Immigration brings complex changes to Alabama towns, schools, data shows
Immigration debates are not new to Alabama, but the issue has played a large role in both national and state elections, now one day away.
Local officials in a handful of Alabama towns have confronted what they called “baseless accusations and hurtful rhetoric” about Haitian migrants and other new arrivals in recent months. A key question: How is immigration changing Alabama schools?
AL.com took a look at migration and school enrollment trends across the state, over periods of 10 to 25 years up to 2023, the most recent year of available data. What we found shows a complex picture of immigration in Alabama. Scroll down to see local data and trends.
Figures continue to ask questions about both national and state immigration. In September, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall met with law enforcement in Talladega County, following unfounded claims from former President Donald Trump’s campaign about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating their neighbors’ pets. In October, Gov. Kay Ivey and Lt. Gov Will Ainsworth publicly criticized the federal migrant asylum program, which allows people from certain countries to come to America for two years as long as they have a financial sponsor.
Caroleene Dobson, Republican candidate in the closely watched 2nd Congressional District, recently said she wants to push for legislation to require more information about migrant workers. She said undocumented immigrants are “flooding our public school classrooms, emergency rooms, and other public facilities.”
While the country has seen recent spikes in migrants crossing the southern United States border, recent research suggests that only a small share of Americans live in communities that are seeing significant shifts.
The same is true in Alabama, according to census data. In fact, many counties have seen declines in their foreign-born population – especially among school-aged-children – in the past decade.
Congregants attend Eglise Porte Etroite, a Creole-language church which has gone from seven attendees to close to 300 in under 15 years, in Albertville, Ala., Sept. 29, 2024.(AP Photo/Safiyah Riddle)
Where communities have seen shifts, such as Albertville, it can take time to separate facts from rumors. Local officials told AL.com they had seen no increase in crime since a small group of Haitian immigrants arrived.
“These workers are coming in to pay for taxes, they‘re paying in for our system, and they’re making it possible for you and me to receive Social Security, to receive our retirement benefits,” Hector Baeza, the federal programs director at Gadsden City Schools, told AL.com.
Baeza, who started working at the small, north Alabama district in the mid-1990s, has seen the system‘s English learner population grow from just over 100 students to more than 700 this school year. Typically, about 20-30% of English learners are students who have recently arrived to the United States or who are children of migrant workers.
“They‘re coming in and they’re providing for their family, but they’re also providing for me,” he said. “It just takes all of us together to be able to be a productive country.”
Immigration in Alabama, by the numbers
Foreign-born immigrants make up about 4% of Alabama’s population, compared to 14.3% nationwide, according to 2023 American Community Survey data.
That’s up from 3.5% in 2022 – a big jump after nearly a decade of slow growth.
About 98,000, or 9.6%, of Alabama children under 18 have one or more parents who were foreign born, up from 2.1% in 1990. Just 1% of Alabama children, about 13,500, are also foreign born, according to the latest census surveys.
Experts say that more and more migrant workers from Mexico and Central America are likely coming to Alabama from states like Florida and Texas, possibly accounting for changes in the older population.
“What we are seeing is not so much births, but definitely migration,” said Rafael Gonzalez, a program director with the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama. “That’s what’s pushing it, and that’s mostly around that age between 16 to 54 which is primary working age.”
Gonzalez said that many migrants are driven by economic opportunities, particularly in industries like agriculture and construction.
Still, birth rates among Hispanic immigrants, who make up the majority of foreign-born residents in the state, skew higher than those of native-born residents, Gonzalez noted. That could mean schools may continue to see a climb in English learners.
And while it’s difficult to gauge more recent population shifts, he and other advocates are urging state officials to embrace future growth by bolstering language support and access to more high-skilled jobs.
“What happens with levels of educational attainment that are not so great for the jobs that are out there is that it tends to also drive down the median household income of an area,” he said.
“I think we’re in a good position to be able to anticipate those problems, because Alabama hasn’t grown like these other states, but it’s poised to grow.”
Where has immigration grown in Alabama? Where has it declined?
More Alabama immigrants also are becoming naturalized citizens. In 2022, 42% of all foreign-born Alabamians were naturalized, compared to 31% in 2012.
But Gonzalez and other researchers urge some caution when looking at annual census survey data, rather than 10-year household counts. Undocumented immigrants may feel especially wary about self-disclosing any personal information to the government.
“It tells the story of a population that tends to be a little bit in the shadows and likely not to want to kind of out themselves,” Gonzalez said. “Where that becomes kind of problematic is you can’t really articulate a clear picture of where that population is from year to year.”
Even with those caveats in mind, experts are sure of one key fact: much of the growth is concentrated in pockets across Alabama.
Franklin County in North Alabama has the state’s largest share of immigrants, who make up 8.7% of the population. It is followed by Marshall and DeKalb County, where immigrants make up about 7% of the population.
From 2012 to 2022, 27 counties have seen declines in their immigrant population, with Monroe, Henry and Coosa County seeing the steepest dips.
Greene, Pickens and Sumter County have seen some of the largest changes in the share of immigrants who now live in those areas, while Madison County has seen the biggest overall increase, with about 10,000 more foreign-born residents calling the county home.
Impact on school systems
“There’s a lot of rhetoric about recent immigrants and how they affect school systems,” said Umut Özek, a researcher with RAND who has looked at the effects of English learners in “new destination” states that have seen bigger populations of immigrants arrive in recent years.
“But much of those debates typically take place in empirical vacuums, because there’s no research to test those different hypotheses and anecdotes.”
Some studies have shown that new arrivals have helped revitalize neighborhoods, boost local economies and contribute to the academic and social development of their peers.
In Gadsden, immigrant students are drum majors, school ambassadors, and star athletes, Baeza said.
Nancy Blanco, an ESL and world languages coordinator at Birmingham City Schools, said she has seen many of her English learner students outperform their peers once they’ve grasped the English language.
In recent years, Birmingham schools have enrolled a growing proportion of immigrant students and refugees.
“It’s something that inevitably gets politicized, but at the end of the day we’re just trying to do our best for children who are our students,” she said. “And we have to remember that these are children who deserve and are legally entitled to every opportunity that their native English-speaking peers have.”
“We all want the best for our kids, she added. “And often, our immigrant families come with a really strong sense of family, faith, and are excited for the opportunities that they will have to work and contribute to the community, and are excited for the opportunities that their kids will have to learn and advance in their education.”
Officials estimate that nationwide, the amount of people coming into the U.S. is only slightly higher than those leaving the country.
“What we have seen in the past ten years or so is that the net immigration rate is practically zero,” said Oscar Jiménez-Castellanos, an endowed professor and executive director for the Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education at the University of Georgia.
“There have been a lot of folks that actually have returned to their home countries,” he said. “So that’s something really interesting to take a look at – it debunks that myth of an ‘invasion.’”
About the data: The Alabama Education Lab took a look at citizenship and migration data, as well as English learner enrollment in schools to understand the scope of immigration trends in the state. Data for EL students was compiled from federal and state education statistics from the 1998-99 school year to 2022-23. We used 2009 to 2022 five-year estimates from the American Community Survey to analyze county-level immigration patterns and included new 2023 one-year estimates to look at broader state and national trends.
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