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Minnesota

Immigration-driven population growth is taking a toll on Minnesota, the fastest growing state in the upper Midwest. In the last ten years, more than one-quarter of the state's new residents were immigrants. In fact, Minnesota's immigrant population more than doubled during the 1990's.

Minnesota : General Data

STATE POPULATION

Using the Current Population Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in July 2008 Minnesota’s population had increased to 5,220,393 residents, i.e., an annual average increase of about 36,255 residents since 2000. That is a rate of increase of about 0.7 percent per year.

NET INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION (NIM)

Based on the Current Population Survey, the Census Bureau estimated that between the 2000 Census and July 2008 the state’s population increased by about 90,110 residents from net international migration (more foreign-born arriving than leaving). That was an annual average increase of about 10,855 residents, i.e., nearly three-tenths (29.9%) of the total increase (not including the children born to the immigrants after their arrival in the United States).

Minnesota's population registered an increase of 7.3 percent between 1980 and 1990 (from 4,075,970 to 4,375,099 residents).

The 2000 Census found 4,919,479 persons resident in Minnesota. This was an increase of 544,380 persons above the 1990 Census (12.4%). The amount of increase was the 17th highest in the country. The rate of increase was the 21st fastest increasing population in the country.

The 2000 population is about 90,000 more persons than the Census Bureau had expected to find in the state in 2000 when it issued its most recent state population projections in 1996. The significance of this is that the Census Bureau has concluded that much of the shortfall in their population estimates during the 1990s was due to an underestimation of the illegal alien population

FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION

Based on the American Community Survey (ACS), the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the foreign-born population of Minnesota was 334,009 persons in 2006. The ACS is a large-scale, continuous sampling process designed to replace the need for a long-form in the 2010 Census. However, because the ACS does not have the same follow-up procedures as the Census to include non-respondents, it may underestimate the foreign-born population.

FAIR estimates that the foreign-born population of Minnesota was about 358,525 residents in July 2008. This meant a foreign-born population share of 6.9 percent. The amount of change since the 2000 Census indicates an average annual rate of increase in the foreign-born population of about 11,815 people, which is nearly one-third (32.6%) of the state’s annual average population increase. Since 2000, the foreign-born population has increased by 37.6 percent compared to a 4.4 percent increase in the native-born population.

Immigration also contributes to population growth through the children born to immigrants in this country. Nationally the share of births to the foreign-born is about double their share of the population. A 13.8 percent share of the state’s current births is large enough to account for about 9,620 births a year. Combining the increase in the foreign-born population and estimated immigrant births suggests that immigration may account for about 21,435 persons added to the state’s population annually, i.e., nearly two-thirds (59.1%) of the state’s overall population increase.

An indicator of the change in the immigrant population may be seen in data on the share of the population that speaks a language other than English at home. Between 1990 and 2000 the share of non-English speakers at home in Minnesota increased more than half, from 5.6 percent to 8.7 percent. Less than half (43%) of those who said they spoke a language other than English at home in 2000 also said they spoke English less than very well.

The Census Bureau's American Community Survey found that in 2006, the foreign born population was 339,236 residents, illustrating a change of 30.2% percent since 2000. In comparison, the foreign-born population changed from 113,039 to 260,463 residents between 1990 and 2000, a difference of 130.4 percent.

The ten countries below constituted more than half (54.2%) of the foreign-born population in Minnesota in 2006. Mexico and India accounted for almost a quarter (22.3) alone, compared with only about six perecent (5.7%) in 1990.

THE IMMIGRANT STOCK

The Census Bureau estimated that there were about 500,000 people in Minnesota in 2000 who were "immigrant stock." That is a term that refers to immigrants and their children born here after their arrival. Based on that estimate, and the population of 4,919,479, the immigrant stock share of the state's population was 10.2 percent.

As the graph below shows, the amount and share of Minnesota’s population change due to the increase in the foreign stock is rising rapidly. Over the past 34 years the new immigrants and children born to them have added about 363,000 people to the population. Over this period, the increase in the foreign stock has accounted for 28.2 percent of the state’s population increase.

