Thread: W.Va. ranks last in immigrants

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/News/2005122327

December 24, 2005
W.Va. ranks last in immigrants

Poll: Majority in state see foreigners as taking away jobs from Americans


By Scott Finn
Staff writer

West Virginia has the lowest percentage of immigrants of any state, according to a new analysis of U.S. Census data.

Bucking a national trend, West Virginia appears to be driving away immigrants instead of attracting them, according to the analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C. think-tank.

West Virginia lost almost half of its immigrant population between 1995 and 2005, according to the analysis. Only one other state, Montana, showed a decrease in the number of foreign-born people.

Meanwhile, there has been an explosion of immigration to the United States as a whole. One in eight people in the United States was born somewhere else.

One in 225 people in West Virginia is an immigrant, less than one-half of 1 percent of the state.

About 8,000 foreign-born people live in West Virginia, compared to about 15,000 in 1995, according to the analysis of Census data.

Another poll suggests that West Virginians believe immigrants are taking away their jobs, despite the low number of foreign-born people living here.

Sixty percent believe that “immigrants take jobs away from Americans,� while 34 percent say “immigrants do jobs that Americans don’t want,� according to a December poll of 600 West Virginia adults by SurveyUSA of Verona, N.J.

That’s the highest rate in the country. Nationally, 42 percent of Americans believe that immigrants take jobs away from Americans.

Immigrants are attracted by two things: jobs and other immigrants, according to Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for limits on immigration.

“West Virginia doesn’t have a dynamic economy,� Krikorian said. “It’s not that life is hellish there, but it’s not at the cutting edge of the American economy.�

The small number of immigrants is not necessarily a bad thing, he said. In some states, immigrants almost exclusively do jobs such as landscaping, cleaning rooms and washing dishes. He called that a “master-servant economy.�

“That master-servant relationship regarding immigration hasn’t developed in places like West Virginia,� he said. “And that’s a good thing.�

West Virginia has a history of immigration, especially the wave of eastern and southern Europeans who came to work in coal mines and factories in the early 20th century, said Marybeth Beller, assistant professor of political science at Marshall University.

With the mechanization of mining, more coal is being produced than ever before, and with fewer, higher skilled workers.

The state’s steel, chemical and glass manufacturers have been shedding jobs too, she said. For example, Union Carbide used to bring immigrants from all over the world to its Tech Center in South Charleston, but many of those jobs have been eliminated.

Media reports on immigration in West Virginia tend to focus on illegal workers, not on the positive aspects of immigration, she said.

That could lead to what she called negative attitudes toward immigrants.

“Part of this has to be ignorance,� she said. “Immigrants bring diverse talents and diverse skills to our country. We’ve lost many of those immigrants, and West Virginia is a less rich place because of it.�

To contact staff writer Scott Finn, use e-mail or call 357-4323.

Whether across town or across state lines employers gravitate to available labor. The reason that people who are surveyed in high unemployment West Virginia thin that they are losing jobs to illegal aliens is that they are. The garment industry in greater Los Angeles for instance is now moving out of the Old LA Garment to places like Chatsworth, CA not the places like Charlestown, West Virginia partly because laborers can be found in LA even if they have forged documents. Without that the factories would have to move.

Isn't their state song something like "almost heaven, West Virginia"? I know what they're talking about now.