If you could pull that off, sounds like an incredible program to me. I don't think anything could revitalize Detroit like large amounts of immigrants would.
From Wikipedia looks like they are below the national average, but I'd posit that means the upside is that much larger.
My favorite example of this process is booming South Florida, where more than half of adults are foreign born. Houston is another great one, with 23% foreign born.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Metro_Detroit#...
> 5% of people within the city of Detroit are immigrants, making the percentage of immigrants in Detroit the lowest such percentage out of those of the 25 largest cities in the United States. The national average is about 13%
The city itself has a very low immigrant population, but as is listed in your source, surrounding suburbs have very large immigrant populations. For instance Hamtranck has 43% born out of the country.
Actually Michigan's Governor proposed to then President Obama a special Detroit visa where immigrants with skills would get a green card in exchange for moving to Detroit for a minimum of five years. Sadly he never got an answer.
This is how you build "new cities" [1]; pair startups with working visas and tie it together with funding and resource commitments (cough cough PlanGrid et el) to bring dilapidated housing back into inventory. Inexpensive corporate housing with you bootstrapping the culture and the community core.