NATURALIZATION

Data from the 2006 American Community Survey indicate that 148,080 residents, or 43.7 percent, of the foreign-born population in Minnesota were citizens, compared to 97,308 residents, or 37.4 percent, in 2000.

Nationally, 40.3 percent of the foreign-born population was citizens in 2000, and 42.0 percent in 2006

Minnesota has received 31,428 refugees over the most recent ten fiscal years (FY'97-'06) including 4,573 persons in FY’06.

Under the Office of Refugee Resettlement's (HHS/ORR) assistance funding for FY'02 $3,430,064 is available for refugee employment training and other services programs in Minnesota based on a three-year refugee settlement program covering 13,667 refugees (an average of $251 per refugee). This allocation does not include a larger share (55%) of funding programs for communities heavily affected by recent Cuban and Haitian entrants, communities with refugees whose cultural differences make assimilation especially difficult, communities impacted by federal welfare reform changes, educational support to schools with significant refugee students, and discretionary grants. ORR grants for FY’05 and FY’06 respectively were $17,234,242 and $21,620,721.

SOCIAL ISSUES

Minnesota is experiencing a sharp jump in new HIV infections after a five-year period of declining rates. This has public health authorities concerned and looking for an explanation. Part of the reason appears to be an increase of the disease among African-born immigrants. In the past, African immigrant HIV data were lumped together with data for all blacks. This apparently exaggerated the infection rates in the black community.

The newly separated data show that among HIV-positive persons from Africa there was a 61 percent increase in new infections last year, from 28 to 45, with women infected in higher numbers than men. One possible contributing factor to the rise in infections is that Minneapolis is one of six U.S. urban centers for HIV-positive African refugees, although those cases (49 since 2000) are not included with the data on new infections.

According to Dr. Keith Henry, an AIDS researcher at the Hennepin County Medical Center, African immigrants who are HIV positive are getting through the State Department s medical screening process for immigrant applicants. He noted that the virus that immigrants carry is a different strain than the one commonly found in the United States, and that it is not accurately detected using the commonly available blood tests.

The executive director of the Confederation of Somali Communities in Minnesota, Saeed Fahia, says he is concerned about outreach and education programs among the immigrants, because AIDS is never discussed, and no one would come to a meeting to learn about the infection or about safe-sex practices.
(Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 16, 2002)

A disproportionate amount of the public subsidized housing in St. Paul is occupied by immigrants. According to a former mayor of St. Paul, 85 percent of that city's public housing is occupied by immigrants.
(Source: Fresh Blood, by Sanford Ungar)

Due to immigration, the number of births in Minnesota increased in the 1990s, despite predictions it would fall. Minnesota Planning, a state agency, announced recently that births in the state increased each year between 1995 and 1998. The number of births grew from 63,259 in 1995 to 65,207 in 1998. The fertility rate (the number of births per 1000 women aged 15 to 44) went up from 60.4 to 61.8. Commenting on the new figures, state demographer Tom Gillaspy said that immigration played a factor in the increase. The share of all births in Minnesota to mothers born outside the U.S. went from 5.4 percent in 1990 to 10.7 percent in 1998. Mothers born in Mexico had 1,487 of Minnesota s births in 1998, up from 779 in 1985.

Minnesota Legal Assistance (MLA), an organization that offers court representation to immigrants, is suing the state of Minnesota for not providing welfare applications in languages other than English. MLA asserts that its clients are disadvantaged because their lack of English hinders their ability to fill out the existing welfare applications forms.
(Source: Associated Press, June, 2000)

LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY STUDENTS

Data are not available nationally on immigrant students (either legally or illegally resident in the United States) who are enrolled in primary and secondary schools (K-12). However, many of these students are enrolled in Limited English Proficiency/English Language Learning (LEP/ELL) instruction programs. Many may be U.S.-born, but the majority of these students may be assumed to be either immigrants or the children of immigrants, with the exception being areas with native Americans who speak a native language other than English.

