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January 31, 2013

Five things economists know about immigration

Dylan Matthews of Wongblog at the Washington Post posted this column on January 29:

Few areas of economics have provoked as much fruitful research as immigration, and while disagreements remain, there are at least a few things we can glean from that literature. Here are just a few of them.

1. It’s really good for immigrants

File this one under “duh,” but immigration is a great deal for immigrants, and an even better one than it was during previous eras of mass immigration. Lant Pritchett, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and author of Let Their People Come, a great book on the economics of immigration, produced this graph comparing wage gaps between immigrants’ destinations and countries of origins in the 19th century to those gaps in more modern times.

In the 1870s, workers in Ireland could double their wages by coming to the United States. In the 1990s, workers in Guatemala could raise their wages sixfold by coming to the Unted States. In another study, the University of Wisconsin’s John Keenan estimated that completely opening the borders would increase the average developing country worker’s salary from $8,903 to $19,272 — more than double.

2. It’s very good for the economy as a whole

Economists have tried to put a dollar figure on how much the world economy would grow if we just removed all immigration restrictions overnight. The answer: a lot. Angel Aguiar and Terrie Walmsley modeled the effects of three U.S. policy alternatives — full deportation of Mexican immigrants, full legalization and full legalization with increased border control — and found, unsurprisingly, that full deportation reduces gross domestic product and the others would add. Deportation reduces GDP by 0.61 percent, legalization with border control increases it by 0.17 percent and legalization without border control increases it by 0.53 percent.

Pritchett, meanwhile, compared what open borders would do to world GDP, compared to completely free movement of capital and completely free trade with developing countries. It’s not even close. Open borders increase world GDP by $65 trillion. Let me repeat that. $65 trillion — with a ‘t’. The others don’t even come close.

3. It increases innovation

Businessweek’s Charles Kenny, who’s also a fellow at the Center for Global Development, highlighted a slew of studies suggesting that high-skilled immigration is key to innovation in America. Foreign nationals living in the United States accounted for 25.6 percent of all patent applications and founded 26 percent of start-ups, including a majority of Silicon Valley start-ups. In addition, an increase in immigrants with higher education diplomas is associated with an increase in patenting. Charles Lin at Rutgers found that an expansion of high-skilled visas passed in 1998 increased revenue at affected companies by 15 percent.

4. The typical native-born worker probably benefits

There’s a lot of debate on this one. A 2010 white paper by Gianmarco Ottaviano, Giovanni Peri and Greg Wright found that less expensive immigrant labor has a “positive net effect on native employment.” In another paper, Peri found that U.S. immigration from 1990 to 2006 increased real wages by 2.86 percent. Put together, Peri’s research forms the strongest basis for arguing that immigration increases wages for native-born American workers. Patricia Cortes at Unviersity of Chicago has confirmed his findings, Heidi Sheirholz at EPI and Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda at the Center for American Progress, similarly, have found across-the-board gains from immigration (or, in the latter case, comprehensive immigration reform) to wages.

George Borjas and Lawrence Katz, two Harvard labor economists who tend to be more skeptical of the benefits from immigration, beg to differ. Between 1980 and 2000, U.S. workers saw their wages fall in the short-run by 3.4 percent due to immigration. In the long-run, the economy adjusts such that the overall effect is minimal, but the short term figures are still a cause for concern.

Unsurprisingly, Peri and Ottaviano dispute Borjas and Katz’s methodology. They argue that Borjas and Katz inaccurately assume that U.S. and foreign workers are perfect substitutes. That’s a problematic assumption, since immigrants tend to do a different kind of labor, one which might not even exist in their absence. “[Immigration opponents] say ‘we Americans could do the job!’ but they don’t say ‘we’ll do the job at a significantly higher price at which the job wouldn’t exist,’” said Jagdish Bhagwati, a trade and immigration economist at Columbia and the Council on Foreign Relations. Borjas and Katz also neglect the indirect benefits that immigration provides to all groups through increasing growth.

But even taking Borjas and Katz at face value, the two groups’ estimates aren’t that far off from each other when you look at the long-run, as this chart from Michael Greenstone and Adam Looney at the Hamilton Project shows.

