Report: Immigrants a growing segment of S.C. population

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According to the Immigration Policy Center in Washington, D.C., immigrants make up about 4.3% of South Carolina’s total population, and more than one-third of them are naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote. 

Staff Report
Published Sept. 11, 2009

A report conducted by the Immigration Policy Center based in Washington, D.C., shows that immigrants make a substantial impact on South Carolina.

Immigrants made up about 4.3% of South Carolina’s total population as of 2007, the report says, and more than one-third of them are naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote. 

Immigrants constituted 5.4% of the state’s work force in 2007, or about 118,443 workers, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Unauthorized immigrants made up 2.2% of the state’s work force, or 50,000 people.

Immigrants and the children of immigrants account for 1.3%, or 25,812, of all registered voters in the state, the center said, with 66,603 naturalized citizens living in the state. Latinos constituted 18,000, or almost 1%, of S.C. voters in the 2008 elections, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The Immigration Policy Center’s research also found:

• The purchasing power of South Carolina’s Latinos and Asians totaled $5.2 billion in 2008. 
• S.C. businesses owned by Asians and Latinos had sales and receipts of $2.8 billion and employed more than 20,000 people in 2002 (the last year for which data is available). 
• If all unauthorized immigrants were removed from South Carolina, the state would lose $1.8 billion in spending, $782 million in economic output and about 12,000 jobs.