State's Foreign-Born Population Continues
to Climb, Analysts Say
By I-Wei J. Chang
Capital News Service
Friday, Feb. 25, 2005
WASHINGTON - The number of foreign-born Maryland residents grew by as
many as 249,000 people between 2000 and 2004, according to one estimate,
an influx of immigrants that is forcing local governments to respond.
"Most of the population growth in Maryland is from immigration," said
Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration
Studies. "The foreign-born (population) is going to continually grow."
The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that there were 34.2 million
foreign-born residents in the country in 2004, about 773,000, or 2.3
percent, more than the year before.
From 2000 to 2004, the country's foreign-born population grew by 20
percent, the bureau said, adding 5.8 million immigrants who now make up 12
percent of the U.S. population.
The bureau will not have state-by-state estimates available for another
six months.
But Camarota, who bases his estimates on Census figures, said the
immigrant population in Maryland is growing even faster than the national
rate. He believes that the immigrant population grew by more than half in
the last four years, now totaling 728,000 people who make up 13.3 percent
of the state's overall population.
That number would be "surprisingly high for 2004," said Jack Martin,
special projects director of the Federation for American Immigration
Reform, who questioned Camarota's numbers. But Martin and others agree
that, whatever the number, the state's immigrant population is growing
rapidly.
For Montgomery County, where half the state's foreign-born population
lives, the growth of immigrants means the county's health and social
services are conducted in various languages -- especially Spanish,
Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, French and Farsi.
Immigration is "significant in how services are being delivered to the
county to meet the needs of the residents," said Shu-Ping Chan, community
outreach coordinator in the Montgomery County Executive's Office.
"The biggest concern is the (immigrants') lack of familiarity with the
system" and cultural and language barriers, said Chan, who noted that more
and more county jobs either have a preference or requirement for someone
who speaks another language.
But Martin said that the surge in immigrants -- which include legal as
well as illegal immigrants -- will have "a very negative fiscal effect" on
taxpayers because of the newcomers' dependence on emergency health care
among other public services.
An economist at Towson University countered by saying that immigrants
are not just using social services without giving back to society -- they
also benefit the state's economy by taking jobs that native-born workers
do not want.
Immigrants taking low-wage jobs, such as janitorial work, hospitality
services and crab-picking, are keeping costs low for customers and helping
companies retain a competitive edge, said John Hopkins at RESI, the
consulting arm of Towson University.
The exact number of immigrants is almost impossible to pin down. The
latest national numbers were drawn from the Census Bureau's Current
Population Survey. Unlike the decennial census, which tries to count every
person in the country, the Current Population Survey samples 78,000
households nationwide.
Such surveys are not intended to capture state data, said Robert
Bernstein, a Census spokesman. The March 2004 Current Population Survey --
on which Camarota's estimates are based -- interviewed just 1,239
households in Maryland. In March 2000, roughly half that number of
households in Maryland were interviewed, said Tom Moore, chief of
demographic health surveys at the Census.
Mark Goldstein, an economist at the Maryland Department of Planning,
said the relatively small sample size of the Current Population Survey can
give "very large margins of error." Because of that, he would not estimate
how rapidly the foreign-born population is increasing. But he agreed that
the "immigrant population is growing in the state."
Martin Ford, the associate director for the Maryland Office for New
Americans, said that while those newcomers force schools to increase
language instruction programs, such as English as a Second Language, for
example, they also bring the promise of future rewards.
"In the short term, the costs relative to tax payments may be greater
but in the long term, immigrants contribute to our economy more than they
take out," such as subsidizing Social Security, Ford said. "People look at
it as a burden, but I look at it as an investment."
Marvin Weinman, president of Montgomery County Taxpayers League, said
immigrants deserve support from the county.
"They are residents of the county and are entitled to the services of
the county," Weinman said.
Copyright ©
2005 University of Maryland
Philip Merrill College of
Journalism
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