Migration Policy Institute

Four of the top 10 states with biggest immigrant population growth now have Arizona-style laws

Source: Migration Policy Institute

The top 10 states with the biggest foreign-born population growth between 1990 and 2010, based on census data

One post earlier this week mapped the top 10 states with the biggest foreign-born population growth since 1990; another post took a look at the states that since 2010 have enacted anti-illegal immigration laws. Among these are five states that since then have enacted strict laws similar to Arizona’s SB 1070, which the U.S. Supreme Court is set to weigh in on next month.

Put the data in both together and you have this: A list of the states with the fastest-growing immigrant populations that have recently enacted Arizona-style immigration laws. And as it turns out, of the five states with new laws similar to SB 1070 since 2010 – Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah and Indiana – all but one are on the top 10 list.

Here are the four states, all of which have seen more than 280 percent growth in their foreign-born populations since 1990, according to the Migration Policy Institute map above, and a brief synopsis of what’s happening with their immigration laws, all of which face legal challenges:

Alabama: Considered the nation’s strictest state anti-illegal immigration law, the measure known as HB 56 took partial effect in September. Among its many provisions was one blocked in court that would have required public schools to check the immigration status of students. The measure has driven many Latino immigrants to leave the state, prompting a labor shortage. A panel of federal judges in Atlanta this week decided to hold off on ruling on legal challenges to this and a similar law in Georgia until the Supreme Court decides on SB 1070.

Georgia: The state approved a measure last spring that is similar to the Alabama law, if not quite as strict. But with a component that requires employers to verify work authorization, similar to what has happened in Alabama, Georgia’s agricultural industry has been affected by a reduction in its labor force after the law took effect. Attempts to bring in convicts to work the fields have not worked out as planned. As with the Alabama law, federal judges are to decide on the law’s fate after SB 1070 is decided on by the Supreme Court.

South Carolina: Approved by state legislators in June, the state’s SB 1070-inspired law would have required law enforcement officials to check the immigration status of people suspected to be in the country illegally, a provision common to the laws modeled after Arizona’s. This and other controversial provisions were blocked (as was the same provision in Arizona) by a federal judge last December, before the law took effect in January.

Utah: Known as HB 497, the measure is the enforcement-only cousin of a more lenient Utah state immigration measure, also approved last year and challenged since. Like SB 1070 and its cousins in the southern states, HB 497 would require local police involvement in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. The federal Justice Department challenged the law last fall; earlier this month, a federal judge said he’d also wait for a decision on SB 1070 before issuing a ruling.

Indiana, the fifth state with a new anti-illegal immigration law modeled on SB 1070, is not in the top 10 but has a growing Latino population. A federal judge blocked part of the law last summer, shortly before it was set to take effect. And in Mississippi, Alabama’s neighbor to the west, a similarly styled anti-illegal immigration law is moving through the state legislature.

Tennessee, another of the states on the top 10 map, passed a state law last year requiring jails to notify federal authorities about inmates who are undocumented or whose status can’t be determined, though it’s not as stringent as the Arizona-style laws.

FILED UNDER: 2010 Census, Arizona-style laws, Census, Migration Policy Institute, MPI, SB 1070

February 29, 2012 | 11:53 AM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Which immigrants live where, mapped (Part 2)

A series of new maps from the Migration Policy Institute illustrates where immigrants from eight top sending countries tend to reside in the United States, highlighting the top states and cities they settle in. A previous post this morning showed where immigrants from Mexico, China, India and Philippines gravitate to; the four remaining maps below, updated with 2010 census data, point out the destinations of immigrants from Vietnam, El Salvador, Cuba and Korea.

Five of the eight immigrant groups – excluding those from China, India and Cuba – are most highly concentrated in the L.A. metropolitan region. But we already knew that.

The entire MPI map series can be downloaded here.

FILED UNDER: 2010 Census, Census, Migration Policy Institute, MPI

February 29, 2012 | 10:59 AM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Which immigrants live where, mapped (Part 1)

In a new series of maps based on 2010 census data, the Migration Policy Institute pinpoints just where it is that immigrants from specific nations call home. Only eight of the nation’s largest immigrant groups are represented so far, but it’s striking to see where they live today illustrated state by state, with the cities that are immigrant strongholds highlighted.

And yes, expect to see Los Angeles come up as a top destination again and again.

Here are four of the updated maps, illustrating the places in the U.S. that immigrants from Mexico, China, India and the Philippines most tend to call home:

A follow-up post will show the destinations of immigrants from four other top-sending countries. The entire MPI map series can be downloaded here.

FILED UNDER: 2010 Census, Census, Migration Policy Institute, MPI

February 28, 2012 | 4:20 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Top 10 states with the fastest-growing immigrant populations

Source: Migration Policy Institute

The Migration Policy Institute has produced another striking set of updated immigration-related maps based on 2010 census data, including this one. It’s well known from last year’s census that much of the recent growth in the nation’s foreign-born population has not taken place in usual destinations such as California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois (the states in blue), but in less traditional states, especially in the South.