Everyone agrees that high school grads and people with some college benefit in the long run and despite their short-run estimates, even Borjas and Katz show a mildly positive overall effect in the long run. The dispute is about what happens at the low-end.

5. Low-skilled immigrants probably don’t see any effect

That’s what Peri’s findings say above, and they’re confirmed in two notable studies, by David Card and Rachel Friedberg, which found that the Mariel boatlift (which brought upwards of 100,000 immigrants to Miami in 1980) and the early 1990s Russian Jewish migration to Israel, respectively, did not decrease native employment or wages. Both were big events. The boatlift increased Miami’s population by 7 percent, and the Russian migration increased Israel’s population by 12 percent.

The advantage of these studies is that they isolate what economists call a “supply shock” to labor. All of the sudden, for reasons unrelated to other factors in the economy, the supply of labor increased. That makes it easier to determine what that shock’s effects are, because it’s not itself caused by other factors in the economy. This increased Card and Friedberg’s confidence that there really wasn’t an effect on wages from the sudden influx of immigrants. But other studies have found this as well. Peri argues that while low-skilled native workers suffer due to liberalized immigration in the short-run, they aren’t affected in the long-run.

Of course, Borjas, Katz and other skeptics argue that low-skilled immigration very clearly reduces wages and employment for low-skilled American workers. The issue is, as yet, unresolved. But the consensus view among economists is that the effect, even if negative, is negligible.

January 29, 2013

President Obama’s immigration reform plans Jan 29 2013

The Administration is proposing a “provisional” category or undocumented immigrants, as does the Senate’s statement. The White House Press Office issued this statement today:


FACT SHEET: Fixing our Broken Immigration System so Everyone Plays by the Rules

America’s immigration system is broken. Too many employers game the system by hiring undocumented workers and there are 11 million people living in the shadows. Neither is good for the economy or the country. It is time to act to fix the broken immigration system in a way that requires responsibility from everyone —both from the workers here illegally and those who hire them—and guarantees that everyone is playing by the same rules.

President Obama’s commonsense immigration reform proposal has four parts. First, continue to strengthen our borders. Second, crack down on companies that hire undocumented workers. Third, hold undocumented immigrants accountable before they can earn their citizenship; this means requiring undocumented workers to pay their taxes and a penalty, move to the back of the line, learn English, and pass background checks. Fourth, streamline the legal immigration system for families, workers, and employers.

Together we can build a fair, effective and commonsense immigration system that lives up to our heritage as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.

The key principles the President believes should be included in commonsense immigration reform are:

Continuing to Strengthen Border Security: President Obama has doubled the number of Border Patrol agents since 2004 and today border security is stronger than it has ever been. But there is more work to do. The President’s proposal gives law enforcement the tools they need to make our communities safer from crime. And by enhancing our infrastructure and technology, the President’s proposal continues to strengthen our ability to remove criminals and apprehend and prosecute national security threats.

Cracking Down on Employers Hiring Undocumented Workers: Our businesses should only employ people legally authorized to work in the United States. Businesses that knowingly employ undocumented workers are exploiting the system to gain an advantage over businesses that play by the rules. The President’s proposal is designed to stop these unfair hiring practices and hold these companies accountable. At the same time, this proposal gives employers who want to play by the rules a reliable way to verify that their employees are here legally.

Earned Citizenship: It is just not practical to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants living within our borders. The President’s proposal provides undocumented immigrants a legal way to earn citizenship that will encourage them to come out of the shadows so they can pay their taxes and play by the same rules as everyone else. Immigrants living here illegally must be held responsible for their actions by passing national security and criminal background checks, paying taxes and a penalty, going to the back of the line, and learning English before they can earn their citizenship. There will be no uncertainty about their ability to become U.S. citizens if they meet these eligibility criteria. The proposal will also stop punishing innocent young people brought to the country through no fault of their own by their parents and give them a chance to earn their citizenship more quickly if they serve in the military or pursue higher education.

Streamlining Legal Immigration: Our immigration system should reward anyone who is willing to work hard and play by the rules. For the sake of our economy and our security, legal immigration should be simple and efficient. The President’s proposal attracts the best minds to America by providing visas to foreign entrepreneurs looking to start businesses here and helping the most promising foreign graduate students in science and math stay in this country after graduation, rather than take their skills to other countries. The President’s proposal will also reunify families in a timely and humane manner.

