Humphrey students offer new research on immigration in the Midwest

Professor Katherine Fennelly and graduate students in her Immigration and Public Policy seminar have just published a new resource on immigration in Minnesota and other Midwest states. The reports, compiled by students Allison Boyle, Slavonia Hackett, Marie Kurth, Robert Painter, Julia Peasley, Meredith Stocking, Nate Thompson, Morgan Winters, Lisa Ziegler, were developed for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs's Task Force on Immigration and Economic Competitiveness.

"The website will be an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, students, and policymakers who are interested in the history and future of immigration in the Midwest," Fennelly says. "It includes unbiased, current data on the numbers and characteristics of immigrants and refugees in 12 Midwest states: Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

To develop the reports, researchers accessed data from the Bureau of the Census and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as published reports from major research organizations. The students also conducted original tabulations of census data from the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey.

Highlights from the reports include:

• The  immigrant workforce in the Midwest grew nine times faster than the native-born labor force over the period from 1990 to 2000 and 11 times faster between 2000 and 2010.

•The region contains dramatic contrasts. Illinois, for example, is a major immigration state, while North Dakota ranked 50th out of the 50 states in the size of its immigrant population in 2009.

•Minnesota is the Midwest’s principal gateway state for refugees. Since 2000, Minnesota has accepted 35,410 refugees from 43 countries. 

The demographic data and reports are available at immigrationtaskforce.hhh.umn.edu.