In Miami, a city of the Americas, immigration’s flow is vital

As we enter a year when birthplaces will be front and center in debates and threatened federal actions, it will be vital to base actions on facts rather than prejudices and rhetoric. 

Nowhere is reality more important than in Miami-Dade, because we are the epicenter of the foreign born. Census data released this month prove that more than 54% of us in this county were born in other nations and so will be top targets from Washington.

It’s no secret to anyone who spends time in Miami that we come from all over – all over the United States and all over the world. In New York, people ask what you do for a living. In Miami the first question is usually, where do you come from?

The census figures show patterns that are surprising and certainly relevant in these perilous times – perilous, at least, for many of our foreign born.

First, the big picture: as of last week, of the world’s 8.09 billion people, 337,576,064 are in the United States, whatever our citizenship status. And of those in this nation, 46,108,516 were born abroad: that’s more than 13.6% of us, or a bit more than one in seven of everyone in this nation.

But the foreign-born are not equally distributed. Some 26.7% of Californians – double the national average – were born abroad. After that come New Jersey at 23.5% foreign born, New York at 22.6% and then Florida at 21.4%. 

States are often differentiated internally and, as census data indicate, they show vast variances from place to place – at least in places of birth of those who live there. 

On the county level, Miami-Dade stands out, not just statewide but nationally. This county is the only one in the US where more than half of all people are born abroad. Our 54.3% foreign born is followed nationally by Queens County, NY, at 47.6%.

If anywhere is going to feel political wrath against the foreign-born, it’s here.

But where in the world a person is born seems more important than whether they merely are foreign born. President-elect Trump has expressed an affinity for Scandinavian immigrants as opposed to those who come from Caribbean nations. So, what are our own local immigration patterns?

First and foremost, we are from the Americas. While you can hear any language at all spoken on Miami’s streets and beaches, the fact is that more than half of everyone in this county – 50.63%, according to the census – were born in other nations of the Americas. Again, that is top in the US. In second place is a Texas county with 36.64% born in other nations of the Americas. Broward County is fifth nationally at 30.11%. 

Statewide in Florida, however, the percentage of persons born elsewhere in the Americas falls to 16.7%.

But population differences are themselves in constant flux. The census report shows marked and significant changes in the past decade not just in total foreign born but in trends based on individual countries.

If you’ve spent more than 5 minutes in Miami-Dade you know the impact of residents who were born in Cuba. And if you’ve been here several decades you know the common “wisdom” was that the Cuban influx was ebbing and their places were being taken by growing numbers of other people from the Americas – many from far-larger nations – who would soon surpass the Cuban population. Up to now, at least, census data proves that “wisdom” wrong.

First, persons born in Cuba swelled markedly in the past decade, with 173,858 more Cuban-born Floridians added and 52,543 more in Miami-Dade alone (Broward added 15,994 and Palm Beach 9,903). The “ebbing” has actually been a gain.

To put the increase of Cuban-born in perspective, the statewide gain from Cuba is about the same as the state’s total gain of foreign-born persons from all of Europe and Asia combined. We truly are a state of the Americas.

The effect intensifies in Miami-Dade, where the influx of Cuban-born persons was more than four times – four times – the total increase in residents born in Europe, Asia and Africa combined. While we proudly welcome people from around the globe, Miami is Americas to the core.

But even within the Americas, the influx to Miami-Dade has been shifting.

The census tallies population shifts from 31 nations of the Americas (data from St. Lucia was not available) and of those 31 nations, Miami-Dade actually lost residents from 16 nations in the decade. So while we are certainly a community of the Americas, there are vast variances.

The changes are far from uniform statewide. While Miami-Dade was losing residents born in 16 nations of the Americas, Florida as a whole actually added persons from 13 of the 16. Only from the Bahamas, Dominica and the West Indies did both the state and the county both record losses.

Jamaicans offered one of the biggest contrasts. Miami-Dade recorded a loss of 5,063 persons born in Jamaica over the decade while Florida overall added 32,921.

An even more surprising gap was in the influx from Haiti. As Florida added 70,955 Haitian-born residents in a decade, Miami actually lost 2,030 Haitian-born persons.

Other surprising Miami-Dade losses were 3,288 fewer people born in Nicaragua while the state was adding 5,923, and 4,851 fewer people born in Canada while the state was adding 2,108 – including 1,973 more Canadians in Palm Beach County alone. The winter beachfronts in North Miami-Dade that once abounded with waving Canadian flags have become a fading memory.

Other nations of the Americas from which the number of residents in Miami-Dade fell include Costa Rica (down 969 persons), Belize (down 649), the Dominican Republic (398), Trinidad and Tobago (1,571), Barbados (131), Grenada (218), Peru (1,597 while the state was gaining 13,260), Guyana (382), and Uruguay (755).

These figures are far from merely academic. They show flows of workers, of investors, of residents and of business. Without these flows of immigrants both the state and the county would be far poorer – and Miami-Dade’s population would be shrinking. 

While some in Washington see our immigration as an issue, to Miamians it is a vital economic infusion worthy of careful examination rather than heedless condemnation.