centers, these IT places come, there's great demand to hire a lot of Detroiters and bring down that [unemployment] rate even faster and better by having even more people come."