Celebrating Ron Nirenberg’s Impact with the Mayors Migration Council
First elected mayor of San Antonio in 2017, Ron Nirenberg—the city’s first mayor of Asian Pacific Islander descent—has demonstrated a compassionate, solutions-oriented and equity-based approach to migration. While serving his community, Mayor Nirenberg has served as an example for other local leaders who want to create impactful migration solutions.
One of his greatest achievements while a member of the Mayors Migration Council’s Leadership Board—co-founding the Mayors of the Americas Task Force on Migration—has created opportunities for mayors across the Americas to collaborate, create partnerships, and learn from each other following rapid and widespread U.S. policy changes in early 2025.
In San Antonio, Mayor Nirenberg established a Migrant Resource Center to support hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers from the U.S. southern border and launched an online resource portal to welcome Afghan refugees. Under his leadership, San Antonio also prioritized reducing poverty, improving public health, and overcoming historical socioeconomic inequality for all its residents.
Mayor Nirenberg joined the Mayors Migration Council in 2023 on the sidelines of the 2023 United Nations Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Switzerland, ensuring that the MMC’s mission and mandate are driven by and responsive to the needs of cities. Some highlights of Mayor Nirenberg’s accomplishments during his time at the MMC include:
- Honoring the growing Arab population in San Antonio, Mayor Nirenberg partnered with fellow Leadership Board member, Mayor Al Shawarbeh of Amman, Jordan to share best practices and solutions on common challenges in order to best support migrant and refugee communities in their two cities.
- Representing mayors from the Americas at the 2023 United Nations Global Refugee Forum, where he submitted a pledge committing to serve migrants and refugees through San Antonio’s Migrant Resource Center. This was part of MMC’s contribution of 100+ pledges to the Global Compact on Refugees, comprising one third of all pledges submitted and unlocking $80m in financial commitments for cities around the world.
- Overseeing humanitarian responses to refugee crises, Mayor Nirenberg ensured he was building the right frameworks in the city to strengthen inclusivity in the long-term.
Ron Nirenberg Mayor of San Antonio, USOur cities are ready to lead—taking action on job creation, complementary pathways to address our broken immigration systems, and challenging the narrative that migration is a crisis.
During his time as Mayor, Ron Nirenberg enhanced community engagement and collaboration opportunities; worked to foster long-term refugee inclusion, and improved accountability to the city’s migrant and refugee communities—setting a strong precedent for local leaders following in his footsteps.
