The number of Hispanics in Nebraska continues to grow, but at a slower pace than earlier this decade, according to new census estimates released Thursday.

Between July 1, 2006, and July 1, 2007, Nebraska’s overall population grew by 10,800 residents, according to census estimates.

Hispanics made up 47.7 percent of the increase. That’s down from the 62.6 percent cumulative share for Hispanics for the years 2001-2007.

It’s also the smallest one-year share of total population gain coming from Hispanic ranks since 2001.

Meanwhile, there are continued signs in today’s numbers that in-migration and rising numbers of births have reversed a pattern from earlier this decade in which the white, non-Hispanic portion of the state’s population was shrinking.

The number of non-Hispanic whites in Nebraska fell slightly in 2001 and 2002.

Between July 2006 and July 2007, the number of non-Hispanic whites in Nebraska grew by 2,936 — the fifth straight increase and, modest though it may be, the largest of the five gains.

David Drozd, a population researcher at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said there does seem to be a trend in the Hispanic category.

“It does appear that we have a slowdown in Hispanics and neighboring states do not,” said Drozd, who works at UNO’s Center for Public Affairs Research.

Hispanic numbers are relatively steady in Iowa and steady to slightly rising in Kansas.

Contemplating the most recent estimates for non-Hispanic whites, he pointed to greater disparity between births and deaths and “potentially, a little better result with migration.

“It’s hard to explain the cause here, but I do believe the economy has fared fairly well compared to some other states.”

That would suggest Nebraska would be more of a job magnet for all racial and ethnic backgrounds. But the strongest job connection in the state for Hispanics has been in the meatpacking sector, and the pattern there has been toward closing plants and shortening work weeks.

Tyson, for example, closed its plants in Norfolk and West Point in 2006 and recently announced a similar decision at York.

Hendrik Van Den Berg, who focuses much of his research work at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on international economics, said turmoil in meatpacking employment tends to assert itself most in the ranks of workers who cross the Mexican border into the United States illegally.

“If the jobs are not here, they tend to leave,” he said, “or not come here in the first place.”

At the same time, Van Den Berg sees a better job outlook in Nebraska in such job sectors as insurance and ag-related businesses.

“I think what we’re seeing so far is Nebraska has been less hit by the recessionary tendency . . . mainly because the agricultural sector is doing very well.”

Lourdes Gouveia, a UNO sociologist, said meatpacking matters may be one influence on changes in the Hispanic population base.

“What triggered the initial immigration transition from an emigration state to an immigration state (in the 1980s and 1990s) was, of course, the restructuring of the meatpacking industry, and with that, the restructuring of the Nebraska economy in certain communities and so forth.”

But Gouveia, director of Latino and Latin American studies at UNO, sees other factors in play.

“Nebraska has begun to join the fray of states that have become very hostile to immigrants,” she said.

As far as she’s concerned, that applies to many of the state’s politicians. Those “who didn’t used to grab megaphones to espouse anti-immigrant sentiments or support for highly restrictive ordinances and laws do so now.”

Gouveia cited a 2006 raid on the Swift meatpacking plant at Grand Island as a major contributor to a recent climate of fear about a federal immigration crackdown and perhaps a contributor to census trends.

“In this climate of both job insecurity, very precarious employment and very hostile policy and attitude, there may be a new phenomenon that we may not be able to capture through our methodology, which is the constant movement of people from one place to another.”

A Wednesday check with the regional headquarters of the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Minneapolis lends some support to signs of an immigration crackdown.

Spokesman Tim Counts said the number of illegal residents in the region who left the country voluntarily or through deportation after their arrests was 155,748 for the 2003 fiscal year.

For the fiscal year that ended in September 2007, the number was 282,548.

UNL’s Van Den Berg said it’s impossible to measure how much impact on Nebraska census patterns might be coming from efforts to beef up immigration enforcement along the Mexican border.

“We only know who we catch at the border,” he said. “We don’t know who we don’t catch.”

Reach Art Hovey at 473-7223 or at ahovey@journalstar.com.