Continuing to Strengthen Border Security

Strengthen border security and infrastructure. The President’s proposal strengthens and improves infrastructure at ports of entry, facilitates public-private partnerships aimed at increasing investment in foreign visitor processing, and continues supporting the use of technologies that help to secure the land and maritime borders of the United States.

Combat transnational crime. The President’s proposal creates new criminal penalties dedicated to combating transnational criminal organizations that traffic in drugs, weapons, and money, and that smuggle people across the borders. It also expands the scope of current law to allow for the forfeiture of these organizations’ criminal tools and proceeds. Through this approach, we will bolster our efforts to deprive criminal enterprises, including those operating along the Southwest border, of their infrastructure and profits.

Improve partnerships with border communities and law enforcement. The President’s proposal expands our ability to work with our cross-border law enforcement partners. Community trust and cooperation are keys to effective law enforcement. To this end, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will establish border community liaisons along the Southern and Northern borders to improve communication and collaboration with border communities, boost funding to tribal government partners to reduce illegal activity on tribal lands, and strengthen training on civil rights and civil liberties for DHS immigration officers.

Crack down on criminal networks engaging in passport and visa fraud and human smuggling. The President’s proposal creates tough criminal penalties for trafficking in passports and immigration documents and schemes to defraud, including those who prey on vulnerable immigrants through notario fraud. It also strengthens penalties to combat human smuggling rings.

Deporting Criminals. The President’s proposal expands smart enforcement efforts that target convicted criminals in federal or state correctional facilities, allowing us to remove them from the United States at the end of their sentences without re-entering our communities. At the same time, it protects those with a credible fear of returning to their home countries.

Streamline removal of nonimmigrant national security and public safety threats. The President’s proposal creates a streamlined administrative removal process for people who overstay their visas and have been determined to be threats to national security and public safety.

Improve our nation’s immigration courts. The President’s proposal invests in our immigration courts. By increasing the number of immigration judges and their staff, investing in training for court personnel, and improving access to legal information for immigrants, these reforms will improve court efficiency. It allows DHS to better focus its detention resources on public safety and national security threats by expanding alternatives to detention and reducing overall detention costs. It also provides greater protections for those least able to represent themselves.

Cracking Down on Employers Who Hire Undocumented Workers

Mandatory, phased-in electronic employment verification. The President’s proposal provides tools for employers to ensure a legal workforce by using federal government databases to verify that the people they hire are eligible to work in the United States. Penalties for hiring undocumented workers are significantly increased, and new penalties are established for committing fraud and identity theft. The new mandatory program ensures the privacy and confidentiality of all workers’ personal information and includes important procedural protections. Mandatory electronic employment verification would be phased in over five years with exemptions for certain small businesses.

Combat fraud and identity theft. The proposal also mandates a fraud‐resistant, tamper‐resistant Social Security card and requires workers to use fraud‐and tamper‐resistant documents to prove authorization to work in the United States. The proposal also seeks to establish a voluntary pilot program to evaluate new methods to authenticate identity and combat identity theft.

Protections for all workers. The President’s proposal protects workers against retaliation for exercising their labor rights. It increases the penalties for employers who hire undocumented workers to skirt the workplace standards that protect all workers. And it creates a “labor law enforcement fund” to help ensure that industries that employ significant numbers of immigrant workers comply with labor laws.

Pathway to Earned Citizenship

Create a provisional legal status. Undocumented immigrants must come forward and register, submit biometric data, pass criminal background and national security checks, and pay fees and penalties before they will be eligible for a provisional legal status. Agricultural workers and those who entered the United States as children would be eligible for the same program. Individuals must wait until the existing legal immigration backlogs are cleared before getting in line to apply for lawful permanent residency (i.e. a “green card”), and ultimately United States citizenship. Consistent with current law, people with provisional legal status will not be eligible for welfare or other federal benefits, including subsidies or tax credits under the new health care law.

