Forget Miami, Los Angeles and New York, America's newest migrant capitals are the country's recent boom towns.

Top of the list: Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., with a 122% increase in its foreign-born population from 2000 to 2007, according to a Brookings Institution analysis of U.S. Census Bureau information. Also ranking high are the metro areas of Nashville, Tenn., (74% increase), Indianapolis (71%), Orlando, Fla., (64%) and Raleigh, N.C. (62%).

It makes sense. Like everyone else, migrants are drawn to places with jobs. These towns offer a relatively low cost of living, compared with their big-city brethren and, in recent years, ample opportunities for work in various fields. Raleigh is a hub of North Carolina's "Research Triangle," and in 2007, about 15% of its working migrant population worked in professional, scientific and administrative occupations, according to the Census Bureau. Orlando, a major tourist destination, is a hub for service-sector jobs.

What happens to immigration during a downturn? Either it slows, or in some cases, depending on economic situations in their countries of origin, migrants in the U.S. may return to their home countries. While the overall number of new arrivals to the U.S. has increased every year since 2003, experts say they're seeing a decline in the rate of growth for immigration, something that's likely to continue with a recession.

Oddly, that could be a good thing for the overall U.S. economy. With national unemployment already at 6.1%, a reduction in the potential labor force might provide some relief to communities hit particularly hard by the downturn.

"An outflow of migrants, or a reduction in the inflow, could actually lessen the recessionary pressures," writes professor George Borjas, an expert on labor economics at Harvard University, in an e-mail.

Of course, not all cities, or their migrant populations will be affected in the same ways. "The narrative is not always straightforward, as places are different," says Audrey Singer, an immigration expert at Brookings and co-editor of Twenty-First-Century Gateways, a book published earlier this year which identifies new trends in immigration.

These gateways are cities like Atlanta, Phoenix, Charlotte, N.C., and Austin, Texas, places with sprawling suburbs that are drawing migrants for various reasons. Some, like Austin, are high-tech centers that offer abundant technology jobs. Others, like Atlanta, are emerging as major international hubs.

In all cases, the native-born population has also grown rapidly along with economic growth. Not surprisingly, many of these cities appear near the top of our list of metro areas with the greatest increases in migrant populations, including Charlotte (a 64% increase), Phoenix (61%) and Atlanta (58%).

These figures account for only those metro areas with foreign-born populations of more than 65,000; the Census Bureau doesn't provide detailed annual data for population groups smaller than that. Foreign-born residents account for about 12.6% of the U.S. population. Findings include cities where this group ranges from 5% to 22% of the total.

Source: www.forbes.com 

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