The poor economy was cited as the main reason why Florida is the only state with fewer undocumented immigrants now than 10 years ago.

BY GREGORY LEWIS
Sun Sentinel

Florida was the only state to see a net loss of undocumented immigrants from 2000 to 2009, the federal government says in a new report.

The state's foreign-born undocumented-resident population totaled 720,000 in January 2009 -- 80,000 fewer than in 2000. Florida still has the third most behind California and Texas, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security report released Wednesday.

The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States grew to 10.75 million during the same 2000-09 period.

``I believe it has everything to do with the economic downturn, especially related to real estate and related to jobs in construction and services,'' said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C., think tank.

The decline of this segment of the population coincides with the height of the recession, said Amy Traub, director of research at the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy in New York, another think tank.

``Immigrants come here for work,'' she said. ``The effect on the state is it causes Florida to lose local and state tax revenue.''

Immigrants, including those who are here illegally, pay $4.5 billion a year in state and local sales taxes in Florida, according to a study conducted from 2002 to 2004 by Florida International University researchers.

Frey said the reason for the population decline in Florida, as opposed to other border states like California and Texas, was the severity of economic woes here.

``California and Texas showed decreases in the last two years, but stay at levels above 2000,'' Frey said. ``In Florida's case, the decline is more severe, perhaps due to a more severe shift in the economy. Unlike Texas and California, Florida sustained two straight years of domestic migration losses.''

Last year the U.S. Census Bureau reported a decrease in all foreign-born Florida residents -- those here legally and illegally -- which was borne out by the numbers in South Florida.

In Broward County, the number was estimated at 518,965, down 3 percent from 2007. In Miami-Dade County, with a foreign-born population of 1.19 million, the decline was less than a percentage point. But in Palm Beach County, the number of residents born outside the United States grew 5.3 percent in 2008, to 280,460.

``It is symbolic as much as anything,'' said Frey. ``Florida has been a major immigration magnet for a long time and synonymous with immigration to the U.S. So if there is a downturn in the immigrant population in Florida, it underscores the state's fundamental economic problems.''