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Roanoke County has not lost population since the World War II years of the 1940s. Not even losing some of its territory to Roanoke in annexation in the 1970s and to Salem in a municipal secession in the 1960s managed to put Roanoke County into the population-loss category. It’s only lost population in two census counts since the end of the Civil War.
Montgomery County has an even longer record of sustained population growth. It hasn’t lost population since the 1900 census; that’s the only time it’s lost population since the Civil War.
However, if the census were counting now instead of a few years from now, both Roanoke County and Montgomery County would be recorded as population losers were it not for one thing: immigration.
According to figures supplied by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, Roanoke County’s population grew by 378 from April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2024. During that time, Roanoke County’s net growth from immigration was 937 — meaning that without immigration, Roanoke County would have lost population.
During that same time, Montgomery County saw its population decline by 727, putting the county on a path toward its first population loss in a census in more than a century and then some. That loss would have been even steeper without immigration; the county saw a net gain of 3,122 immigrants.
For those who study demographics or economics, these numbers are not a surprise. Many demographers and economists have been pointing out for some time that immigrants are the ones driving both American population growth and economic growth. For those whose principal understanding of immigration is through the prism of politics — especially politics delivered through the distortion glass of social media — they may seem both shocking and even inconceivable. That disconnect has made it nearly impossible for the world’s most important country to have a rational conversation about the subject.
Former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who now runs the popular “War Room” podcast, recently called for a 10-year halt to all immigration into the United States, legal or otherwise. He clearly has not read last year’s report by the Federal Reserve, which laid out how reductions in immigration under the Trump administration have reduced the nation’s economic growth. Nor has he likely read Old Dominion University’s annual State of the Commonwealth report, which made multiple references to how lower immigration rates translate into slower economic growth in Virginia, in particular.
Population growth and economic growth are not always the same thing, but they are closely intertwined: Communities that are failing economically certainly don’t see population growth; people move away from them. Population growth, on the other hand, creates more customers for local businesses and enlarges the labor pool. That can hurt some workers (more competition) but also makes it more likely that businesses will feel comfortable locating or expanding in a growing community (no worries about not finding enough workers). A community might fret about having too much population growth (increased demand for services), but I’ve yet to see any that wanted to lose population.
One of the main themes of the ODU report is that economic growth in Virginia is slowing. It attributes some of that to Trump administration policy (higher tariffs and federal layoffs) but some to more structural reasons (slow population growth). There are multiple reasons for slower population growth — a declining birth rate is a big one. However, the report warns that federal policies to restrict immigration will slow Virginia’s population growth further, with negative economic consequences. “Changes in federal immigration policy and the political landscape will adversely affect the regions relying on international migration to mitigate the effects of domestic outmigration,” the report says. What’s that mean in bumper-sticker language? It means that lower immigration rates are really bad news for some parts of Virginia — and those parts just happen to be some of our key economic engines, which makes lower immigration rates bad news for the whole state.
OK, that’s still too long to fit onto a bumper sticker, but let’s unpack the data. Before I do I must give this advisory: One of the problems we have is that we’ve conflated unauthorized immigration with authorized. They are not the same thing. We ought to be able to regulate who gets in and how; the point of what follows is not to debate those details but to look at the number of immigrants — and the consequences if those numbers go up or down.
I’ve dug into the numbers behind ODU’s numbers, thanks both to economist Bob McNab at Dragas Center at ODU and demographer Hamilton Lombard at the Weldon Cooper Center at the University of Virginia.
Let’s start with a telling statistic in that ODU report: Since the last census, 88.3% of Virginia’s population growth has come from immigration. When former Gov. Glenn Youngkin cited the state’s population growth, as he often did, that growth is almost entirely due to immigration.
These trends play out in four distinct ways.
1. Localities where the population growth is due solely to immigration
These trends are most notable in Northern Virginia, but they’re not limited there.
In Alexandria, Arlington County, Fairfax County and Manassas, all of the population growth since 2020 is due to immigration. Take away immigration and those five localities would all be losing population because otherwise they’re seeing more people move out than move in. Example: Fairfax County saw a net loss of 63,764 people due to domestic migration but saw a net gain of 47,023 immigrants. When you factor in births and deaths, Fairfax County saw a population change of 10,633.
Henrico County saw the same phenomenon: a net loss of 5,672 people due to domestic outmigration, covered up by a net gain of 8,114 immigrants.
Even Roanoke County, which we don’t typically think of as an immigration hotspot, would have lost population without immigration, although the dynamics are different. Roanoke County, unlike these other places, saw a net gain through domestic migration, as well — part of a post-pandemic trend that is seeing people leave larger areas for smaller places. The county’s demographic challenge is an aging population where deaths outnumber births by 2,214. In Roanoke County, it takes both domestic migration and international migration to make up the difference.