In Minnesota, overall enrollment in 2004(838,503) was 6.5 percent below enrollment in 1995. By contrast, LEP enrollment was 161 percent higher than a decade earlier.

Data on enrollment in LEP/ELL programs are collected by the federal government from school systems that receive Title VII funds for these special instruction programs. The data on LEP/ELL enrollment are understated because data from private schools that do not apply for Title VII assistance are sketchy.

FOREIGN STUDENTS

The 2006/07 annual report of the Institute of International Education (IIE) lists the number of foreign students attending post-secondary school in Minnesota as 9,048. Two schools in Minnesota are listed as having a major concentration of these students:

• University of Minnesota- Twin Cities had enrollment of 3,701 foreign students, 7.3% of total enrollment.
• St. Cloud St. University had enrollment of 1,084 foreign students, 6.7% of total enrollment

Below, a chart illustrates the sharp increase of foreign students attending school in Minnesota from 1960-2000.

For information on foreign student issues see: Foreign Students in the United States.

ILLEGAL ALIENS

FAIR Estimate - FAIR estimates the state’s illegal alien population as of 2008 is as many as 125,000 persons. This is part of an overall estimate of the U.S. illegal alien population of about 13 million persons.

INS/DHS Estimate - The INS (now dissolved into the Dept. of Homeland Security) estimated in February 2003 that the resident illegal population in Minnesota was 60,000 as of January 2000. This number nealy 53,000 higher than the INS' 1996 estimate.

Other Estimates - The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the illegal alien population of the state at 75,000 to 100,000 as of 2005.

COSTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS

Incarceration Costs - Minnesota has received partial compensation under the federal State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) that was established in 1994 to compensate the states and local jurisdictions for incarceration of "undocumented," aliens who are serving time for a felony conviction or at least two misdemeanors.

The recent SCAAP amounts that Minnesota has received were:

The amount of SCAAP awards has been declining in both total distributions and even more as a share of the state’s expenses. In FY’99 the state received 38.6% of its costs for 157 prisoner years of detention. By FY’02, the state’s reported illegal alien detention more than doubled to 365 prisoner years, while compensation decreased by 20 percent and then fell further.

Medical Costs - Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, hospitals with emergency rooms are required to treat and stabilize patients with emergency medical needs regardless whether or not they are in the country legally or whether they are able to pay for the treatment. Congress in 2003 enacted an appropriation of $250 million per year (for 4 years) to help offset some of the costs due to use of this service by illegal aliens. This amount has been allocated among the states based upon estimates of the illegal alien population and data on the apprehension of illegal aliens in each state. This amount compensates only a fraction of the medical outlays. For Minnesota, the proposed payment in fiscal year 2004 is $1,430,815.

Educational Costs - In our study Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools into the Red, we estimated based on 2004 data that educational expenditures for illegal immigration were costing the Minnesota taxpayer $276.6 million dollars annually. This cost was partially for educating students who were themselves illegally in the country ($115.2 million) and in part for the education of their siblings born in the United States to illegal residents ($161.3 million).

Projected Fiscal Costs - In 2006 we estimated that Minnesota taxpayers are currently burdened with annual costs of about $345 million because of illegal aliens residing in the state. That estimate was based on only expenditures for education, emergency medical care and incarceration. We projected that those costs will rise unless we gain control over our borders and our worksites. If a new amnesty and increases in immigrants and guest workers were enacted, as proposed by business and ethnic advocacy groups, we project that the cost to the state’s taxpayers for those same programs would rise to $589 million per year in 2010 and to $1.023 billion per year in 2020.

LOCAL ORGANIZATIONS

You can view a listing of local immigration reform groups here.

STATE CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION VOTING RECORD

You can view the voting record of your representatives in Congress regarding immigration issues in our voting report section.