Seeing the state-by-state growth mapped throws these demographic changes into relief, especially given the more recent headlines as some of these states have implemented strict new immigration laws. For the sake of reference, here are the states listed in order: 1. North Carolina; 2. Georgia; 3. Arkansas; 4. Tennessee; 5. Nevada; 6. South Carolina; 7. Kentucky; 8. Nebraska; 9. Alabama; 10. Utah.

FILED UNDER: 2010 Census, Census, Migration Policy Institute, MPI

December 22, 2011 | 12:10 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Who came from where when? Immigration history in charts

Screen shot from www.migrationinformation.org

There’s a treasure trove of U.S. immigration history buried in census data, and the Migration Policy Institute has again updated its collection of graphs and charts detailing it.

The data includes some statistics that might be expected, for example the top ten immigrant sending countries (Mexico remains at the top, followed at a distance by China) and the annual number of new U.S. citizens, a number that has dropped sharply since the most recent peak in 2008.

There’s also a fair amount of hard-to-guess immigration trivia dating back decades:

Which country has the largest immigrant diaspora group in the United States in terms of ethnic origin? Germany. (Mexico come in second, though it leads in terms of country of birth.)
Even as recently as 1980, which region’s immigrants made up the biggest percentage of foreign-born residents in the U.S.? Europeans. (Latinos took the lead in 1990.)
When did legal immigration to the U.S. peak? 1991. (In the last couple of years, it has been down to levels below that of the previous peak in the early 1900s.)

One of the more interesting features is a chart, below, illustrating foreign-born immigrants as a share of the total U.S. population from 1850 to the present. It’s thought-provoking to note that today, despite their far larger numbers than a century ago, immigrants make up a smaller share of the nation’s population than they did in 1860, 1870, 1890, 1900, 1910 or 1920.

Screen shot from migrationinformation.org

The entire MPI data sheet with links to features can be downloaded here.

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Immigrant diasporas, Migration Policy Institute, Naturalizations

November 15, 2011 | 3:43 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

How will first- and second-generation young adults fare in college and beyond?

Photo by CSU Stanislaus Photo/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Youths and young adults between 16 and 26 from immigrant families now represent one in four people in the United States in this age group – up from one in five only 15 years ago, according to a new report. As they move through secondary and postsecondary education then on to the workplace, replacing older workers, how will they fare?

The Migration Policy Institute report takes a close look at what it terms “youth of immigrant origin,” profiling foreign-born and U.S.-born young people between the ages of 16 and 26. The report notes, among other things, that between 2007 and 2010, a tipping point occurred in which the number of first-generation immigrants was eclipsed by that of the U.S.-born second generation. In 2010, there were 4.8 million first-generation immigrant youths ages 16 to 26 in the U.S., 2.8 million of whom arrived before they were 16.

By contrast, there were 6.5 million second-generation youths in 2010. What this means as these these U.S.-born children of immigrants overtake the foreign-born group: “A rising share of immigrant-origin youth will be fully eligible for college admission, financial aid, and employment,” the report reads. It’s a lengthy report, but here are a few of the highlights:

If second and higher generations are taken into account, the number of bilingual young people 16 to 26 comes to 7.1 million, more than twice the number of youth with limited English proficiency.

Among Latinos, the second generation’s rate of high school attendance, college enrollment, and degree earning is significantly higher than that of the first generation. Latinas, in particular are enrolling in college at rates equal to those of third-generation white women. However, both female and male Latino students’ rate of degree completion still lags behind that of whites; for example, 18 percent fewer Latinas completed an associate’s degree or higher by 25 or 26 than their white peers.

Non-Latino first-and second-generation immigrant youths fare better in college than Latinos, an outcome that is driven largely by Asian American youths. More than 53 percent of non-Latino youths of immigrant origin had an associate’s degree or higher by age 25 or 26, compared with 45 percent of third-generation whites. But the report notes a wide gap in outcomes among different Asian American groups, with children of Chinese and Indian immigrants from affluent, two-parent families at the top of the educational attainment list.

The most vulnerable group among those studied is young Latinos who came to the United States at 16 or older, whose roadblocks to educational and economic attainment include a lack of legal status for many (and no eligibility for relief under the proposed Dream Act), poor English skills, and often an interrupted education in their native countries that is difficult to recover from.

The report points out that how first-generation youths fare in their education and the workplace will vary greatly depending on immigration status, including for those foreign-born who arrived as young children and remain undocumented. While there is proposed legislation to grant those who arrived before age 16 conditional legal status if they go to college or join the military, many continue to graduate from high school and college with no clear path to legal status.

The entire report can be downloaded here.

