PORTLAND, Maine — For their share of foreign-born residents, many of Maine’s rural counties are on par with the rest of the country. But urban centers are far behind in attracting immigrants to the state where the native population is dwindling.
Data released Thursday from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey show many of Maine’s mostly rural counties are above or near the average nationally for the share of foreign-born residents, a population economic development and business officials have said the state needs to attract in order to stem the tide of deaths outpacing births in the state.
Across the country, foreign-born residents make up about 2.9 percent of the population in mostly rural counties and 2.3 percent in completely rural counties. The rural or mostly rural areas of Maine are in line with those figures.
The state’s “mostly urban” counties of Cumberland and Androscoggin, however, are far behind the national average of about 14.8 percent. In Cumberland, where the share of foreign-born residents was highest, that figure was only 6.1 percent. In Androscoggin, it was 2.9 percent.
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The census bureau makes its determination of rural and urban areas based on detailed population density counts. Only Lincoln and Piscataquis counties are “completely rural.”
Androscoggin and Cumberland are “mostly urban,” and the rest of the state is “mostly rural.”
Aroostook County stood out among the state’s rural counties, with an estimated 4.6 percent of the population born on other continents, mostly from Asia and Europe. Maine’s westernmost rural counties had the lowest shares of foreign-born residents. Somerset and Piscataquis counties had a foreign-born population of about 1.6 percent, behind the national average.
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A recent Bangor Daily News series focused on the future of rural Maine communities explored the contributions of immigrants to those regions and what role immigrants might play in again revitalizing some of those areas.
Refugee resettlement programs in Canada’s Maritime provinces have brought newcomers to those communities, though studies have shown opposition to immigrants tends to be higher in rural areas than in urban ones.
At the same time, economic development and public officials in rural parts of the state have looked to migrants from other parts of the country and other parts of the world as one way to bolster populations in those communities, along with keeping young people around.