Miami-Dade’s population dip tells a story, and it debunks a myth about migrants | Opinion

President Trump returned to office largely by convincing voters that immigrants take American jobs and are a burden on local economies. But two data sets show that the impact of immigration in Miami-Dade County has been quite the opposite.

As the Herald Editorial Board reported last week, the county lost an estimated 10,115 residents between 2024 and 2025, the third-largest numeric population decrease of all American counties. This happened largely because of a drop in international migration, according to numbers the U.S. Census Bureau released in late March. Trump’s immigration policies are probably to blame.

That’s just part of the story.

People moving here from other countries in recent years have kept Miami-Dade’s population at healthy levels, helping ensure there are enough workers. Census data shows that, as locals departed the county — likely searching for a lower cost of living, at least in part — immigrants filled the gap, preventing population losses that could have hurt the local economy.

And, despite the stereotype of migrants being mostly poor, the foreigners who arrived in Miami-Dade earned, on average, $99,000 annually per household, more than the average earnings of those who moved to Miami-Dade from other parts of the state, according to most recent numbers from the IRS. This data comes from address changes reported on tax returns in 2022-23 and was analyzed by Maria Ilcheva, a research professor at Florida International University’s Metropolitan Center. To be clear, these numbers only cover migrants who filed tax returns. Although many undocumented people file federal taxes, it’s unclear how many were included in these figures.

Miami is known as a community built, to a great extent, by immigrants. We continue to benefit, in ways less obvious, when people migrate here. The numbers from the two data sets show that, despite the rhetoric coming from Washington, Miami-Dade needs immigration to thrive.

Since at least 2020, Miami-Dade has experienced “negative net domestic migration.” That means that the number of arrivals from within the U.S. minus the number of departures to other parts of the country was a negative 278,000, according to Census figures.

This could’ve meant a huge labor force loss, but the county’s population kept growing because people arriving from abroad made up for population losses. From 2020 to 2025, net international migration to Miami-Dade reached 349,000, according to the Census.

But by 2024, international migration slowed. That’s when the Census registered that population decline of 10,000.

That’s a small dip — less than .5% — but if people continue to leave Miami-Dade and immigration continues to decline, the long-term picture could be a problem. It’s no wonder many employers say that mass deportations and the revocation of programs such as Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Venezuelans will make finding workers harder.

If you lose population, you lose workforce. If you lose workforce, the economy suffers.

There has been a lot of talk lately about America’s falling birth rates — and the White House has even floated ideas to persuade Americans to have more babies. Unfortunately, this conversation is often tied to far-right paranoia that migrants will replace white people.

Overall, although Florida’s population has grown, the state is experiencing negative “natural change,” meaning there were more deaths than births between 2020 and 2025, according to Census figures. Other big counties, such as Pinellas and Palm Beach, have already hit negative natural change as well.

But not Miami-Dade, although we are close.

And that’s largely because of immigrants, who have higher birth rates, Ilcheva told the Herald Editorial Board.

“Somebody gets on a plane and comes here and moves their business or finds a job... they create a pipeline of workers by expanding their families here,” she said.

All of this data should make Miamians wonder: What happens when we close the door to immigration, as the Trump administration is trying to do? What is our community gaining when migrants, even if they are here illegally, are deported despite not having committed crimes; when the U.S. makes it harder for employers to sponsor work visas, or strips Cubans and others of their humanitarian parole and fights in court to revoke TPS for hundreds of thousands of people?

This is not an argument for “open borders” or uncontrolled migration, but for policy that’s centered on a reality Miami-Dade understands — not prejudice or stereotypes — one that is based on the needs of businesses and communities. Shutting the door to immigrants isn’t the answer. Real, nuanced immigration reform is.