Report: Immigrants moving out of Napa, impacting local workforce
Napa has long been a county of immigrants. Some 29,000 foreign-born people live in Napa, and their kids make up almost half of the county’s students. Seventy-one percent of farm and vineyard workers are immigrants, many of them naturalized citizens after living in Napa for decades. Immigrant labor alone produces $1.5 billion a year— 11% — of the county’s gross domestic product.
So, why have so many immigrants left the county in the last few years?
On Thursday afternoon, 90 people gathered in Yountville’s Community Room for a presentation of a report analyzing recent trends in Napa County’s immigrant populations. Valerie Lacarte, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute and co-author of the report, titled “Rooted in the Valley Immigrants in Napa County’s Communities and Economy,” walked the audience through recent data and what it means for Napa.
The report finds that, ultimately, the growing outmigration of foreign-born residents is bad for Napa. And the rising threat of ICE arrests and high living costs can only make it worse.
Immigrants who live and work in the county dropped by 11% between 2006, while commuting numbers have risen significantly. Immigrants in Napa do have higher pay and benefit from public assistance at higher rates than the statewide average.
“it’s nice to have a quantifiable number,” said Erika Lubensky, head of Napa’s Community Resources for Children. “The question is: What are we doing about it?”
For Lacarte, the report is partly the answer. In the hands of local officials, these numbers could guide upcoming policies around transportation, housing availability and healthcare and food benefits — all of which have taken a hit under the new administration.
The report was commissioned by Napa Valley Community Foundation, a nonprofit that works to fill the gaps in services around Napa County. The foundation is known for coordinating citizenship workshops, which have helped get legal status for more than 2,500 Napans.
After the presentation, Lacarte explained to the Napa County Times that reports like this have the potential to influence federal policy. Her team focused on facts and figures at the local level, where Lacarte said “immigrant integration happens,” but the impact is nationwide.
Lacarte and her colleagues have done similar reports in Houston, Kansas City and Maine, where new immigrant populations are rising. “Every place has its own dynamic and ecosystem,” she said. In Houston, immigrant workers are concentrated in oil and business, but in Napa its agriculture and wine.
Eventually, Lacarte hopes these reports on immigrant life and local economies reach the desks of lawmakers, who might be more responsive to a numerical value put on the economic consequences of imprisoning immigrants.
The report is “a piecemeal approach that will get us to something sensible,” she said. “We know that’s not all it is, but it’s a very practical tangible fact you can bring to conversation … Some people want to just know the numbers.”
Lacarte, who lives in Washington, D.C., said that in the year of crafting the report, she found that Napa’s long history of immigrant workforce contributes to “a protected factor” in Napa Valley, and that a lot of U.S.-born locals care about immigrant communities. “They’ve been engaged, they know, they’ve been doing things,” she said.
“Despite all the forces coming from real estate, natural disasters and the affordability crisis,” Lacarte said outmigration numbers may not be as bad as they could be. “If [Napa wasn’t] doing all this good work, would it have been worse?”
