Arizona Population Down: Economy vs Immigration

If there’s any place where the Census and immigration would cross paths and clash it would be Arizona. And it’s taken exactly one day for folks in that state to start arguing. Here’s a fly-on-the-wall view:  the new Census count reveals a slowing-down of  the growth of Arizonians (Arizonan’s?…people from Arizona). In July of 2009 the Census Bureau estimated the population in Arizona to be 6.6 million. But the actual count in the 2010 Census was 6.4 million. So whose fault was that?

Brian Gratton, a professor in Arizona State University, says it was the economy. AZCetnral.com reports: “Gratton would be “very hesitant” to say the law had much to do with the census figures. He said the decline in the growth rate happened well before the passage of SB 1070.”

“A much more powerful impact on rate of growth in the immigration community is the collapse of the construction industry,”

But Kimball Brace, president of the Virginia-based Election Data Services (who correctly predicted the overall state’s take on congressional seats), disagrees. The discrepancy in the numbers shows that Arizona lost a potentially gained seat in congress. “You are seeing what I suspected you might see. At the time of the census, there was all the controversy over the immigration policies in Arizona, and the fact that Arizona is not closer to gaining a second seat is I think an indication of that fact,” he said.

“Indeed the immigration policies caused illegals to not answer the census, to leave Arizona, whatever the case may be, and indeed the bureau counted less people than what had been anticipated.”

At the end of the AZCentral story there is a bit of sanity. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University, gives a level-headed opinion:

Suarez-Orozco said he is not surprised that the center of the immigration debate is in Arizona. The same discussions, and controversies, were part of culture in the eastern part of the country at the start of the last century.
“The story remains the same. This is a country of immigrants, particularly now in the south and west,” said Suarez-Orozco. “There were Germans, then the Irish and the Italians. Now it’s Hispanics. The characters change, but the story remains the same.”