Community leaders say the critical mass that's building in the state's population core means Latinos in particular can feel ever more welcome in a diversifying city.

U.S. Census Bureau figures released this week show that people who moved to Utah's largest metropolitan area during the year ending last July 1 overwhelmingly hailed from beyond America's borders. State demographers and economists say most came from Latin America in the nationwide trend of workers backfilling the void in low-paying jobs left by aging and higher-earning baby boomers.

The numbers for metro Salt Lake - a statistical area spanning Salt Lake, Tooele and Summit counties - are far more worldly than those for any other Utah city. Of the net addition of 6,750 migrants last year, 5,294 were not from the States, the Census Bureau reported. Compare that to metro Provo-Orem, where only 1,308 of 9,997 newcomers came from abroad.

"They're two different worlds apart, just 35 miles away," said Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino de Utah. Salt Lake's mixture of a long-standing immigrant community and the transitional services that ease an immigrant's landing provide a "welcome mat" unique in the state, he said.

Those services also have helped refugees from Africa and elsewhere find a foothold in the state capital, Yapias said.

"The city does a good job making immigrants from everywhere welcome." Increasingly the Mormon church does, too, and many South American migrants come to be near their church's headquarters, Yapias said.

The city also has the natural magnetism of a relatively strong and diverse economy with pockets of affordable housing.

At least until the recent housing market downturn, Salt Lake has attracted immigrants eager to work construction, said Mark Knold, chief economist with the Utah Department of Workforce Services.

More than anything, though, a desire to be with those of their native country has drawn people to live on Salt Lake's west side, within commuting distance of jobs in the suburbs.

"Just like all immigrant groups of the past, they have a strong preference for following their brethren," Knold said.

Utah is unique among Western states and indeed the nation in that its largest population age bubble is in the 20s and 30s - not the baby boomers, Knold said. So while there's less labor demand here and a lack of immigrants wouldn't inflate wages as much as it might elsewhere, Utah draws people simply because it's in the same neighborhood as states that need the labor.

Also of note in the census report, though, is Salt Lake's turnaround in domestic migration. Through much of the 1990s and right through 2005, more people moved away from Salt Lake than arrived from other American locales, University of Utah demographer Pam Perlich said. Last year, 1,456 more Americans moved to the metro area than moved away.

The key has been Utah's unique economic circumstances, she said. While the state's mini-baby boom of the 1980s has produced many of today working adults, the number of younger Utahns moving into the work force has flattened. Still, those 20- and 30-somethings are having children and, until now, demanding a lot of homes and services.

With the growing slump in housing demand, though, Knold said Utah's immigrant wave may wane during the current year. Some immigrants even appear to be leaving, he said, because unemployment isn't spiking even though job creation has slowed.

"It's still kind of early in the [downturn] game, but I would say we're into the game," he said.

New Utahns

Where last year's migrants to Utah metros originated:

* Salt Lake:

5,294 international

1,456 domestic

* Ogden-Clearfield:

788 international

5,879 domestic

* Provo-Orem:

1,308 international

8,689 domestic

* St. George:

156 international

4,556 domestic.