FILED UNDER: Health/Education, Dream Act, Migration Policy Institute

November 3, 2011 | 11:48 AM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Immigrants wanted: The future role of immigration to U.S. and Europe

Photo by Andres Rueda/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Spain's version of a green card, January 2009

Since early this year, the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute has partnered with the European University Institute in Italy to produce a series of reports and policy briefs on the immigration challenges facing U.S. and European governments. They have explored demographic changes, the economics of immigration and integration, among other things.

A final report just released looks at the shared challenges on both sides of the Atlantic in the future and potential reforms – and at the role that immigration will play as the native-born population ages and leave the workforce.

In Europe, these changes could potentially threaten the region’s future economy and global influence, the report concludes, making inbound migration a necessity. From the report:

While the population of Europe will decrease or stabilize, depending upon migration scenarios, most other regions will continue to grow. As a result, the relative weight of Europe in world population terms will dwindle, thereby potentially undermining Europe’s influence in world affairs and the institutions of global governance.

Without migration, Europe would already be experiencing a decline in the size of its labor force. The reduction in the native labor force has already begun and will accelerate in coming years, in stark contrast to many emerging economies that are going through demographic expansion.

Under a no-migration scenario, the working-age population of the European Union would fall by a projected 84 million, or 27 percent of its current size, between 2010 and 2050. Even with migration maintained at the relatively high precrisis levels — a highly unlikely scenario when considering the euphoric economic conditions that drew immigrants to the European Union during the mid-2000s boom and the dramatic collapse that succeeded it — this loss would reach 35 million over the same period, and reductions of 5 to 11 million each would be expected in Germany, Italy, and Poland.

The situation in the United States is less dire, though the projected growth in the labor force over the next 20 years is “expected to be entirely attributable to immigration,” the report reads:

By contrast, US projections present a more favorable picture. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the labor force will continue to grow in coming decades. Projected growth under moderate assumptions about immigration flows is 0.7 percent annually in the coming decade, followed by 0.5 percent from 2020 to 2030.

This growth nonetheless represents a break from the past, in which the US labor force experienced rapid growth fueled by massive increases in female labor force participation and by the entry of the baby boomer cohorts onto the labor market. Relatively high net immigration has sustained this growth to a significant extent, and by 2030 labor force growth in the United States is expected to be entirely attributable to immigration.

But while immigrants can help soften the economic blow as native-born populations age, newcomers must be able to find “productive employment,” at their destination, the report continues: ”Investment in long-term or permanent immigrants and their families, therefore, is a crucial part of any strategy to meet the challenge of demographic change through immigration.”

The entire report can be downloaded here.

FILED UNDER: Economy, Politics/Justice, Immigrant labor, Migration Policy Institute

August 23, 2011 | 2:21 PM | By Leslie Berestein Rojas

Report: Why immigration reform has gone nowhere since 9/11

Photo by jeromebot/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Marchers in downtown Los Angeles rallying for immigration reforms on May 1, 2006

Why is it that in spite of public opinion poll support for broad immigration reforms and two presidents who have pushed for it recently, such initiatives have fallen short in the last decade?

The Migration Policy Institute examines the fate of immigration reform attempts in the post-9/11 era in a new report authored by Marc Rosenblum, an immigration policy specialist with the Congressional Research Service. From the executive summary:

The election of George W. Bush in 2000 seemed to mark a turning point in US immigration policy. Thirty- five years after the last major changes to the US immigration system, and two decades into an increasingly assertive, but mostly ineffective, immigration enforcement policy, the Republican president seemed to see immigration as offering important benefits to the US economy.

He called for a new and large-scale temporary worker program, saw the growing Hispanic population as important swing voters, and met five times in nine months with Mexico’s newly elected president, Vicente Fox.

But migration negotiations with Mexico collapsed following the terrorist attacks against the United States in September 2001. In the post-9/11 period, Congress passed a series of tough measures to tighten border security and facilitate data collection and information sharing on suspected terrorists, and broadened the government’s power to detain and deport immigrants.

Both Presidents Bush and Barack Obama have supported broader immigration reforms. Yet, while Congress took up “comprehensive immigration reform” (CIR) bills (i.e., legislation combining enforcement, legalization, and changes to the visa system) in 2006 and 2007, it did not deliver a bill for the president’s signature. Legislative action in 2009-10 was limited to debate on a legalization proposal focusing on unauthorized youth (the DREAM Act) — a proposal that was defeated on a procedural vote in the Senate.

Why the stalemate? Rosenblum examines the organizational changes that took place in the aftermath of 9/11 leading to a greater focus on enforcement, and what has happened since, with enforcement as “the default immigration policy.” Complicated immigration politics and “short-term political considerations” have also impeded long-term reform plans, he writes.

It’s a good read for anyone trying to understand what has happened to immigration reform efforts in the years since 2001 and even since 2006, when a comprehensive overhaul of the immigration system seemed fairly imminent as immigrants and their supporters rallied around the country.

The entire report can be downloaded here.