At a recent Bucksport town hall meeting, Gov. Paul LePage drew applause with a story about a woman who allegedly “comes over” to Maine when she is 6½ months pregnant, immediately “gets on the dole,” stays until she gives birth, and days later, “gets on a plane and goes back” to her country. He said she has done this three times, and he wants welfare reform before she comes back to have her fourth child. He did not provide the story’s source, and the details seem quite improbable.
As an immigration lawyer with 30 years of experience, I know that a person who flies to the U.S. for a few months at a time typically does so as a visitor, a visa status only available to those considered to have a good financial position. It would be extremely unlikely that a woman sufficiently well off to qualify for a visitor visa and to pay for multiple international flights would apply for and receive benefits. But even were the governor’s scenario somehow true, it is not representative of immigrants in Maine.
I am struck by LePage’s efforts to paint negative portraits of Maine’s immigrants, and by the vast gulf between his depictions and the reality of the innumerable immigrants that I have known over the decades. For example, at the Bucksport meeting, the governor repeated his erroneous refrain that asylum seekers, whom federal law allows to seek protection from persecution and who are unquestionably here legally while their cases are pending, are “illegal,” a clearly unfavorable characterization. The governor also seems bent on convincing the public that immigrants are a drain on our state. To the contrary, immigrants are essential to our economy, while also making Maine more socially, culturally and politically vibrant.
Census data show that Maine is the nation’s “oldest” state, with a rapidly shrinking workforce as our baby boomers age and retire. Demographic data also reveal that there are more deaths than births in Maine, with the clear result that we are not “birthing” our way out of our growing labor shortfall.
Maine needs more workers, including the immigrants and refugees who settle here. Immigrating is hard. Without even considering the many legal and bureaucratic hurdles, simply the process of leaving everything familiar behind — one’s home, family, friends, language, culture, climate and food, to name only a few — takes Herculean resolve. The same drive, determination and energy needed for the enormous undertaking of immigrating also makes immigrants productive workers. Just ask Maine’s many employers that have come to depend on them. Immigrants are working hard throughout the state, in jobs ranging from backbreaking or manual labor (harvesting broccoli, thinning pine tree seedlings, processing seafood, janitorial work) to STEM positions (as doctors, engineers, scientists, researchers and academics) and everything in between.
The children of Maine’s immigrants often do well in school and go on to complete college and even graduate school, with a high percentage of them remaining in Maine to stay close to their families. Many of my former clients’ children whom I met when they were in elementary school are now adults. They are working in Maine not only as cooks, store clerks, technicians and office workers but also as interpreters, lawyers, teachers, doctors and engineers. Maine will receive decades of tax payments from these children of immigrants, in addition to their contributions as active members of their communities and as role models inspiring other children of immigrants to achieve.
Occasionally some immigrants do need a helping hand. For example, federal law, while barring most newly arrived immigrants from receiving public benefits, recognizes that refugees and asylees, who typically come here with almost nothing after being forced to leave their countries precipitously, need initial support to rebuild their lives from scratch. But the investment of our federal tax dollars in the limited public benefits they receive yields an exponential rate of return as they too, like all other immigrants, go on to diversify and enrich our communities and to stimulate Maine’s economy as consumers, taxpayers and entrepreneurs.
LePage’s Bucksport story, if true, is an exception. The norm is the thousands of immigrants of all nationalities, races and religions whom I have known over the years who are quietly working and making enormously positive contributions to Maine’s economy and social fabric. It would be lovely to hear the governor start sharing these positive stories, so that “old Maine” will not fear, but instead welcome, immigrants and the contributions they make to our state. But until he does, others must speak out to set the record straight.
Beth Stickney is co-founder of the Portland-based Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, which she directed until 2011. She is an attorney admitted in Massachusetts whose Maine practice is limited to immigration and nationality matters.