As President Donald Trump prepares to rewrite his controversial travel ban, a coalition of 500 business leaders and mayors is calling for meaningful immigration reform.
The group, New American Economy, has released an interactive map with state and congressional district-specific data about the economic contributions of immigrants. Supporters are hoping that it will bolster the argument for expanding immigrant worker visas.
According to New American Economy’s report, Maine has nearly 49,000 new immigrants who make up 3.7 percent of the population.
The data were gathered using publicly available sources. What they show is that Maine immigrants have a combined spending power of $953 million. They also pay taxes. In 2014, the most recent year for which the data are available, they paid close to $362 million in federal, state and local taxes.
Beth Stickney, who represents a new group called the Maine Business Immigration Coalition, points out that the city of Portland and Maine’s 1st Congressional District aren’t the only beneficiaries.
“In District 2, there were over $140 million in taxes paid by immigrants. Just in District 2, let alone in District 1 where it was another $220 million,” she says.
In addition, the report shows that about a quarter of immigrants own their own homes. And Stickney says that means they’re spending money to keep up those homes.
They also tend to be younger than the native population and better educated, says Carla Dickstein of Coastal Enterprises Inc.
“Sixty-five percent of immigrants who arrived between 2010 and 2013 had some level of college training, and nationally, this is an up-to-date figure, 15.3 percent hold a graduate degree compared to 10 percent of the native born.”
And, says Dana Connors of the Maine State Chamber Of Commerce, new immigrants are a critical source of labor, given Maine’s aging demographic.
“When you look at the fact that out of 1.3 million people, 370,000 are those baby boomers between 53 and 71 who are either in retirement or facing retirement,” he says.
And that’s why Connors, David Barber of Barber Foods in Portland and others held a conference call with reporters to highlight the data from New American Economy and to call on Congress to expand worker visas.
For example, Beth Stickney says there’s an unrealistically low cap on the number of temporary professional working visas issued each year.
“Employers are not allowed to apply for visas for those temporary professional workers until April 1, and the cap is so low that for the last three years in a row, by April 5, five days later, the cap has been reached,” she says.
Stickney says other visas are also in short supply. She and others say they want Congress to update immigration laws so that employers in Maine and around the country can get the labor they need.
