International Institute aims to attract 3,000 Latin American immigrants to St. Louis

The International Institute of St. Louis is launching an effort to attract 3,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans to work in the region by the end of the year.

The Biden administration is allowing immigrants from those countries to enter the U.S. through a program for up to two years if they have a sponsor. The program is expected to grant temporary residency to about 360,000 Latin American immigrants this year.

The institute's Latino Outreach Program aims to help newly arriving immigrants who have resettled in other cities move to St. Louis for jobs, housing and community.

That could increase the city’s population and its workforce, said Karlos Ramirez, vice president of the Latino Outreach Program.

“Particularly for St. Louis, we're losing population, and we need workers,” he said. “So to be able to bring people in … who are here with documentation, I think it's important to be able to lead the way by doing things the right way, giving citizens a pathway to citizenship, and really be able to help bulk up our workforce and our population in the region.”

The outreach program will provide newly arriving Latin American immigrants from the four countries with translation services and help learning English, legal assistance and a cellphone with six months of free data usage. It also will connect people to job training programs, trade unions and other employment opportunities.

Arch Grants founder Jerry Schlichter developed the outreach program’s concept and provided an undisclosed amount of money to launch it.