A new state report details the economic contributions of Maine’s immigrant workers, as a growing number of those workers are swept up in President Donald Trump’s mass deportation push.
The report, from the Maine Office of New Americans, finds that foreign-born workers generated more than $177 million in state income tax revenue between 2020 and 2024, while generating about $2.25 billion in personal income.
Office Director Julia Trujillo Luengo said the state’s immigrant population also has a higher labor force participation rate than the state as a whole: 70% compared with 60%.
“Our immigrant workforce, the great majority of them, are working, sometimes in greater numbers than even our U.S.-born population,” she said, adding that that’s in part because immigrant communities here are on average younger than the overall state population.
The report also finds the economic activity supported by those workers and their purchasing power helped sustain some 74,000 jobs statewide.
But Trujillo Luengo said testimony from employers underscores the negative effects of constantly changing federal enforcement and regulatory efforts.
“The fear that not only workers are feeling but employers are feeling, the lack of predictability,” she said.
Trujillo Luengo hopes the report can provide a baseline understanding of the state’s immigrant workforce as her office works with policymakers to try to make up for a lack of predictability from the federal government.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.