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Minnesota : Immigrant Admissions

Recent immigrant admissions have slightly increased by 622 percent since adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. During the 1965-'69 period, annual admissions averaged about 1,865 immigrants. During the 2002-'06 period, admissions averaged about 13,470 immigrants.

The charts below show recent immigrant admissions and the cumulative immigrant admissions data since 1965. The number of annual admissions has ranged from 1,613 in FY'66 to 18,254 in FY'06. The cumulative total of admissions to Minnesota between fiscal years 1965 and 2002 was about 257,965 immigrants.

The data for fiscal years 1989-91 were artificially raised by the inclusion of former illegal aliens who were amnestied in 1986. According to INS data (1991) the number of amnesty applicants from Minnesota was 2,101 (1,246 pre-1982 residents and 855 agricultural workers).

The data for FY'95 and FY'97-'99 were artificially low because the INS did not issue green cards to all the eligible applicants for adjustment of status who were already in the United States. In those four years, new immigration could have registered as much as 30 percent higher, if the INS had kept up with its workload.

Beginning with FY'01, the INS began to increase admissions as a result of reducing the size of the backlog of Section 245(i) adjustment of status cases, i.e., amnesty, for illegal aliens.

INS DATA BY NATIONALITY: FY'93 - FY'02

The INS data below are furnished for nationals of the countries with the largest number of immigrants admitted or adjusted to legal residence each year since 1993. The absence of data means that the total number of admissions to the United States by nationals of that country was not enough to merit detailed reporting in that year.

The nationalities may change each year, so the totals in some cases will not reflect all the immigrants of that nationality who have become legal immigrants in Wyoming during this period.

The Department of Homeland Security website has detailed data on immigrant admissions since FY’03 by year and by country. (See http://www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/data/dslpr.shtm).

The 31 nationalities above represent more than half (56.7%) of all immigrant settlement and adjustment in Minnesota during this ten-year period. The former Soviet Union was the major supplier of new immigrants, accounting for nine percent of the total admissions during the period. When those immigrants are added to those from Vietnam, China, Mexico, and India, they account for over one-third (33.4%) of all admissions.

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Minnesota : Immigration Impact

All numbers are from the U.S. Census Bureau unless otherwise noted.

Additional Census Bureau, INS, and other immigration-related data are available for Minnesota.

Population Change

Minnesota’s population increased by 12.8 percent between 1990 and 2000, and by 4.71 percent between 2000 and 2006, bringing Minnesota’s total population to approximately 5.2 million.

Approximately 40.6 percent of the total population increase between 2000 and 2006 in Minnesota was directly attributable to immigrants.

FAIR estimates the illegal alien population in 2005 at 123,000, which ranks seventeenth in the U.S. for the FAIR estimate. This number is 105% above the U.S. government estimate of 60,000 in 2000, and 846% above the 1990 estimate of 13,000.

According to an estimate of the Pew Hispanic Center, in 2005 there were an estimated 75,000 to 100,000 illegal aliens living in Minnesota..²

FAIR estimates in 2004 that the taxpayers of Minnesota spent $276.6 million per year on illegal aliens and their children in public schools.³

Population Profile

Immigration-driven population growth is taking a toll on Minnesota, the fastest growing state in the upper Midwest. In the last ten years, more than one-quarter of the state’s new residents were immigrants. In fact, Minnesota’s immigrant population more than doubled during the 1990s.

The increase in the foreign-born population during the 1990s accounted for 27 percent of the state’s overall population increase during the decade.

Foreign-Born Population

Minnesota’s foreign-born population increased by 36.3 percent between 2000 and 2006. During that period Minnesota gained over 94,000 immigrants, bringing the total number of foreign-born residents in the state to over 355,000.

Environmental and Quality of Life Profile

Water: Between 2000 and 2006, Minnesota’s foreign-born population increased by 30.2 percent.⁴ That compares with a 3.6 percent increase in the native-born population and that includes the children born to immigrants. When the U.S-born children of immigrants are included, immigration accounts for 54 percent of the state’s overall growth during that time.⁵ By 2050 the state’s population is expected to rise from 5.2 million in 2006 to 7.3 million.⁶ Minnesota has a daily, per-capita water demand of 101.6 gallons.⁷ This means that by 2050 public water usage will have increased by 213.4 million gallons each day.

