Small Towns Face a Big Mess Without Immigration, Experts Say

(ONTARIO, CANADA) Small towns across Canada and the United States are warning that without steady immigration, their communities face what local leaders call a “big, big mess,” as employers struggle to find workers, populations age and shrink, and once-busy main streets risk going dark. The anxiety is mounting as the Canadian federal government prepares to unveil a new immigration plan amid growing political pressure to curb the number of foreign-born workers and asylum-seekers, placing the country’s smallest communities at the center of a high-stakes policy debate they say is about survival.

Across northwestern Ontario, local officials describe an economy now tied to whether newcomers arrive and stay. > “Small communities in the Northwest continue to rely on foreign-born workers moving to the region to fill necessary jobs,” according to The Record. In Fort Frances, town leaders and business owners say they see the impact daily as factories, hospitals, long-term care homes, and small manufacturers post openings that go unfilled unless new arrivals move in. Community advocates warn that if fewer workers come, labour gaps will widen, schools will shrink, and the tax base will erode—problems that have plagued many rural regions for years and are now held in check largely by newcomers.

On the U.S. side of the border, the pressures look strikingly similar. In rural Iowa, city planner Sturms said the maths is simple for towns that have been losing people since the 1990s: > “Many of the rural Iowa communities simply need more population in order to sustain. And today, that population uptick can happen if towns learn to attract new immigrants.” National research backs up that local assessment. A 2013 New American Economy study found that for every 1,000 immigrants who move into a county, 46 manufacturing jobs are created or preserved. The same research reported that when 100 immigrants arrive in a county, 240 native-born residents follow within the next decade, a pattern officials see as evidence that immigration helps reverse population decline by drawing in families and investment.

The demographic crunch is especially stark in rural America, where more than three-quarters—77%—of counties have fewer working-age people than they did 20 years ago. Economists and county officials say that even a few hundred new immigrants can erase those losses in many places, stabilizing school enrolment and keeping shops open. The story is mirrored in parts of rural Canada, where aging populations and outmigration have drained the workforce and weakened local economies. Mayors in mill towns and farming hubs say immigration has become a pragmatic fix: it brings welders, nurses, butchers, engineers, and care aides who take jobs that otherwise go unfilled, and it brings families who buy houses, start businesses, and rebuild civic life.

The small city of Austin, Minnesota, is often cited by local leaders as a model for what immigration can do in practice. After decades of stagnation, Austin’s population rebounded from 21,900 in 1990 to 26,160 in 2023—a 20% increase—after refugees and immigrants filled shifts at the meat processing plant and opened new storefronts across town. Since 2016, they have started more than 85 small businesses, according to local figures, including grocery stores, restaurants, repair shops, and professional services that employ local residents and serve longtime families. City officials say immigrants also bought and renovated deteriorated houses, raising property values and stabilizing blocks that had been hollowed out by job losses in the 1980s and 1990s.

Elsewhere in the Midwest, residents of Galesburg, Illinois, point to a long history of immigrant labour that built the area’s farms and railroads. After factory closures and population loss, recent newcomers helped steady the local economy, filling positions in logistics, manufacturing, and services. That pattern—immigrants stepping into sectors that struggle to recruit—shows up repeatedly in counties grappling with population decline. Residents who were initially wary often changed their views as new neighbours opened businesses, paid taxes, volunteered at schools, and coached sports teams. Researchers who studied small-town dynamics in Iowa found similar shifts in attitudes, with communities becoming more vibrant and economically stable as new arrivals put down roots.

In Utica, New York, the numbers tell a slow-burn story. Refugees who arrived in the city initially presented net costs to local government, but over time, their economic contribution grew. Within 15 years, they were adding to the tax base, and by 23 years, their total fiscal costs were eliminated, according to research that followed their impact. Utica’s experience is now a case study for county boards weighing whether to expand resettlement programs: short-term expenses can be real, but the payoffs are measurable within a generation when newcomers find steady work, buy homes, and start enterprises.

Rachel Perić, executive director of Welcoming America, said the broader pattern is clear across rural regions. > “roughly 70% of rural places have seen declining populations since the 1990s. Of those, nearly four out of five would have seen further decline if not for immigration. So, attracting and keeping people in a community through immigration is existential,” she said, using the same term that town councils in Canada and the United States increasingly use to describe their situation. Local leaders who once debated whether to recruit newcomers now focus on how to retain them—through housing, language classes, credential recognition, and community support—because replacing any departing family can be the difference between a school staying open or closing.

The stakes are rising in Canada as the federal government prepares to set new intake targets. In Ottawa, opposition parties have argued for lower numbers, citing pressure on housing and services. Small-town mayors counter that one-size-fits-all cuts could hit their communities hardest because they rely on steady flows of workers in healthcare, food processing, forestry, agriculture, and construction. They note that rural hospitals across Ontario and the Prairies already run on tight staffing, with temporary closures and long waits, and that immigration helps keep emergency rooms, long-term care homes, and clinics functioning. Officials in Northwestern Ontario, quoting regional coverage, warn that pulling back now would undo hard-won gains. > “Small communities in the Northwest continue to rely on foreign-born workers moving to the region to fill necessary jobs,” according to The Record.

