We’ve collected all our coverage of Virginia’s demographic trends in one place.
There are many reasons why immigration splits American politics. but here’s one of them: Different parts of the country have vastly different experiences with immigrants.
We live in an era where our politics have polarized along geographical lines — Democrats in the cities, Republicans in rural areas. Those parties might have natural predispositions one way or another on immigration issues, but those differences are exacerbated by the geographical ones.
Here’s what I mean, courtesy of some new figures by the U.S. Census Bureau: Let’s suppose that immigration screeched to a halt. Not even Donald Trump is proposing that, but Republicans have long favored lower immigration numbers than Democrats have. A study by the libertarian Cato Institute in 2021 found that Trump “was wildly successful in reducing legal immigration” but “oversaw a virtual collapse in interior immigration enforcement” and therefore was “failed to eliminate illegal immigration.” Let’s leave those arguments for another day and instead just look at numbers — and geography.
Now back to our thought experiment: What if immigration were simply zero?
Much of Virginia — primarily Republican-voting rural Virginia — would see no difference whatsoever.
New census figures show that in 2023 some localities in Virginia literally had no international immigration. Eleven counties (Buckingham, Charles City, Craig, King and Queen, Mathews, Page, Patrick, Rappahannock, Scott, Sussex, Wise) and two cities (Franklin and Norton) registered not a single foreign resident moving in.
Meanwhile, seven counties (Giles, Highland, Northumberland, Southampton, Surry, Westmoreland and Wise) and three cities (Bristol, Buena Vista and Galax) saw their foreign-born populations decline.
All these localities — with the exception of Galax and Westmoreland County — had miniscule foreign-born populations to begin with, typically less than 2% and in some cases (Craig, King and Queen, Scott, Buena Vista) less than 1%, with Norton the absolute lowest at 0.1%. Those exceptions: The 7.8% foreign-born population in Galax seems quite high compared to its neighbors in Southwest Virginia but would be considered tiny by standards elsewhere. Only the 13.7% foreign-born figure in Westmoreland County comes close to the national average of 15.6%.
These aren’t unusual numbers, either. In most of rural Virginia, the foreign migration last year is measured in ones and twos or other single digits. In my home county of Botetourt, it was nine.
The Statue of Liberty could turn off her “lamp beside the golden door” tomorrow and most of rural Virginia — almost exclusively Republican-voting areas — would not really notice.
The situation would be quite different in urban areas — Democratic-voting areas. If you’ve followed my columns on demography over the past year or so, you know that Virginia is undergoing a demographic paradigm shift. It’s now Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads that are losing population while parts (not all, but some parts) of rural Virginia are seeing some population growth. I’ve pointed out before that this is due entirely to more people moving out of those regions than moving in — births outnumber deaths in those places, but not by enough to make up for the large out-migrations due to the moving van.
These new census stats let us dig even deeper into those trends. We shouldn’t hang too much on a single year’s trends, but in these cases the trends are similar to other years recently — and sometimes it’s easier for us to envision a single year’s worth of change than three years’ worth. When we look closer, what we find is that in many of those urban localities, their population losses would have been even more severe were it not for immigration. (Let’s not get confused by the words. Migration refers simply to people moving from anywhere, be it Indiana or India. Immigration refers specifically to international migration. To avoid confusion, the Census Bureau prefers the terms “domestic migration” and “international migration,” so that’s what I’ll use henceforth in referring to this data. I’ll also point out that these Census Bureau figures differ slightly from the ones from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia that I typically rely on. There are some methodological differences between the two, but their numbers don’t differ that much. The main difference today is that Weldon Cooper doesn’t distinguish between domestic migration and international migration while the Census Bureau does, so today, the Census Bureau gets to take its turn on the statistical stage.)
Fairfax County is Virginia’s most populous locality and has seen the biggest population losses in the state since the 2020 census headcount. Here’s what the Census Bureau says happened in Fairfax County in 2023: Births outnumbered deaths by 7,376. However, domestic migration came in at -13,405 — in other words, 13,405 more people moved out than moved in. I’ve discussed the reasons behind out-migration before — boomers retiring, high housing costs pricing younger couples out, taxes possibly driving people out of state altogether, transportation complicating things for everyone — so I won’t dwell on those. Instead, what we see is that the maternity ward can’t keep up with the moving van. One thing mitigates Fairfax’s population losses, though: international migration. Last year saw 8,536 immigrants move into the county. That all added up to a modest population increase, by the Census Bureau’s figures. (Weldon Cooper shows Fairfax still declining slightly.) Whether those numbers are slightly up or slightly down doesn’t matter that much for our discussion today. What matters is that without immigration, Fairfax County would definitely be losing population. With it, the county is able to make up for all or most of its out-migration.
We see the same thing in other localities. In Arlington, births outnumbered deaths by 1,627 but lost people through a domestic out-migration of -2,979. Immigrants, though, made up the difference: a net gain of 1,838 to keep Arlington in the plus category.
Virginia Beach saw births outnumber deaths by 1,718 but lost people through a domestic out-migration of -4,026. A net gain of 881 immigrants, though, helped soften those population losses.
Roanoke fits into a different category. Last year, Roanoke saw deaths outnumber births by 167 and the city saw a net loss of 576 moving out. However, the Star City added 271 immigrants. The city might want to figure out why its net out-migration is so large and what can be done to reverse it, but it might also want to figure out how to attract more immigrants.
Lynchburg was the rare triple gainer: It gained population through births over deaths, as well as being on the plus side for both domestic migration and international immigration. Now ponder this: 41% of the Hill City’s population growth last year was due to immigration. For places that are gaining population, that’s not unusual. In Albemarle County, 48% of the county’s population growth was due to immigration. In Loudoun County, the figure is 55%.
I could go on but you get the idea. Besides, there’s a map!
The point is that rural areas and urban areas are in completely different situations. Many rural areas could use more immigrants to help reverse population declines, but they've never had many immigrants so the whole immigration debate is largely irrelevant to them. People may get fired up over the sorry state of the southern border if they spend their time watching certain national news networks, but as far as their everyday lives, immigration really has no direct effect. That makes it easier to favor candidates who promise less immigration — they're not losing anything. Meanwhile, many urban areas have economies that depend on immigration — legal or otherwise — to fill workplace gaps. It seems only natural, then, that their politicians would look more favorably on immigration.
You've heard me say this before so I won't belabor the point, but it's probably not healthy for us as a society to be so divided along geographic lines. Immigration is a good example. If you live in a rural area, it's hard to comprehend how immigration is such an economic force in urban areas. If you live in an urban area, it's hard to comprehend why rural areas don't see immigration as the obvious economic benefit that it is.
If you want more, I recommend this report by Boston University on how immigration helps drive the economy. Here's a key excerpt: "We find that when you have 10,000 extra immigrants arriving in a given U.S. county, the number of patents filed per capita in that county dramatically increases, by something like 25 percent. It was an effect that rippled out as far as 150 miles. The research team also estimated that, since 1965, migration of foreign nationals to the U.S. may have contributed to an additional 5 percent growth in wages."
We can argue all day about the southern border, but the southern border is not the entirety of the immigration issue. The reality is this: Much of our economy depends on the economic health of our urban areas (in Virginia, Northern Virginia essentially subsidizes rural Virginia, particularly in school funding), and much of their economic health depends on immigration. Tinker with that at your own risk.
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