Traffic: As population growth put more traffic on the roads, the average commute for Minnesota residents increased 15 percent during the 1990s, from 19 minutes in 1990 to 22 minutes in 2000. ⁸,⁹, and to 22.2 in 2005. ¹⁰ 69% of Minnesota's major urban roads are congested and 25% of Minnesota's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. Vehicle travel on Minnesota's highways increased 42% from 1990 to 2003. Driving on roads in need of repair costs Minnesota motorists $690 million a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs --- $227 per motorist. Congestion in the Minneapolis - St. Paul metropolitan area costs commuters $740 per person per year in excess fuel and lost time. ¹¹

Travelers in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area experienced an annual delay of 43 hours in 2003. ¹² 11 percent of commuters in Minnesota have a commute that is 45 minutes or more. ¹³

The worsening of traffic congestion in Twin Cities area over the last decade ranks second only to Atlanta. A survey showed that 81 percent of Twin Cities-area residents believe congestion is getting worse. “We feel population growth on the roads at rush hour,” says Tom Gillaspy, the state demographer, “just as we see it when we see farm fields going to housing.” ¹⁴

Sprawl: While throughout much of the 20th century, Minnesotans moved from rural areas to cities, the 21st century seems to be reversing the pattern. More and more Minnesotans are moving to the countryside that encircles the Twin Cities, devouring open space and creating suburban sprawl. In rural McLeod and Rice counties, new housing units rose from 25,000 in the 1980s to 40,000 in the 1990s.¹⁵

Much of the land being lost is Minnesota’s best farmland. Every year, Minnesota loses an average of 40,000 acres of prime farmland per year to development and suburban sprawl.¹⁶

Disappearing Open Space: A study of urban sprawl between 1970 and 1990 that calculated the impact of population increase and per capita land use found that 341.6 square miles of additional land were consumed by urban sprawl in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, and 51.3 percent of that sprawl was attributable to population increase. ¹⁷

Health Care: Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis is also seeing the impact of newcomers. “It’s changed the demographics of the population we see,” said administrator Jeff Spartz. Of the 400,000 patients served last year, 102,000 required interpreters. That represented a 25 percent increase in such services over 1999, Spartz said.” ¹⁸

Minnesota hospitals are struggling to pay for the basic health care of the swelling immigrant population, many of whom lack health insurance. “The end result is pressure on our hospitals and pressure on property taxpayers,” Hennepin County Commissioner Peter McLaughlin says. McLaughlin and Ramsey County Commissioner Sue Haigh are say that the cost of medical care for uninsured immigrants is too high for local government without federal help and have called on the federal government to shift the financial burden away from local hospitals.¹⁹

Crowded Housing: In 2005, over 24,000 Minnesota households are defined as crowded or severely crowded by housing authorities. ²⁰ Studies show that a rise in crowded housing often correlates with an increase in the number of foreign-born.²¹,²²

Affordable Housing: Thousands of residents in the Twin Cities are struggling to find and keep affordable housing in a market so tight that only 1.5 percent of rental units are open at any one time. More than one-third of Twin Cities renters cannot afford a two-bedroom apartment.²³

Housing officials say that while the problem is not limited to the metropolitan area, it’s especially severe in the Twin Cities area, which is short 30,000 to 40,000 affordable housing units.²⁴ A Metropolitan Council demographer says there’s a gap of 75,000 between the number of new housing units the metro area’s cities are planning to allow and what will be needed over the next three decades.²⁵

Air Pollution: Levels of ground-level ozone, the primary ingredient in smog, are increasing in the Twin Cities and are likely to get even worse as population and traffic increase.²⁶

Poverty: While poverty is dropping in Minnesota, it’s rising among the state’s immigrants. 18.5 percent of immigrants have incomes below the federal threshold in 2005, an increase of 14.3 percent since 2000. Among non-citizens the poverty rate climbs to 22.8 percent. ²⁷

