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Today, Donald J. Trump announced a new crackdown on undocumented immigrants, aimed at intensifying what was already an aggressive deportation program under Trump's predecessor, former President Barack Obama.
With all the turmoil around who's here, and whether they get to stay, a new report from the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis is timely.
The report, which draws on figures compiled by Portland State University's Population Research Center, includes a chart that is a little bit surprising: the percentage of Oregon's population that is foreign-born has risen sharply in recent decades (not surprising) but is nowhere close to the levels reached in the 1800s.
Not suprisingly, Mexico is the source of the greatest number of foreign-born Oregonians:
But interestingly, the rate of immigration from Mexico to Oregon slowed dramatically in recent years:
The author of the report, senior economist Josh Lehner, offers an explanation for the slow-down.
"There are two reasons for this," Lehner writes. "One has to do with Mexican demographics and the falling birth rate a generation or so ago, resulting in fewer potential immigrants today. The second has to do with the economy. The Mexican economy has actually performed pretty well in the last decade, while the U.S. has not."
Finally, the report also includes a look at refugees, who are a very small slice of the state's population growth and nearly all settled in the metro area.
