Immigration in Maine

Workforce Shortage

An economy cannot function without its people. The pandemic made that clear, and Maine’s demographics make it urgent. As the Baby Boom generation ages out of the workforce, too few younger Mainers are entering it to take their place.State projections show Maine’s total population growing about 2.6% between 2020 and 2030, even as its prime working-age population (ages 20–64) shrinks by an estimated 5.3% over the same decade [1]. In recent years, Maine’s growth has come from net migration: in 2021 the state added more than 13,000 residents despite a natural population decrease of 4,520 [1].

The longer-term picture is sharper. Over the next two decades, roughly 411,000 workers are expected to leave Maine’s labor force, while only about 302,000 are projected to replace them, a gap of 109,000 workers [2]. Employers across the state already report difficulty filling openings [3][4].

Maine’s foreign-born population has grown, but it is still small. An estimated 56,724 Mainers were born abroad in 2020–2024, about 4.1% of the state’s population, up from 3.5% a decade earlier [7]. Nationally, the foreign-born share is 13.6% [5].

The Maine MultiCultural Center believes that welcoming New Mainers, particularly to the greater Bangor area, is one of the most effective ways to address this shortage. When MMCC and other organizations pair integration services with community outreach and public education, we make it more likely that the people who choose Maine will choose to stay.

Economic Benefits

Immigrants strengthen Maine’s economy by settling where workers are most needed, launching businesses, expanding the market for local goods and services, and becoming part of the community [6]. A new state report puts numbers to that contribution.

The 2026 Office of New Americans report

In September 2026, Wallace Economic Advisers, a Maine-based research firm, submitted a report to Governor Janet Mills commissioned by the Maine Office of New Americans. It draws on U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data from 2010–2024 and the REMI PI+ statewide economic model [7].

Who Maine’s immigrants are

• 56,724 foreign-born residents (2020–2024), or 4.1% of the population, up from 3.5% a decade earlier.
• 52.2% are naturalized U.S. citizens and 47.8% are noncitizens, a category that includes lawful permanent residents, visa holders, asylum seekers, and undocumented immigrants.
• Immigrants are more likely to be working or looking for work: labor force participation is 70.2% for noncitizens versus 61.5% for the U.S.-born, reflecting a younger, more working-age population.

Direct contribution

An estimated 33,079 foreign-born workers, 4.8% of employment across the industries studied, generated about $2.25 billion in personal income and $177 million in state tax revenue (2020–2024).

Ripple effects

Counting the spending of suppliers and households, the report’s economic modeling estimates that immigrant employment helps sustain:

• about 73,780 jobs statewide
• $3.7 billion in wages and salaries
• about $8.4 billion in state GDP
• about $15 billion in total economic output

Foreign-born workers are especially concentrated in personal services, manufacturing, business and repair services, transportation and utilities, health care, and social services.

What’s at Stake

The same report models what could happen to Maine’s economy under different intensities of federal immigration enforcement. Each scenario combines direct workforce removals with a “deterrence” effect, in which workers withdraw from the labor force out of fear even if they are never personally detained [7].

Health care and manufacturing have the largest absolute workforce exposure, followed closely by construction and accommodation and food services. Agriculture involves fewer workers in absolute terms but is especially vulnerable because its work is seasonal and time-sensitive.

The report includes firsthand accounts gathered by the Office of New Americans. A wild blueberry grower sought 50 rakers for the 2026 harvest and received only 25, compared with 60 the year before. A Southern Maine construction firm reported project delays because legally authorized workers were “afraid to travel to and from jobsites.” Food-service workers described months of disrupted routines and children too frightened to attend school.

How to read these numbers. The scenarios are illustrative exposure ranges, not predictions. The removal and deterrence rates are assumptions informed by national enforcement research, because Maine-specific enforcement data is not yet publicly available. Census survey data cannot identify documentation status, so the “noncitizen” figures do not estimate the undocumented population. Enforcement is also likely to be concentrated in particular communities, so statewide averages may understate local effects. The report is limited to economic and workforce effects and takes no position on immigration enforcement policy.

Debunking Myths

Myth: Immigrants are a drain on state, local, and federal economies
Fact: Immigration strengthens long-run economic growth, and immigrants’ children are among the strongest fiscal contributors.

A 2017 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found that immigration has an overall positive impact on long-run economic growth in the U.S. [8] It also found that second-generation Americans are among the nation’s strongest fiscal and economic contributors, at about $1,700 per person per year, compared with about $1,300 for all other native-born Americans, including the third generation and beyond. In Maine, the 2026 report estimates that immigrant workers generated $177 million in state tax revenue [7].

Myth: Immigrants take jobs away from American born workers
Fact: Immigrant workers often take jobs that boost other parts of the economy

Immigrants make up roughly 17% of the U.S. labor force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, yet most economists find little evidence that they come at the expense of American jobs or wages. UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri is among those who have made this point. The reason is that immigrants often fill roles Americans are less likely to take. Research from New American Economy found that immigrants are 15% more likely than comparable U.S.-born workers to work unusual hours, and American Community Survey data show they are more likely to hold physically dangerous jobs. In Maine, the 2026 report estimates that immigrant employment helps sustain about 73,780 jobs statewide [7].

Myth: Immigration will lead to overpopulation
Fact: Immigrants help offset a falling birth rate.

The U.S. birth rate has fallen well below the 2.1 births per woman that demographers consider necessary to replace a population, down from 3.65 in 1960, according to the World Bank. The Pew Research Center has found that without immigrants, the U.S. workforce would be shrinking. In Maine, where the working-age population is projected to decline, that is already the case.

Myth: Birthright citizenship is a drain on the American economy
Fact: Children who are citizens have more economic opportunity and rely less on public assistance.

Research suggests that repealing birthright citizenship could harm the U.S. economy. A Migration Policy Institute analysis estimates that the unauthorized immigrant population would grow from 11 million to 16 million by 2050 if it were repealed. As Randy Capps, the institute’s director of research for U.S. programs, put it: “Over the course of decades, you’d end up with a growing population that is cut off from the rest of society because they live in fear of deportation and they can’t get jobs.”

Myth: Immigration leads to increased crime rates and unsafe communities
Fact: Immigration does not increase crime rates.

Immigrants are considerably less likely than the U.S.-born to commit crimes or be incarcerated, and recent immigrants are far less likely to be institutionalized at every age. Researchers point to screening and self-selection: the people who come to the United States tend to be advantaged relative to their counterparts at home and less inclined toward crime (Abramitzky and Boustan 2017; Butcher and Piehl 2007). A study in the journal Criminology by Michael Light and Ty Miller, covering 1990–2014, found that increases in a state’s undocumented immigrant population were associated with decreases in violent crime.

References:

Our Impact