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FWD.us, a bipartisan political organization, revealed in a report released Wednesday how two facts can be linked and result in a comprehensive and effectively targeted solution to solving two problematic situations: one is that the United States faces the depopulation of its rural areas that harms its development and its economy
and the other is that it is necessary to apply an intelligent and comprehensive immigration reform aimed at locating immigrants who arrive in the United States in areas where they can find work, housing and the possibility of integrating sufficiently into a community.
The report revealed the significant benefits that would be produced by increasing immigration into rural areas of the United States.
The report titled “Immigration Is Reversing Depopulation in Rural Areas” finds that increasing the number of immigrants in rural counties across the United States would eliminate two decades of depopulation of people of working age, revitalizing and repopulating these communities.
“Immigrants and a modernized immigration system represent a tremendous opportunity for rural America. The findings of this report should serve as a call to action for any locality seeking solutions to the depopulation that is causing the loss of workers, jobs and talent in many communities.” said Todd Schulte, president of FWD.us.
“The data is clear, the increase in immigration in rural areas of this country continues to be the most direct path to continue revitalizing our communities, ensuring the future of essential industries, and the growth of local employment,” said Schulte.
According to the report, nearly two-thirds (62%) of the country’s rural counties can achieve an increase in the working-age population by 2040 compared to 2000, by only accepting 100 new immigrants each year. This percentage rises to 71% of counties if they receive 200 immigrants each year.
The analysis highlights another nuance about severe depopulation in rural America’s countieswhich has led to the slowdown of local economies, limited access to essential services and resources.
And it is that more than 77% of rural counties in the country today have fewer people of working age (15 to 64 years) compared to two decades ago.
People are leaving rural America for a variety of reasons: education, work, business opportunities, family. This is not just a loss of population, but also a real loss of people, deeply felt by the communities in which they had lived much of their lives.
Unfortunately, internal migration (that is, movement within the United States between states and counties) is probably not enough to offset these trends.
How immigrant arrivals would reverse population losses in rural counties
An increase in population thanks to increasing the presence of immigrants would reverse population losses in most rural counties.
Immigrants who come to work seasonally from Mexico and Central American countries have helped close the gap in agriculture, but it’s actually the permanent residents, who build their families in the county, who will make the difference.
Between 100 and 200 immigrants in rural counties each year represent less than 1% of the total rural population of the United States, on par with the levels of international immigration seen in more urban areas in the rest of the country.
Building on studies of Franklin County, Alabama, Sioux County, Iowa, and Aroostook County, Maine, all of which have rebounded their working-age populations through immigration, the report builds on existing success stories and new quantitative data to demonstrate the transformative potential of a smart migration policy that benefits the nation’s rural areas and encourage them to stay prosperous and continue to exist.
It is likely that immigrants putting down roots in rural counties find a significant number of job openings.
Since jobs are relatively plentiful, their immediate entry by immigrant workers can lead to a rapid revitalization of local economies.
And as farm worker populations stabilize with new immigrants, local businesses will also expand, new businesses will be started and additional tax revenue can be used to build new infrastructure, all of which will lead to a transformative cycle of revitalization.
“Our report finds that, despite the polarization and gridlock surrounding our nation’s immigration laws, local economies in rural America could receive a real economic boom by just slightly increasing immigration levels by integrating 100 or 200 people every year for the next few years.” noted Phillip Connor, Senior Demographer at FWD.us.
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