LANSING – Immigrants are starting businesses in Michigan at a rate three times that of native-born residents, and are three times as likely to major in technical fields in college as are native-born students, which is just part of the reason the state is making a major push to encourage immigration to Michigan, officials said at a forum on Wednesday.

Compared to other states, especially in the Southwest, where much of the focus has been on illegal immigration, Michigan is one of the few states showing a positive image towards encouraging immigration, the officials said at the forum hosted by the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University.

Steve Tobocman, the former Democratic House Majority floor leader and now director of Global Detroit, praised Governor Rick Snyder for his role in promoting immigration. “No other Republican leader has done as much as he has” on the issue, Tobocman.

Snyder is calling for immigrants with technical skills to settle and work in Detroit to help both rebuild the city and the state’s economy.

Tobocman was joined by Karen Phillippi, deputy director of the Michigan Office for New Americans created by Snyder, and by Peter Briggs, director of the MSU Office for International Students and Scholars.

Immigration is one key to helping the state restore itself economically and demographically following the decade-long recession that caused the state to lose more than 800,000 jobs and become the only state to lose population between 2000 and 2010.

More than 64 percent of the immigrant population is of working age compared to 50 percent of the native-born population, which is an important fact in Michigan where a quarter of the population is expected to be senior citizens by 2030, Tobocman and Phillippi said.

Just in the Lansing area, Briggs said, the more than 7,000 foreign students at MSU provide a $250 million boost to the local economy. The actual effect of foreign students and scholars is greater, he said, because the university has nearly 1,000 foreign-born faculty members, many with families, who spend more in the local economy.

Across the nation, immigrants are twice as likely as native-born Americans to start new companies, but in Michigan immigrants are three times as likely to start a business, the officials said.

In the last decade, they said, immigrants owned more than 30,000 businesses in Michigan with total annual revenues of $1.8 billion, or 9.2 percent of the total business revenue.

And nearly 40 percent of foreign-born students study the so-called STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – as native-born students. Just 13 percent of native-born students are studying those subjects, Briggs said.

Phillippi said research has shown every 100 persons with STEM degrees are responsible for creating 262 jobs.

Asked if the focus on immigrants with technical backgrounds is somehow shortchanging native-born students, Tobocman and Briggs said the state and nation need STEM students and native-born students must show more interest in those areas.

Briggs said there is an “urgency” to the nation’s economy and likened the situation to the 1957 launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union that shocked the U.S. into a greater emphasis on science and mathematics. “Twelve years later we landed on the moon,” he said.

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