The number of illegal immigrants moving into Virginia is soaring, bucking a national trend of slower immigrant growth as the economy falters, according to a report released Thursday.
Virginia’s immigrant population, both legal and illegal, grew by more than 145 percent from 1990 to 2006, said Jeffrey Passel, senior demographer for the Pew Hispanic Center at a conference on immigration enforcement.
The percentage of immigrants in Virginia who are illegal is among the highest in the nation, at between 44 and 66 percent, he said. The nationwide average is 30 percent.
Passel labeled the commonwealth a “new growth state” to which immigrants are moving because of new job opportunities.
Nationwide, the illegal immigrant population climbed from 8.4 million in April 2000 to 11.5 million in 2006, marking a slower growth rate than was seen during the 1990s. The total number of illegal immigrants in the country was 2.5 million in June 1989.
A study conducted by the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigration think tank, last month said the illegal immigrant population has declined by 11 percent through May 2008 after hitting a peak in 2007, due in part to a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration.
Passel said the decline in the growth rate he reported was related to law enforcement but cited another factor as well.
“Enforcement is clearly part of it, but the economy is also likely to be part of it,” he said. “We’ve seen slowdowns before that [are] connected with the economy.”
Peter Morici, an economics professor at the University of Maryland, said both arguments had merit.
“The demand for immigrants in the economy is down, but the crackdown is making it more expensive to come in,” he said.
The immigrant population also has dispersed significantly through the country since 1990, Passel said.
“New destinations are driven largely by the jobs that are available,” he said. “The places people moved to in the ’90s had the most job opportunities available.”
“They go where the jobs are and an underground railroad develops,” Morici said. “As people stay here longer and longer, it feeds on itself … once you get inland, you have to have a nexus — the federal government can’t just police the streets to stop people.”
Passel also said that, although illegal immigrants follow the jobs, a misconception exists that they are mostly young, single men.
Less than 25 percent of undocumented immigrants are “solo males,” while 75 percent live in families, he said.
Currently 11.5 million illegal immigrants live in the U.S., about 30 percent of the United States’ total immigrant population. Two-thirds of the children in unauthorized families are U.S. citizens, according to Passel’s report.
Maryland was not among the top 10 growth states reported by Passel, which posted growth of between 234 and 434 percent of the immigrant population between 1990 and 2006.
