Announcing the Welcoming Cities and Counties Initiative

Recognizing that immigrants help maximize opportunities for economic growth and civic vitality and position communities as globally competitive, 21st century leaders, 14 local governments have joined the Welcoming Cities and Counties Initiative with Welcoming America.The initiative signals the growing importance of an innovative and proactive role for local governments, and the growing recognition of immigrants as assets in any community.Participating cities and counties include:

Welcoming Cities and Counties recognize the benefit of supporting immigrant-friendly, welcoming environments in which all community members can fully contribute and participate.Welcoming America is convening members of Welcoming Cities and Counties to share promising practices with each other and help the nation learn from their local level innovations that support economic development and create vibrant global communities that are great places to live, work and do business.In addition this initiative is supported by a growing list of partner organizations, which include: City of Chicago, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, AS/COA, and Maytree’s Cities of Migration. Welcoming Cities and Counties has also been recognized as a 2013 Clinton Global Initiative Commitment to Action.