Welcoming Immigrants Revitalizes Rural Communities
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Immigrants are a vital part of American communities and are increasingly important to rural areas, where populations are dwindling. Immigrants are often the backbone of agriculture-based economies, such as Oregon’s harvesting, food production, food processing, and wine industries. Studies show that welcoming immigration is helping many rural American communities by growing their workforces, revitalizing abandoned downtowns, and breathing new life into community spaces.
Rural Communities are Struggling
In the last two decades, rural communities across the United States have seen a steady decline in population. This trend has been especially stark for working age individuals; 77% of U.S. rural counties have fewer working age people than they did 20 years ago. The results can often be dire for rural communities, resulting in lack of access to crucial services, including health care and education.
Increased Immigration is Reversing the Trend
As rural populations diminish, immigration is creating growth in these areas, and 31% of new residents living in rural communities are immigrants and refugees. In Oregon, immigrants—many Indigenous people from Guatemala and Mexico—have long played an important role in rural areas by migrating due to a high demand for agricultural workers starting in the late 1980s and continuing to current day.
These foreign-born residents can help revitalize and breathe new life into a struggling rural community, including as consumers, employees, business owners, taxpayers, and students. However, additional immigration is needed in most areas to sustain this growth; adding just 200 new immigrants each year would reverse declines for 71% of these counties by 2040. In Oregon, this would increase the working age population across rural areas by more than 25%
ICS’s Legal Services are Vital to Integrating Immigrants in Rural Areas
Despite their important roles in rural communities, immigrants are often isolated and forgotten for their contributions. Fear of deportation inhibits immigrants from stable employment, fully participating in community life, and accessing the services, protections, and amenities to which they contribute and are entitled. These fears are exacerbated by the lack of services for immigrants, especially legal support; for example, only 8 out of 33 rural counties in Oregon have registered immigration attorneys.
In response to overwhelming immigration legal needs in rural Oregon, ICS established its full-service Hood River office in 2016, the Redmond mobile legal clinic in 2018, and the Albany mobile legal clinic in 2019. ICS’s rural outreach includes the Columbia River Gorge, central Oregon, eastern Oregon, southern Oregon, and the Willamette Valley.
Take action today by supporting ICS’s rural legal services that provide immigrants with work authorization, support their journeys toward citizenship, and support their local communities.