Editorial: St. Louis is becoming an immigration magnet. And, yes, that's a good thing

Among the most damaging and distressing developments in St. Louis’ modern history is its epic population loss over the past half-century. In light of that continuing crisis, new data showing that the city and surrounding region has become a top urban magnet for immigrants is unambiguously positive news.

What’s even better about that good news is that it’s no accident or coincidence. Rather, it’s the result of deliberate efforts by civic and business leaders here to invite citizens of the world to help fill the population vacuum St. Louis has experienced in recent decades.

Not only is that good civic strategy, but it embraces a fundamentally decent, fundamentally American ethos — one that stands in proud contrast to the virulent xenophobia that has poisoned too much of the nation’s political conversation lately.

In the 1950s, St. Louis’ population tipped the scales at more than 850,000 souls, making it the eighth-largest city in America. Today, the city proper’s population is under 300,000 and it doesn’t even break the top 70 nationally.

How and why that has happened is debatable, but the impact isn’t: Major corporate hubs have pulled out; boarded-up storefronts line once-thriving retail and entertainment districts; miles of vacant and decaying homes and buildings stand sentinel over ghost neighborhoods.

But one thing St. Louis still has going for it is a history of immigration that continues to define the better aspects of our community — from the Italians who made The Hill a culinary playground to the Irish who built the churches and filled the parishes to the Hispanics who adopted and enlivened Cherokee Street. And, of course, the massive wave of Bosnian war refugees in the 1990s whose culture, like that of so many other immigrant waves, has infused and enriched the city’s character.

City and regional leaders in recent years have rightly leaned into that history in an effort to help stem St. Louis’ population loss by attracting new residents. And now, there are promising indications it’s working.

As the Post-Dispatch’s Nassim Benchaabane reported Tuesday, new census data shows that the St. Louis region last year logged its biggest one-year increase in immigrant population ever recorded — more than 30,000 foreign-born residents to the St. Louis region from 2022 through 2023 — and the highest percentage increase among the nation’s top 30 metro areas.

It’s the result of concerted efforts to attract immigrants here by organizations including Greater St. Louis Inc., the International Institute of St. Louis and the St. Louis Mosaic Project. By raising private donations for targeted recruitment, the campaign has attracted Latin American and Cuban immigrants and provided job training and placement with the help of the Missouri AFL-CIO. More than 1,300 Afghan refugees have come for programs including entrepreneurial grants. Mayor Tishaura O. Jones has created a city Office of New Americans to help facilitate immigrant settlement.

Entrepreneurs, workers, customers, taxpaying citizens — St. Louis needs all of these.

And, notwithstanding some political rhetoric today reminiscent of the worst nationalist xenophobia of the past in America (and elsewhere), the historical fact is that immigrants have always been good citizens. Contrary to one of the more putrid of the MAGA movement’s Big Lies, for example, they are statistically less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.

St. Louis’ promising immigration data comes as the topic of immigration in another city — Springfield, Ohio — has roiled the U.S. presidential race.

Because a certain former president and his running mate have made an apparently conscious decision that no lies are too vile in their quest for power, let’s get a few things straight: Springfield’s influx of Haitian immigrants has been a net good for that community. Like immigrants in the St. Louis recruitment efforts, they are there legally. They have filled manufacturing jobs and boosted the smallish city’s population by some 25%.

And contrary to the grotesque lies that Donald Trump and JD Vance continue to spew, no one is eating anyone’s house pets.

The unusual and sudden high ratio of immigrants to native-born Springfield residents has inevitably sparked some instances of conflict. That’s an element of human nature that, with time and good will, can be overcome. But the larger problem by far, according to local officials, is the hate-mongering from anti-immigrant activists.

“These Haitians came in to work for these companies,” Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine told ABC News on Sunday. “What the companies tell us is that they are very good workers. They’re very happy to have them there, and frankly, that’s helped the economy.”

Immigration has historically helped St. Louis’ economy — and it still can going forward.