Immigrants slowed demographic decline in more than 1,100 counties from 2020 to 2023, according to census estimates. Their numbers made up more than the entire growth of the population in 131 of them. The demographic reality casts immigration in a different light, not as a burden but as an opportunity: a powerful tool to lift vast swaths of America that prosperity has left behind.
It would require smart policy and political will — neither of which is plentiful in Washington, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) idea of busing migrants to cause political pain in blue jurisdictions could, unwittingly, be put to valuable use: encouraging migrants to rekindle economic development in depopulating cities such as Buffalo, Akron or Detroit, which have struggled to keep up with the economic transformations of the past 30 years.
Adding people might not revive beleaguered towns that have lost their economic rationale, however. If people have moved out, it’s largely because the jobs have gone, too. Still, for legacy industrial cities on the edge of decline, arresting population loss is imperative to avoid entering a downward spiral.
There is a precedent: the refugee resettlement program. Troubled cities in Upstate New York, for instance, have benefited enormously from thousands of refugees who have settled in communities along the Erie Canal; so much so that cities have tried to lure them.
Depopulation is bad for economies. Housing prices tank, local tax revenue collapses, the labor force shrinks, businesses go bust or leave, schools close. “All problems get harder because of population loss,” notes John Lettieri of the Economic Innovation Group. “To a first approximation problems would ease with more people of working age.”
There would be upfront costs. Shuttered schools would need to be refurbished. Local services might be strained, at first. But migrants would provide not only labor — potentially useful for elderly residents, who need help with tasks such as cooking or shopping, left behind in these places.
Migrants would also add to local demand, lifting tax revenue. Many would open small businesses. Given an initial boost — perhaps with state funds, as well as migrants’ savings — they could help build a future for places that, today, don’t seem to have one. As Enrico Moretti of the University of California noted, “For a locality it might not be a bad bet.” And from migrants’ perspectives, legacy cities offer one critical advantage: cheap, available housing.
This is not how migration is playing out today, though. Asylum seekers tend to go to large urban centers with more jobs and populations of similar immigrants, not to sluggish cities in the heartland. They don’t enjoy the supports granted to refugees resettled by the government, which help defray their short-term costs and make them attractive to local jurisdictions. From New York to Denver, where so many migrants have arrived courtesy of Mr. Abbott, mayors tend to perceive them as a fiscal disaster.
Giovanni Peri, who studies the economic impacts of immigration at the University of California at Davis, suggests there might be a way around this challenge even without federal help, taking advantage of the nation’s hot labor market. A state government resettlement plan for asylum seekers might lure businesses into selected communities by guaranteeing a reliable pool of workers. Communities might compete to get into the program. The prospect of a secure job would provide a powerful incentive for the migrants themselves, without the need for federal subsidies distorting the geographical distribution of labor.
For anything like this to work, of course, asylum seekers would need certainty that they can stay and work. A city or a business is unlikely to bet on asylum seekers who a year from now might be found ineligible to remain and forced to leave the country or, most likely, into the undocumented labor force.
But the rewards are worth embracing the challenge. A more expeditious asylum process is necessary, in any event, to deal with a backlog in immigration courts that has mushroomed to 3 million cases. If politicians made even rudimentary changes to the system, and if more localities recognized the opportunity in front of them, all parties — border communities, struggling Rust Belt towns, big cities swamped with asylum seekers — could win.
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