Create strict requirements to qualify for lawful permanent resident status. Those applying for green cards must pay their taxes, pass additional criminal background and national security checks, register for Selective Service (where applicable), pay additional fees and penalties, and learn English and U.S. civics. As under current law, five years after receiving a green card, individuals will be eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship like every other legal permanent resident.

Earned citizenship for DREAMers. Children brought here illegally through no fault of their own by their parents will be eligible for earned citizenship. By going to college or serving honorably in the Armed Forces for at least two years, these children should be given an expedited opportunity to earn their citizenship. The President’s proposal brings these undocumented immigrants out of the shadows.

Create administrative and judicial review. An individual whose provisional lawful status has been revoked or denied, or whose application for adjustment has been denied, will have the opportunity to seek administrative and judicial review of those decisions.

Provide new resources to combat fraud. The President’s proposal authorizes funding to enable DHS, the Department of State, and other relevant federal agencies to establish fraud prevention programs that will provide training for adjudicators, allow regular audits of applications to identify patterns of fraud and abuse, and incorporate other proven fraud prevention measures.

Streamlining Legal Immigration

Keep Families Together. The proposal seeks to eliminate existing backlogs in the family-sponsored immigration system by recapturing unused visas and temporarily increasing annual visa numbers. The proposal also raises existing annual country caps from 7 percent to 15 percent for the family-sponsored immigration system. It also treats same-sex families as families by giving U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents the ability to seek a visa on the basis of a permanent relationship with a same-sex partner. The proposal also revises current unlawful presence bars and provides broader discretion to waive bars in cases of hardship.
Cut Red Tape for Employers. The proposal also eliminates the backlog for employment-sponsored immigration by eliminating annual country caps and adding additional visas to the system. Outdated legal immigration programs are reformed to meet current and future demands by exempting certain categories from annual visa limitations.

Enhance travel and tourism. The Administration is committed to increasing U.S. travel and tourism by facilitating legitimate travel while maintaining our nation’s security. Consistent with the President’s Executive Order on travel and tourism, the President’s proposal securely streamlines visa and foreign visitor processing. It also strengthens law enforcement cooperation while maintaining the program’s robust counterterrorism and criminal information sharing initiatives. It facilitates more efficient travel by allowing greater flexibility to designate countries for participation in the Visa Waiver Program, which allows citizens of designated countries to visit the United States without obtaining a visa. And finally it permits the State Department to waive interview requirements for certain very low-risk visa applicants, permitting resources to be focused on higher risk applicants and creates a pilot for premium visa processing.

“Staple” green cards to advanced STEM diplomas. The proposal encourages foreign graduate students educated in the United States to stay here and contribute to our economy by “stapling” a green card to the diplomas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) PhD and Master’s Degree graduates from qualified U.S. universities who have found employment in the United States. It also requires employers to pay a fee that will support education and training to grow the next generation of American workers in STEM careers.

Create a “startup visa” for job-creating entrepreneurs. The proposal allows foreign entrepreneurs who attract financing from U.S. investors or revenue from U.S. customers to start and grow their businesses in the United States, and to remain permanently if their companies grow further, create jobs for American workers, and strengthen our economy.

Expand opportunities for investor visas and U.S. economic development. The proposal permanently authorizes immigrant visa opportunities for regional center (pooled investment) programs; provides incentives for visa requestors to invest in programs that support national priorities, including economic development in rural and economically depressed regions ; adds new measures to combat fraud and national security threats; includes data collection on economic impact; and creates a pilot program for state and local government officials to promote economic development.

Create a new visa category for employees of federal national security science and technology laboratories. The proposal creates a new visa category for a limited number of highly-skilled and specialized immigrants to work in federal science and technology laboratories on critical national security needs after being in the United States. for two years and passing rigorous national security and criminal background checks.

Better addresses humanitarian concerns. The proposal streamlines immigration law to better protect vulnerable immigrants, including those who are victims of crime and domestic violence. It also better protects those fleeing persecution by eliminating the existing limitations that prevent qualified individuals from applying for asylum.

Encourage integration. The proposal promotes earned citizenship and efforts to integrate immigrants into their new American communities linguistically, civically, and economically.

