The city of Erie, Pa. is a tourist magnet, thanks to the lovely lakeshore at Lake Erie. Downtown, the streets are lined with little cafes and restaurants and shops.<\/p>\n
But like a lot of older cities and towns, Erie has a common problem: It\u2019s losing population.<\/p>\n
At its peak Erie had a population of about 140,000 people. It\u2019s since dropped to less than 100,000, according to an analysis by Stateline.org.<\/p>\n
But it could have been even worse.<\/p>\n
Without a \u201cstream of immigrants and refugees,\u201d and their children \u201carriving to work in the city\u2019s plastics and biofuels plants on Lake Erie \u2026 the city\u2019s population might have dropped as low as 80,000,\u201d Stateline.org reported recently, citing information provided by a senior aide to Erie\u2019s Democratic mayor, Joe Schember.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would mean a lot less federal funding, a lot less tax dollars, a lot more difficulty filling job openings and a lot more deteriorating housing stock,\u201d the aide, Renee Lamis, told Stateline. \u201c\u2026 We are a perfect example of a place in need of immigrants and refugees.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Erie isn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n
According to Stateline, \u201can influx of immigrants prevented or significantly softened population loss last year in more than 1 in 5 U.S. counties,\u201d including Erie County.<\/p>\n
According to Stateline\u2019s analysis of new Census data, \u201cimmigration either prevented population decline or cut it by at least 10 percent\u201d in those areas.<\/p>\n
And while President Donald Trump may have recently declared the country \u201cfull,\u201d that\u2019s hardly the case.<\/p>\n
In fact, without the 879 people from other countries who arrived in Erie from 2017 to 2018, the county\u2019s total population loss of 1,831 people \u201cwould have been almost 50 percent worse,\u201d Stateline reported.<\/p>\n
As is the case elsewhere in the country, refugee resettlement slowed in Erie under the Trump White House.<\/p>\n
For instance, \u201cmore than 1,000 people from Somalia, Syria and the Congo were resettled in the city in 2015 and 2016, but that number dropped to fewer than 250 in the past two years,\u201d Stateline reported, citing federal resettlement statistics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have literally hundreds of job openings, and our landlords have vacancies,\u201d Lamis said, The city \u201chad to raise income taxes and raid reserve funds to make ends meet,\u201d Stateline reported.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a direct result of White House policies.<\/p>\n
During the 2018 midterms, Trump tried to stoke fear of undocumented immigrants, making repeated false claims about the migrant column that was then slowly making its way to America\u2019s southern border. At a rally in Florida this week, Trump laughed off a suggestion from the crowd that migrants approaching the border be shot.<\/p>\n
Trump employed those same scare tactics at a campaign rally in Erie last October, warning the crowd that Democrats, including Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, supported \u201cdeadly sanctuary cities that release thousands upon thousands of violent criminal gang members to prey on Pennsylvania citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fact of the matter is, however, that immigrants \u2014 legal and undocumented alike \u2014 pump billions of dollars a year into the American economy.<\/p>\n
As PBS NewsHour reports, citing a 2017 study by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, while it\u2019s true that first-generation immigrants cost the government about $1,600 more per-person annually than native born Americans, that cost disappears by the second generation.<\/p>\n
Second generation immigrants \u201care among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.,\u201d the report found, according to PBS. Those immigrants \u201ccontribute about $1,700 per-person a year,\u201d compared to $1,300 a year for all other native-born Americans and their generation immigrants, the report concluded.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Trump\u2019s White House has pursued policies that have driven down legal immigration.<\/p>\n
That includes the reduction in refugee admissions, as well as an executive order toughening up visas for skilled immigrants; as well as his push for merit-based immigration and proposals to reduce public benefits for legal immigrants.<\/p>\n
In Erie last year, I listened as Trump made a pitch for the hearts and minds of northwestern Pennsylvania voters.<\/p>\n
Now there\u2019s not only documented proof that his policies are getting in the way of the economic success of that lovely city on the lake.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also a roadmap to solving it: By rejecting his discriminatory and backward-looking immigration policies.<\/p>\n
All elections have consequences.<\/p>\n
In 2016, Erie voters were among those who helped deliver Pennsylvania to Republicans for the first time in three decades, putting Trump in the White House.<\/p>\n
In 2020, they have a chance to send a clear message to Trump that his policies have held back the city and county they call home.<\/p>\n
They should take it.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2019 John L. Micek, distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. An award-winning political journalist, John L. Micek is Editor-in-Chief of The Pennsylvania Capital-Star in Harrisburg, Pa. Email him at jmicek@penncapital-star.com<\/a> and follow him on Twitter @ByJohnLMicek.<\/p>\n