Immigrant Population in Massachusetts Grows

Maria Sacchetti writes for the Boston Globe:

Massachusetts’ immigrant population rose last year in the middle of the recession, bucking a national trend that showed a decline in foreign-born residents for the first time in decades.

The Bay State’s modest 2.5 percent increase in immigrants puzzled researchers and advocates as the numbers dipped in other states, including California, Florida, and neighboring Rhode Island, according to the Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey.

Theories accounting for the increase abound. It could be that the state’s economy fared better than those of other states, that the census survey simply missed departures from Massachusetts, or that tabulation of a decline could still be coming.

Some researchers suggested that immigrants in Massachusetts – who make up 14 percent of the state population – are inclined to stay put because they are more highly educated than immigrants elsewhere and less likely to be here in undocumented status. That gives them an edge in an economic downturn.

Nowhere is the immigrant tally more surprising than in Framingham, where the estimated number of immigrants rose from 15,037 to 17,727 last year, making it about a quarter of the town’s population of 69,000. Some advocates for immigrants had warned that many were decamping for Brazil, the native country of the largest immigrant group in town, because of the economy and because those who were here illegally had abandoned hope for legal residency.

“People have been saying to me for years, ‘Don’t you see fewer people?’ And I’ve been saying no,’’ said Christine Tibor, director of Framingham’s adult English-as-a-second-language program. “Our numbers are actually up.’’ Clickhere for the rest of the story.

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