Montgomery leads region with 17.3 percent, nationwide average is 7.3 percent One out of every five Montgomery County residents is not a U.S. citizen, while nationwide, just 7 percent of residents don’t have U.S. citizenship, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.
Across the Potomac, non-U.S. citizens — who include residents who are obtaining citizenship,
hold a work visa or are in the country illegally — make up 16 percent of Fairfax County’s total population. In the District, the percentage is 8 percent, according to the 2010 American Community Survey data. Immigrants are drawn to the Washington region for its wealth of jobs with international organizations including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and government jobs with agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
| Coming to America |
| Percentage of residents who are non-U.S. citizens: |
| National: 7.3% |
| Maryland: 7.7% |
| Montgomery County: 17.3% |
| Prince George’s County: 12.5% |
| Frederick County: 5.4% |
| Baltimore City: 4.4% |
| Virginia: 6.2% |
| Fairfax County: 15.7% |
| Arlington County: 13.8% |
| Alexandria: 16.6% |
| Prince William County: 11.2% |
| Loudoun County: 10.8% |
| District of Columbia: 8.2% |
| Source: U.S. Census Bureau |
The disproportionate concentration of non-U.S. citizens in the Virginia and Maryland suburbs affects everything from education policy to elections, says Randy Capps, senior policy analyst with Georgetown University’s Migration Policy Institute.
“These groups, especially in Montgomery County, tend to be well organized,” and therefore effective lobbyists, Capps said. Maryland has created at least a dozen government-appointed committees and coalitions devoted to immigrant issues, which stay in close contact with hundreds of immigrant activists across the state.
Largely as a result of activists’ lobbying efforts, Gov. Martin O’Malley signed a bill this year that grants illegal immigrants lower tuition rates at state universities and colleges. The legislation will be voted on in a referendum in November 2012 after anti-illegal-immigration groups marshalled enough signatures on a petition to force the referendum.
Despite their legislative influence, however, more than half of Maryland’s foreign-born population cannot vote.
Since electoral maps are drawn according to population totals — not eligible voters — dense populations of non-U.S. citizens tend to distort congressional and legislative districting, said Steve Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies.
“People who live around non-citizens, like those in Montgomery County, end up with more political influence than people who live around American citizens,” he said. “We basically have the political system apportioned to represent people who can’t vote.”
In the rural congressional District 1 in Western Maryland, for example, only 2.3 percent of the population are not U.S. citizens so almost all residents can vote. Meanwhile, in congressional District 8, which encompasses a large portion of Montgomery County and where 20.4 percent of residents are non-U.S. citizens, only about 80 percent of the residents are able to vote on candidates and issues.
“On top of political distortion, you have what you might call a potential problem of accountability” where non-U.S. citizens don’t have the power of a vote despite their numbers, Camarota said. “What if the schools are no good or the area has political corruption?” he asked.
No matter which side of the coin you look at, “this situation rises unavoidably — or necessarily — from a large-scale immigration system where it can take at least long as five years to gain U.S. citizenship,” he said.
