How long would the United States grow without immigration? In many places, many



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While the US is debating adequate levels of immigration – and if, as President Trump has suggested, there is still plenty of room for this – new census data show that international migration maintain population growth out of water in much of the country.

Although international migration declined in 2017 and 2018, it accounted for almost half of the overall US population growth in 2018, as a result of the declining birth rate and rising mortality.

International migration has helped rural countries to record their second consecutive year of growth, according to local population estimates for 2018 published by the Census Bureau on Thursday. And immigrants have strengthened urban counties that have lost residents to more affordable areas. Despite this, the three largest metropolitan areas of America – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – have all declined slightly.

Without these international movements, 44% of the country's population would be in declining counties, instead of the current 27%. Dense urban counties and sparsely populated rural areas, although generally on the opposite side of the political spectrum, share the economic concerns of declining population.

But it's not just big cities. Counties outside metropolitan areas – mainly small towns and rural areas – draw and lose about the same numbers of internal migration. But because of their older local populations, deaths were almost equivalent to births in non-metropolitan counties. Although international migration has contributed less to population growth in rural counties than elsewhere, international migration has contributed more in rural counties than internal migration or natural increase.

According to the latest estimates, lagging rural America would be optimized, with 2018 posting population growth for the second year in a row, and at a faster pace than in 2017. This acceleration of rural growth has resulted in the Americans living in declining counties – which rose sharply from 14% in 2010 to 30% in 2017 – dropped to 27% in 2018. This aid, too, came from international migration.

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