Princeton has long prided itself on being open to immigrants and this week decided to take a number of steps to make the town even friendlier toward this demographic. The council has decided to support a number of resolutions that Princeton’s Human Services Commission has recommended to make immigrants feel more at home in the community regardless of their legal status.
“This is really the result of a lot of efforts that have been done … to advance the status of immigrants in our community and to make sure we have a welcoming community and to reflect the rich contributions of everyone in our community to our economic life, to our cultural life,” says councilwoman Heather Howard.
The council has passed a resolution that calls upon the state legislature to enable undocumented immigrants to acquire state driver’s licenses, which it claims would allow immigrants to travel more for the purposes of pleasure or work and make the roads safer. Ten other counties and cities have made similar resolutions. The council has also voted to become a part of Cities United for Immigration Action, a coalition of mayors from across the United States who support immigration reform, and Welcoming America, an organization based in Atlanta that collaborates with counties and cities to better integrate immigrants into communities.
The Immigration Issues subcommittee chairman, John Heilner, says that people of all ethnicities and races need to be treated equally and respected for the contributions they make to the state and to the town.