Solid Waste: Minnesota generates 1 ton of solid waste per capita. ²⁸

Schools: Between 1990 and 2000, Minnesota’s elementary and high school enrollment increased by 20 percent ²⁹, and enrollment is projected to grow by an additional 26,000 students by 2015. ³⁰

Illegal Residents

“The number of illegal aliens in the state of Minnesota has increased substantially over a disconcertingly short period of time,” wrote INS district director Curtis Aljets in a letter to Sen. Rod Grams. “This increase has the net effect of (1) keeping the wage rate below that considered by some to be a ‘living wage,’ (2) extensively burdening the state infrastructure (i.e., schools, medical care, law enforcement), and (3) contributing to unsafe working conditions.”

“Minnesota is the exception to most other states in the nation by opting to not participate in the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program; this leaves the state vulnerable to the use of counterfeit documents used by illegal aliens to obtain welfare benefits, as well as employment,” noted Aljets. “Recently arrested aliens indicate during interview that they entered the United States destined for Minnesota for these economic reasons.”

Endnotes:

1. FAIR estimate based on the 2006 Current Population Survey.
2. "Estimates of the Unauthorized Migrant Population for States based on the March 2005 CPS", Pew Hispanic Center.
3. Martin, Jack. “Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools into the Red,” A Report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
4. U.S. Census Bureau 2006.
5. Jack Martin. “Issue Brief: Estimation of Foreign Born Birthrate.” FAIR. 2008.
6. Jack Martin and Stanley Fogel. “Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050.” FAIR. March 2006.
7. U.S. Geological Survey 2000.
8. “Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000,” Census 2000, U.S. Census Bureau.
9. “Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 1990,” 1990 Census, U.S. Census Bureau.
10. Selected Economic Characteristics: 2005 Data Set- 2005 American Community Survey, American Fact Finder, U.S. Census Bureau.
11. Report Card for America's Infrastructure 2005," American Society of Civil Engineers.
12. "The 2005 Urban Mobility Report", Texas Transportation Institute
13. “U.S. Population 2007 Data Sheet,” Population Reference Bureau.
14. David Peterson and Greg Gordon, “Good Times, With Growing Pains,” Star Tribune, December 31, 2000.
15. David Peterson, “Outward Bound,” Star Tribune, November 24, 2001.
16. “Senate Approach Would Speed Payments to Minnesota Farmers for Farmland Conservation,” Environmental Working Group.
17. Beck, Roy and Leon Kolankiewicz, “Weighing Sprawl Factors in Large U.S. Cities,” NumbersUSA, March 2001.
18. Duchesne Paul Drew, “From Many Lands to Minnesota,” Star Tribune, January 23, 2001.
19. Shira Kantor, “Twin Cities Urge U.S. Aid for Immigrant Medical Costs,” Star Tribune, June 13, 2002.
20. Selected Housing Characteristics: 2005 Data Set- 2005 American Community Survey, American Fact Finder, U.S. Census Bureau.
21. Haya El Nasser, “U.S. Neighborhoods Grow More Crowded,” USA Today, July 7, 2002.
22. Randy Capps, “Hardship Among Children of Immigrants: Findings from the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families,” Urban Institute, 2001.
23. Kristin Gustafson, “Lack of Affordable Housing Takes a Toll on St. Paul, Minn—Area Middle Class,” St.Paul Pioneer Press, December 27, 2000.
24. Ibid.
25. David Peterson, op. cit.
26. Dennis Lien, “Ground-Level Ozone Worsens in St. Paul, Minn., Area,” St. Paul Pioneer Press, November 1, 2002
27. “Minnesota State Factsheet,” Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute.
28. Report Card for America's Infrastructure 2005," American Society of Civil Engineers.
29. Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 1990 and 2000, Census 2000, U.S. Census Bureau.
30. Projections of Education Statistics to 2015, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education.

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