Supporters of higher intake levels point to a practical, local economies argument: it is difficult to persuade native-born workers to move to or remain in small towns even when wages rise, especially when larger cities offer more options for spouses, children, and career progression. U.S. policy experts and local officials warn that restricting immigration will not suddenly deliver a line of applicants for night-shift packing jobs or rural care roles. Instead, they say, businesses will automate or relocate if they cannot hire, leaving towns with fewer employers and even deeper population decline. That translates to fewer sponsors for youth sports, fewer customers for high street shops, and fewer taxpayers to maintain roads, parks, and water systems.

For many communities, the biggest visible changes brought by immigration are on the main street and around the schoolyard. In counties that had been losing families, newcomers have helped revitalize abandoned downtowns, reopened schools by raising enrolment just enough to keep classes running, and sustained houses of worship that were down to a handful of congregants. Pastors, principals, and shop owners describe how small population upticks—a few dozen families, a hundred new residents—can stabilize the rhythms of daily life. School boards that feared consolidation have found breathing room when parents enrolled children. Volunteer fire departments gained recruits. Youth leagues fielded full teams again.

City planners say those changes are not accidental. After initial skepticism in some towns, councils began to formalize outreach, hiring bilingual liaisons, offering micro-grants for storefront renovations, and running welcome sessions that connect newcomers with employers and landlords. Research by political scientist J. Celeste Lay on Iowa towns documents how communities that embraced new residents saw a shift from suspicion to appreciation as people worked together in churches, schools, and neighbourhood associations. The pragmatic case for immigration—keep the plant open, keep the clinic staffed, keep the school running—has often softened local politics, even if national debates remain heated.

Economists caution that none of this is automatic. Towns that succeed tend to pair immigration with housing, transportation, and credential support. In Austin, officials mapped empty houses and matched buyers with small rehabilitation loans; in other counties, chambers of commerce ran mentorship programs to help entrepreneurs navigate permits and banking. The results can be seen in business licences and property rolls. Since 2016, more than 85 new small businesses opened in Austin, many launched by refugees and immigrants who moved to the city for factory work and found opportunities beyond the plant floor. Similar stories are emerging in meatpacking hubs and agricultural regions from the Plains to the Midwest and in forestry, mining, and agri-food communities across Ontario.

These local outcomes have shaped how small-town leaders read national policy. County boards in the United States cite the 2013 New American Economy finding—46 manufacturing jobs created or preserved for every 1,000 immigrants—as evidence that immigration supports the industrial base rather than undercutting it. They also note the migration effect on native-born residents, with 240 moving into a county over the following decade for every 100 immigrants who arrive, a feedback loop that helps refill school classrooms and Sunday services. Canadian mayors have made similar arguments in letters to provincial and federal officials, stressing that targeted immigration streams and regional pilots align well with their workforce needs and help offset the steady outflow of young people to big cities.

The alternative, local leaders say, is a slow but relentless contraction. Without new workers, factories shorten shifts; without enough students, schools close or consolidate; without foot traffic, main street businesses shut their doors. Houses sit empty, tax revenues fall, and the cost of maintaining services rises for those who remain. Those are the realities that prompted leaders to warn of a “big, big mess” if intake slows sharply. The experiences of Utica and Austin suggest the opposite path is possible: upfront investments and community support can yield long-term fiscal and social benefits as people settle, earn, spend, and build.

As Ottawa finalizes its plan, municipal leaders are watching for signals on regional allocations and labour market programs. Many point to tools like rural and northern immigration pilots and provincial nominee streams as ways to match employers with candidates who want small-town life. They also emphasize the need for clear, faster pathways so new residents can move from temporary work to permanence, buy homes, and make long-term plans. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada sets national targets and programs; details on intake and categories are published in the government’s Immigration Levels Plan, which town halls treat as a roadmap for staffing hospitals, factories, and farms in the years ahead.

In both countries, the debate is not only about numbers but about where those numbers land. Big cities will continue to draw most newcomers, but small towns argue they have urgent needs and tangible opportunities. City planner Sturms in Iowa framed it in the simplest terms: > “Many of the rural Iowa communities simply need more population in order to sustain. And today, that population uptick can happen if towns learn to attract new immigrants.” Rachel Perić called it “existential” for places where the population pyramid has inverted and local economies depend on keeping one more shift going, one more school open, one more congregation singing on Sunday.

The message from Fort Frances to Galesburg, from Austin to Utica, is that the fortunes of small towns are now closely linked to immigration. In regions where 77% of rural U.S. counties have fewer working-age residents than two decades ago, and where Canadian resource towns compete with cities for talent, leaders say newcomers are not a luxury; they are a lifeline. If policy hardens and numbers fall, they warn, the costs will arrive not as a single shock but as a steady thinning out—fewer jobs, fewer neighbours, fewer reasons for the next family to stay. If, instead, policy steers workers and families toward the communities that need them most, recent history suggests the opposite trajectory: a modest but real reversal of population decline, a steadier tax base, and main streets with the lights back on.