2. Localities where more than half of the population growth is due to immigration
We circle back to Northern Virginia, this time in the outer-ring counties.
Prince William County has seen a net population gain of 14,794. Of that, virtually all came from immigration — 14,724, or 99.5%.
In Loudoun County, almost half the population growth is due to immigration — a net gain of 22,425 people, of which 11,123 came from immigration. Both of those counties saw a net loss of population due to domestic migration; they saw population growth only because of immigration (on top of a relatively modest number of births over deaths).
We can add in some other Northern Virginia localities, too. Falls Church saw a net gain of 377, with 333 of that coming from immigration — 98.8%. Fairfax city has seen a population increase of 2,193, with 1,674 of that from immigration — 76.3%.
We see some communities downstate with similar figures. Richmond’s population grew by 7,130 with a net gain of 5,635 immigrants driving that — 79.0%.
Lynchburg’s population is up by 1,284, with 787 coming from immigrants — 61.2%.
Salem has a reputation of being an insular city, but the demographics don’t support that. Its population is up 567 thanks to a net gain of 364 immigrants, so 64.1% of its population growth is due to immigration.
3. Localities that have lost population — and would have lost even more if it weren’t for immigration
Montgomery County is one of those, but not the most eye-popping example.
Roanoke has lost 2,104 people. If it weren’t for a net gain of 1,538 immigrants, Roanoke’s population would be down 3,642 in just four years. (Even with immigration, the city’s population loss seems large enough that it might want to concern city officials. The city has been gaining population since the 2000 census; now it’s shrinking and at a faster rate than it did in the 1980s and 1990s. Demographically, the reason is primarily because more people are moving out of the city than moving in. I’ll examine this more in depth in a future column.)
Virginia Beach has lost 4,636 people. If it weren’t for a net gain of 4,773 immigrants, Virginia Beach’s population would be down by 9,409.
Norfolk has lost 6,924 people, more than any other locality in the state. If it weren’t for a net gain of 3,860 immigrants, Norfolk’s population would be down even more, by 10,784.
4. Localities that have gained population and would still have gained without immigration
Within this group there are generally two types of localities: those with almost no immigration and those with a more significant amount. I’ll deal with those “almost no immigration” localities in the next section, so will devote this section to the others.
This includes communities such as Rockingham County, which attracted 987 immigrants since the last census. That’s not an insignificant number — more than Roanoke County, for instance. However, Rockingham’s overall population growth was 3,909, so immigrants account for 25.2% of that.
Spotsylvania and Stafford County each attracted immigrants by the thousands — 1,419 in Spotsylvania, 2,464 in Stafford — but they also attracted other newcomers by even greater numbers. In Spotsylvania, immigrants accounted for 11.8% of the population growth; in Stafford, 20.5%.
You can explore the interactive map accompanying this column to find the figures for localities across the state.
5. Localities where there simply isn’t much immigration
Immigration patterns have always been lopsided — German immigrants in the 1800s went to Milwaukee and not, say, Martinsville or Marion — and our current ones are no different. We see some places where immigration is almost, well, a foreign concept. Much of Southwest and Southside has felt very little impact from immigration. Russell County has seen a net gain of just nine immigrants, Scott County 10, Appomattox County 11, Southampton County 12. Given that parts of Southwest and Southside have lost population, maybe those numbers shouldn’t surprise us. Those regions lack a strong economic magnet. Some of the communities that could most use new people have the fewest immigrants because there’s not much economic rationale for someone to move there.
However, even some fast-growing counties don’t see much immigration. New Kent County has a net population growth of 4,272 but only 14 of those are immigrants. Goochland County has gained 3,477 residents overall but only 20 of those are immigrants.
This also makes it difficult for us to talk about immigration, because our experiences are so vastly different. Some communities seem to be doing just fine without many immigrants but others depend upon them economically in ways difficult to comprehend elsewhere.
The map above shows communities with very little immigration relative to their overall population; some of these show up in the maps above as communities that would have gained population even with their relatively meager immigration numbers; others are in the map that show communities that would have lost population anyway. The point is to show how uneven immigration patterns are, with some parts of the state highly dependent on immigrants, others where immigration isn’t much of a factor at all.
Ultimately, though, the whole state needs to care. As I hope I’ve demonstrated, this isn’t just a Northern Virginia issue but even if it were, that ought to be enough. Northern Virginia supplies about 42% of the state’s tax revenues — school systems across rural Virginia get most of their funding from the state, and the single biggest source of that revenue is Northern Virginia. That’s why it’s in Lee County’s interest to see economic growth in Loudoun County — and that economic growth depends partly on immigration.
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