Can aging N.D. resist change amid immigration debate?
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., is co-sponsoring a “new homestead act” to provide incentives for people who relocate in North Dakota, but he sees the immigration debate as a “separate issue.” Solving the state’s depopulation problem, he says, is a matter of creating enough good jobs to attract Americans. Becky Meidinger, who heads the Cooperstown economic development office, isn’t so sure. She says rural North Dakotans “have to break some barriers down” and recognize that “we’re not going to get the people we feel comfortable with in this area.” Dorgan and North Dakota’s other Democratic senator, Kent Conrad, are taking a tough line in the national immigration debate.
