Maine has a workforce shortage problem that it hopes to resolve with recently arrived immigrants

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine Gov. Janet Mills and a state lawmaker who immigrated from Somalia unveiled a proposal on Friday to try to resolve the state's serious worker shortage by tapping swiftly growing immigrant communities.

Maine traditionally has had among the smallest immigrant populations in the country. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, only about 4% of the state's residents were born outside the U.S.

That has been gradually changing as tens of thousands of residents descended from Somalia and other African countries have made homes in Portland and Lewiston, two of the state's biggest cities. Those arrivals helped push up the percentage of foreign-born residents by about a percentage point between 2000 to 2022, according to census figures.