This inaugural virtual event of the Garden State Immigration Policy Institute, a joint project of the NJ Business Immigration Coalition and the NJ Business and Industry Association, was held on June 16, 2022. The purpose of the event was to unravel the connection between immigration policy and labor shortages, understand the immigrant needs of specific industries in New Jersey, and identify immigration policy reforms that would relieve labor shortages without having an adverse impact on American workers.
Keynote speaker for the event was Muzaffar Chishti, Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, DC, the largest non-partisan immigration think tank in the country. Mr. Chishti also heads up the New York Office of MPI at New York University. A second featured speaker was Jon Baselice, Vice President of Immigration Policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who analyzed prospects for immigration reform in the current Congress and offered comments on the panel discussion which followed Mr. Chishti’s talk.
Panel members included: Tamar Frolichstein-Appel, Senior Employment Services Associate, Upwardly Global; Elizabeth Gill, Director of International Employment and Migration, Montclair State University; Lori Jenssen, Director, NJ Nursery and Landscape Association; and Aaron Price, CEO of TechUnited.
The event was sponsored by Genova Burns LLC.