While that rate has been increasing in recent decades, it is still far below the annual rate of 10 immigrants per thousand reached during the Great Migration of 1900-1914. Most of America's modest population growth today is fueled not by new immigrants but by newborn babies. If you still think your own community is growing too fast, the reason is probably not immigration from abroad, but migration from other cities or states. In fast-growing Loudoun County, Virginia, for example, the Washington Post reports that only about 7 percent of newcomers to the county in the 1990s were immigrants. The other 93 percent were U.S. residents who had moved from elsewhere in the region or country.
Immigrants add to the economic vitality of communities where they locate.
They promote local business expansion by raising demand for products and by providing labor, technical skills, entrepreneurial talent, and international business connections. For existing homeowners, economic growth and expanding populations increase demand for housing, raising property values. For all these reasons, attracting immigrants has become an important part of state and local development plans, especially in more rural regions where population growth has slowed or even reversed. In Iowa, for example, it has become an official part of the state's economic development strategy to promote immigration. For most communities in the United States, economic growth is not a problem to be solved, but a blessing to be sought.