Maine’s Largest City Strains Under Asylum-Seeker Influx

[Pedestrian]

By Jennifer Levitz | Photographs by Yoon S. Byun for The Wall Street Journal
Jan. 27, 2019 10:00 a.m. ET

PORTLAND, Maine—

. . . Maine’s largest city of about 67,000 is now struggling with an influx of asylum seekers, to the point where a local official is alerting shelters in other parts of the country to discourage people from heading here . . . .

Asylum seekers, who are primarily from African countries, now make up 90% of the people living in Portland’s city-run family shelter and overflow shelter, where new arrivals sleep on mats. A city fund that assists with necessities is dwindling fast, and pro-bono lawyers are overwhelmed with cases, Mr. MacLean said . . . .

. . . the migrants in Maine have typically come to the U.S. on visas . . . .

Maine, a slow-growing state known for lobsters and long winters, has for years looked to immigrants to boost the workforce and population. Immigrants now work everywhere from seafood plants to machine shops to manufacturing operations and run businesses in Portland, a trendy waterfront locale known nationally for its restaurant scene.

The foreign-born population fueled more than 75% of population growth in Portland and the surrounding area in 2011-16, according to a report co-produced by the city.

Portland has rejected the label of sanctuary city, citing its policy allowing for cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

Asylum seekers, who apply once they are in the U.S., are generally ineligible for federal benefits until they get asylum, and are prohibited from working for at least six months after filing an asylum application. Preparing to file can itself take months because of challenges such as waits for legal help and difficulty getting documents from home countries, said Mr. MacLean, the social-services administrator . . . .

Under Maine law, asylum seekers who have filed an application may qualify for general assistance, for up to 24 months. Funded by the state and municipalities, that program provides vouchers for rent, utilities and other staples.

In Portland, 65% to 70% of the 1,000 people now receiving general assistance are noncitizens, primarily asylum seekers, according to city staff. The city re-evaluates their eligibility every 30 days, and recipients must perform work for the city in return for the aid. Local nonprofits also help asylum seekers with needs, from winter coats to language classes.

In addition, the city budgets about $200,000 annually to fill in gaps for asylum seekers who don’t qualify for general assistance, such as those who haven’t yet filed an application . . . .

https://www.wsj.com/articles/maines-...d=hp_lead_pos9

[BrownTown]

Send them packing.

[skyscraperpage17]

This belongs in off-topic/politics, IMO.

[mhays]

It would be nice to be the shining city on the hill again (referring to the US). Send us your poor, your huddled masses, etc. We should try to be America. Asylum-seeking is awkward but it's part of what makes us (most of the time) a great country.

[JManc]

Portland has had an influx of refugees (mainly Somalis) for quite a while.

[MonkeyRonin]

What's fuelling the boom of asylum-seekers to Maine in particular? Is it just the more generous benefits they receive?

It's a fantastic place though so it's nice to see it getting a bit of population growth.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by JManc

Portland has had an influx of refugees (mainly Somalis) for quite a while.

There are also a lot in the Lewiston-Auburn area, which is more inland.

[Chef]

Originally Posted by mhays

It would be nice to be the shining city on the hill again (referring to the US). Send us your poor, your huddled masses, etc. We should try to be America. Asylum-seeking is awkward but it's part of what makes us (most of the time) a great country.

Immigration is a big part of our national mythology but don't forget that the real motivation for 19th century immigration was to provide eastern industrialists with cheap labor. Because of the allure of the west on the settled population, the eastern cities would have had chronic labor shortages without immigration. It wasn't until the end of mass immigration that the urban working class had decent living standards. The mass affluence that happened after WWII came in an environment of tight labor markets and almost no immigration.

The modern professional classes love immigration because they get cheap services and can feel like they live in an enlightened society without having to bear any of the negative consequences. Labor shortages are terrible for capital but great for workers while the opposite is true of flush labor markets. All large media outlets are owned by people who want to frame the debate to make it appear that tight labor markets are always terrible while immigration is universally good. They do this because they want their workforce to be relatively powerless when it comes to asking for improved wages and benefits. This is how capital uses modern identity politics to undermine the power of the working class and maintain its position of control. The fact that a lot of people who oppose immigration do so because they are bigots helps capital sell this right wing policy of destroying the working class to the center and the left.

I agree this topic should be in the Politics forum.

[aaron38]

Maine, a slow-growing state known for lobsters and long winters, has for years looked to immigrants to boost the workforce and population.

If a city is looking to grow, meaning it has jobs and housing to fill, then why are people living in shelters? If there isn't housing, why are they seeking a larger population?
And why should government subsidize certain industries by using tax dollars to offset their labor costs?
Shouldn't the jobs these immigrants are working cover their rent, food, basic necessities?

This is why the pro-immigrant groups have settled on "the opposition is racist" as their only argument. Because there is no economic justification for what is happening.

[tablemtn]

The fact that a lot of people who oppose immigration do so because they are bigots helps capital sell this right wing policy of destroying the working class to the center and the left.

