Charlie Brennan: What St. Louis loses as immigrants are deported
- Margaret Owens
- Jun 9
- 3 min read
By St. Louis Business Journal
You’ve likely heard of the Maplewood early childhood center janitor Boanerges Flores-Bravo, who was deported last week. He had been seeking asylum here after fleeing violence in Nicaragua four years ago. His wife, Alba Del Socorro Matamoro-Hernandez, also a janitor at the pre-school, will soon self-deport with their 8-year-old daughter, Mauren.
Similarly, a goodbye party was held on Sunday, June 7, for Janie Perez of Ballwin and her two daughters, Luna (4) and Lexie (1). Janie purchased three one-way plane tickets for a July 1 flight to Mexico, where they will be reunited with their husband and father, Alejandro, a 33-year-old St. Louis-area kitchen manager deported over the Santa Fe bridge in El Paso, Texas, on March 11.
Population loss, whatever the legal arguments, reduces the local labor pool, Social Security receipts, local, state and federal tax bases, congressional representation, and federal funding, not to mention our region’s ability to attract top sports franchises, concerts and employers.
There’s also the unknown question of what future contributions will be forfeited because we are losing these and other families. Foreigners, after all, have a pretty good track record here:
Pierre Laclede and Auguste Chouteau, founders of St. Louis, were from France.
Eberhard Anheuser and Adolphus Busch, born in Germany, created what would one day be the world’s largest brewer.
Eero Saarinen, architect of the Gateway Arch, came from Finland.
Beloved Yogi Berra, who played in 14 World Series, was the son of Italian immigrants.
Eleven-time All-Star Albert Pujols hails from the Dominican Republic.
Blues great Brett Hull is from Canada.
Missouri Botanical Garden founder Henry Shaw was an Englishman.
The Garden’s world-renowned science and conservation efforts were started by George Engelmann, a native of Frankfurt, Germany.
George Paz, the grandson of Mexican immigrants, made the improbable career path from Steak ‘n Shake manager to CEO of Express Scripts, the country’s 20th-largest corporation under his direction. In 2020, Paz made the largest-ever donation to UMSL.
Children with cerebral palsy from 80 countries have visited St. Louis for selective dorsal rhizotomy, a medical procedure pioneered by the late South Korea native T.S. Park. Park performed this surgery at St. Louis Children’s Hospital on more than 5,000 patients, allowing them to walk for the first time.
Zsolt Rumy was a refugee from Hungary who founded Zoltek, a leading carbon fiber manufacturer based in St. Louis.
Noemi Neidorff escaped the Iron Curtain by walking from Hungary to Austria during the middle of the night in December 1956. She is a major supporter of Classic 107.3 – Radio Arts Foundation, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and other causes.
Carl and Gerty Cori won the 1947 Nobel Prize in medicine at Washington University after moving to the United States from Prague. Their son Tom became CEO of Sigma-Aldrich.
Henry Jubel moved here at age 10 from Germany and later founded Spartan Light Metal Products. Later this year, children are sure to enjoy the Henry A. Jubel Destination Discovery, a kid-centered attraction at the St. Louis Zoo, which received $15 million from the Jubel family.
It seems odd some immigrant families won’t be able to enjoy this attraction made possible by an immigrant family. Worse, we may never know what great local contributions Luna, Lexie, Mauren and their families might have made.
GoFundMe accounts have been set up for each family:
