St. Louis Mosaic Project
09/17/2024 | News release | Archived content
St. Louis area sees record growth in immigrant population. Officials say efforts are working.
The Latino outreach program, launched last year, has also recruited people who immigrated to the U.S. under a "humanitarian parole" program limited to Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti. They were offered housing grants, English language classes, job training and job placement with unions under a Missouri AFL-CIO coalition.
The Mosaic Project, a regional initiative within the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership and the World Trade Center St. Louis founded in 2012, has funded studies and promoted initiatives meant to help draw more immigrants into the workforce to boost the region's economy. Executive Director Betsy Cohen said the group wants to make St. Louis the fastest-growing metro region for immigrants by 2025.
And St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones last year created the Office of New Americans to streamline resources meant to help immigrants settle in the city. She appointed Gilberto Pinela, former communications manager for the Cortex Innovation Community, to lead the office.
Jones celebrated the growth in immigration on Monday at a ceremony proclaiming Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 as "Hispanic Heritage Month." She noted in particular the success of Hispanic civic groups, plus restaurants and entrepreneurs in the Cherokee Street business district.
"Our city's strength is in our diversity and the communities that we create when we open our arms to new Americans," Jones said in a statement. "It's so obvious in many parts of St. Louis, and perhaps most of all along Cherokee Street, what Hispanic Americans do for our city's culture, economy and community."
St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said the region's growth in immigration was a "great time to stop and celebrate."
"New Americans are the path to a more vibrant economy, bolstering our population and our ability to compete with other growing regions across the U.S," Page said in a statement.
The released census data did not break down the population figures by residence, age, level of education or other factors. A more detailed census report is expected to be released next month.
While the increase should be celebrated, Sandoval said, the St. Louis area still lags behind its peers in the overall percentage of its foreign-born population. The Charlotte, North Carolina, metro area or example, has a foreign-born population of about 329,000 - about 12% of its 2.8 million population. The St. Louis area's foreign-born population is about 159,710 people.
And the St. Louis area is still experiencing overall population decline, slipping to just under 2.8 million people as of July 1, 2023 and settling into 23rd place among the nation's top metros.
"This is one year of data, and we should celebrate it," Sandoval said, about the growth in immigrant population. "But we need to put together five to 10 years of data like this to really turn this region around."