Immigrants in the Twin Cities add new life to the economy

Minnesota's immigrants are helping the economy there. Even if they are not documented, each one produces enough to provide one more job to legal residents. DP

by DENNIS GEISINGER

Pulsetc.com: Blanche Ndangha is a native of Cameroon. In 1992 she fled political violence that burned her mother’s house and forced her, while pregnant, to walk for days through the bush of her West African nation and board a flight that ultimately brought her to Minneapolis.

Blanche Ndangha is a native of Cameroon. In 1992 she fled political violence that burned her mother’s house and forced her, while pregnant, to walk for days through the bush of her West African nation and board a flight that ultimately brought her to Minneapolis.

Numbers given for undocumented immigrants in the state vary widely. In a 2003 report, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) estimated that Minnesota harbored 60,000 illegal immigrants at the turn of the century, but the Minnesota State Demographic Center says this number “seems very high,” does not think there are reliable data and has not produced its own estimate. A report prepared for a Hispanic advocacy group in 2000 counted “at least 18,000 and probably as many as 48,000” undocumented workers laboring within our borders. The Minnesota Department of Administration in 2005 cited “recent estimates” of between 80,000 to 85,000 illegals.

Similarly, research on the fiscal effects of immigrant populations has been driven and interpreted in different ways for different reasons. Witness last year’s positive “Economic Impact of Immigrants” by Minnesota’s Legislative Auditor and 2000’s highly favorable research done in part for the Humphrey Institute that concludes “every undocumented worker produces enough to provide at least one more job to a citizen or legal resident in Minnesota” and “without the work currently provided by undocumented labor, economic growth in Minnesota would be significantly reduced.”
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