In addition to that fact, I also wonder how close the US landmass is to some kind of ecological "carrying capacity." Resource usage per capita is quite high. There is a famous quote from Edward Abbey (I think) about constant growth being the ideology of a cancer cell. It doesn't make a great deal of environmental sense to undertake the mass-importation of people from areas with low per-capita resource usage to a country with one of the highest.

There are people who call themselves "anti-natalists" because they want to "fight climate change," and yet they have an inexplicable refusal to look at the issue of immigration. It's baffling, and when this is brought up, they mainly just try to change the subject.

[mhays]

There's no inherent difference between someone's impact if they live here vs. their impact if they stay in their home country or move to Australia instead. And we can certainly work on our impacts by how we live in the US.

The US' economic health is heavily tied to immigration and always has been. Going forward, we need to simply balance workers vs. dependents, which we're not doing naturally.

[tablemtn]

The US' economic health is heavily tied to immigration

It's not clear that this is the case in the modern economy, though. The Portland, Maine story in this thread is kind of an example of that - "the economy" is becoming more and more a question of resource allocation as opposed to the raw ability to extract resources. In other words, in the 1800's, there was a lot of work to be done simply in the field of basic resource extraction. The supply of labor required to dig a canal to facilitate ships which transported raw materials, etc., was a big constraint.

Now, we have a labor force participation rate in the US which is stuck around its rate in the late-1970's, when many women still didn't work at all:

https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

This indicates that "the economy" as a modern system doesn't need as much raw labor input in order to sustain itself, and in fact, many people are on the outside of that system with no obvious means of ingress. It would make more economic sense in that context to have a nation of 200 million with a higher standard of living and more wealth per capita than trying to "juice" an abstract metric like GDP by pumping up the population numbers.

There's no inherent difference between someone's impact if they live here vs. their impact if they stay in their home country or move to Australia instead.

I'm not really sure what that means. Someone who stays in a country where per capita resource usage is lower will use fewer resources over a lifetime than someone from that environment who moves to the US or to Australia.

[BnaBreaker]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

Send them packing.

Because... ?

[The North One]

Originally Posted by BnaBreaker

Because... ?

Because he's a flaming racist, look up his previous comments.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by tablemtn

This indicates that "the economy" as a modern system doesn't need as much raw labor input in order to sustain itself, and in fact, many people are on the outside of that system with no obvious means of ingress. It would make more economic sense in that context to have a nation of 200 million with a higher standard of living and more wealth per capita than trying to "juice" an abstract metric like GDP by pumping up the population numbers.

.

Of course, the economy of the United States as it exists right now is not about guaranteeing a high(er) standard of living and more wealth per capita to 200 million or 300 million people.

The group that it is meant to benefit is much, much smaller than that.

[Acajack]

It's telling that a thread originally about asylum-seekers has been all about economic immigration.

Who ever said that refugees are supposed to be economic migrants or drivers of economic growth? (Though sometimes they can be, but that's not the main reason we accept them. They're supposed to be in imminent physical danger.)

Just goes to show how the debate has become totally skewed. This is not some random thread drift. It's a sign of the times.

[skyscraperpage17]

Originally Posted by skyscraperpage17

This belongs in off-topic/politics, IMO.

^^^Quoting for emphasis.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's telling that a thread originally about asylum-seekers has been all about economic immigration.

Who ever said that refugees are supposed to be economic migrants or drivers of economic growth? (Though sometimes they can be, but that's not the main reason we accept them. They're supposed to be in imminent physical danger.)

Just goes to show how the debate has become totally skewed. This is not some random thread drift. It's a sign of the times.

For your consideration: The fertility rate in African countries can be as high as 7. If you see the solution to Africa's problems as simply letting the excess of these people come over here then you will find this is a problem without end as the numbers of impoverished only continue to grow and drag the developed world down with them. The only sensible solution is to fix these problems at their source. Accepting refugees from the worlds trouble zones is equivalent to bailing water in a boat with a hole in it instead of fixing the hole. It's madness without end.

[mhays]

You're really confused....conflating need-based refugees with something totally different.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by BrownTown

For your consideration: The fertility rate in African countries can be as high as 7. If you see the solution to Africa's problems as simply letting the excess of these people come over here then you will find this is a problem without end as the numbers of impoverished only continue to grow and drag the developed world down with them. The only sensible solution is to fix these problems at their source. Accepting refugees from the worlds trouble zones is equivalent to bailing water in a boat with a hole in it instead of fixing the hole. It's madness without end.

I wasn't saying at all that the solution is to import ever-growing, massive segments of population from troubled countries. If you got that either I didn't express myself clearly or you misinterpreted.

While I support the spirit of the international refugee system, there are limits to how many people stable countries can admit before they start becoming unstable themselves.

So yes, I would agree that stabilizing and improving the situation in troubled countries should be something that is given more attention than it has been up to this point.

My other point about the turn this thread quickly took still stands: that even if you discuss refugees only (who by definition aren't "selected" by the host countries based on the latter's needs; refugees "self-select" and simply end up on your doorstep) the discussion immediately turns to this alleged urgent need for MORE AND MORE PEOPLE!, with little to no consideration given to their provenance, skills, etc.