The Observer: Why America needs to say 'welcome' to immigrants
Immigration has been foundational to the United States from the beginning of the country. The first national census (conducted in 1790) counted a population of 3.9 million people of whom almost two-thirds (2.56 million) had British ancestry. We have always been a nation of immigrants but immigration has also been controversial.
There have been times when we lowered the drawbridge to welcome new people, new workers, new ideas, and other times when we raised it to keep out strangers, foreigners and other outsiders.
We welcome them when we need them and then, fearing for our safety, security and health, we close the door. This dynamic has played out many times throughout the country’s history.
The Naturalization Act of 1790 made clear who would be allowed to take up citizenship and who would not. The law specified that only “free white person(s) of ‘good character,’ who has been living in the United States for two years or longer” were eligible to apply for citizenship.
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the 1917 establishment of literacy requirements for would-be citizens, and the creation of quotas for migrants from different countries (in effect from 1924 until 1964) might be seen as examples of the “Welcome/Go Away” dynamic.
The Bracero Program, in effect from 1942 to 1964, was intended to increase the supply of workers essential to the war effort. It offered Mexican farm and railroad workers temporary residence in the United States but when the need ended, so did the welcome.
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Resistance to immigrants and immigration has been cyclical and also political. The Know Nothing Party, developed in the 1840s, was aimed at the large and growing number of Irish and German immigrants coming to the United States.
Today, xenophobic resistance is no longer directed at European migrants but at people coming to the southern border from Mexico and elsewhere in Central and South America. They often come from countries where violence, oppression, and lack of opportunity are endemic.
The backlash against immigrants is not just an American phenomenon either. It is going on in many countries today from Britain to Australia and Ireland to Sweden. But here is the universal dilemma: a country’s economic growth requires an adequate labor force.
A low unemployment rate can often mean that some jobs will go unfilled. Further, sometimes people prefer to sit on the sidelines. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Maine — with a labor force participation rate of 58.6% — has 42 available workers for every 100 open jobs. Jobs go unfilled because there are insufficient numbers of workers interested, qualified, or willing to take them up. This has been particularly problematic in healthcare, education, leisure and hospitality services.
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One solution is to increase the size of the labor force. There are only two ways to grow the population of a state or nation. A long-term solution is natural increase; of more births than deaths. A short-term solution is to promote in-migration. Maine is a demonstration case for each of these demographic indices.
Maine has a long-standing problem with natural increase because the number of deaths in Maine has been consistently higher than the number of births. As a result, Maine has more people aged 65 and above than people under 20. This explains, in part, why we are the oldest U.S. state.
On the immigration front, Maine has been moving in a positive direction since (and partly as a result of) COVID-19.
According to a recent report from the Consensus Economic Forecasting Commission (October 23, 2023): “Maine had a fairly strong year of population growth in 2022, gaining just over 8,000 in population. This was driven by net domestic migration, in which Maine’s rate ranked 10th in the nation.”
In 2022, rather remarkably, every Maine county experienced a population increase as a result of migration. Most of that in-migration was internal (from other states) rather than moving internationally, but international immigration was a factor — even more so in 2022 than in 2021.
If Maine is going to prosper, it is going to have to attract internal migrants from other parts of the country as well as immigrants from other countries. Making it difficult for these mobile workers has national and state consequences. America needs to say “Welcome” to immigrants and not “Go away.” Getting that wrong will drive the state and the country toward economic stagnation.
Ron McAllister is a sociologist and writer who lives in York.
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: The Observer: Why America needs to say 'welcome' to immigrants