January 28, 2013

Senators’ statement of principles on immigration reform

As published by the Washington Post this morning....this is the most important single document to start off the immigration reform effort in 2013.

Bipartisan Framework for Comprehensive Immigration Reform Senators Schumer, McCain, Durbin, Graham, Menendez, Rubio, Bennet, and Flake

Introduction

We recognize that our immigration system is broken. And while border security has improved significantly over the last two Administrations, we still don't have a functioning immigration system. This has created a situation where up to 11 million undocumented immigrants are living in the shadows. Our legislation acknowledges these realities by finally committing the resources needed to secure the border, modernize and streamline our current legal immigration system, while creating a tough but fair legalization program for individuals who are currently here. We
will ensure that this is a successful permanent reform to our immigration system that will not need to be revisited.

Four Basic Legislative Pillars:

o Create a tough but fair path to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants currently living in the United States that is contingent upon securing our borders and tracking whether legal immigrants have left the country when required;

o Reform our legal immigration system to better recognize the importance of characteristics that will help build the American economy and strengthen American families;

o Create an effective employment verification system that will prevent identity theft and end the hiring of future unauthorized workers; and,

o Establish an improved process for admitting future workers to serve our nation's workforce needs, while simultaneously protecting all workers.


1. Creating a Path to Citizenship for Unauthorized Immigrants Already Here that is Contingent Upon Securing the Border and Combating Visa Overstays

Our legislation will provide a tough, fair, and practical roadmap to address the status of unauthorized immigrants in the United States that is contingent upon our success in securing our borders and addressing visa overstays.

To fulfill the basic governmental function of securing our borders, we will continue the increased efforts of the Border Patrol by providing them with the latest technology, infrastructure, and personnel needed to prevent, detect, and apprehend every unauthorized entrant.

Additionally, our legislation will increase the number of unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance equipment, improve radio interoperability and increase the number of agents at and between ports of entry. The purpose is to substantially lower the number of successful illegal border crossings while continuing to facilitate commerce.

We will strengthen prohibitions against racial profiling and inappropriate use of force, enhance the training of border patrol agents, increase oversight, and create a mechanism to ensure a meaningful opportunity for border communities to share input, including critiques.

Our legislation will require the completion of an entry-exit system that tracks whether all persons entering the United States on temporary visas via airports and seaports have left the country as required by law.

We recognize that Americans living along the Southwest border are key to recognizing and understanding when the border is truly secure. Our legislation will create a commission comprised of governors, attorneys general, and community leaders living along the Southwest border to monitor the progress of securing our border and to make a recommendation regarding when the bill's security measures outlined in the legislation are completed.

While these security measures are being put into place, we will simultaneously require those who came or remained in the United States without our permission to register with the government. This will include passing a background check and settling their debt to society by paying a fine and back taxes, in order to earn probationary legal status, which will allow them to live and work legally in the United States. Individuals with a serious criminal background or others who pose a threat to our national security will be ineligible for legal status and subject to deportation. Illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes face immediate deportation.

We will demonstrate our commitment to securing our borders and combating visa overstays by requiring our proposed enforcement measures be complete before any immigrant on probationary status can earn a green card.

Current restrictions preventing non-immigrants from accessing federal public benefits will also apply to lawful probationary immigrants.

Once the enforcement measures have been completed, individuals with probationary legal status will be required to go to the back of the line of prospective immigrants, pass an additional background check, pay taxes, learn English and civics, demonstrate a history of work in the United States, and current employment, among other requirements, in order to earn the opportunity to apply for lawful permanent residency. Those individuals who successfully complete these requirements can eventually earn a green card.

Individuals who are present without lawful status - not including people within the two categories identified below - will only receive a green card after every individual who is already waiting in line for a green card, at the time this legislation is enacted, has received their green card. Our purpose is to ensure that no one who has violated America's immigration laws will receive preferential treatment as they relate to those individuals who have complied with the law.

Our legislation also recognizes that the circumstances and the conduct of people without lawful status are not the same, and cannot be addressed identically.

o For instance, individuals who entered the United States as minor children did not knowingly choose to violate any immigration laws. Consequently, under our proposal these individuals will not face the same requirements as other individuals in order to earn a path to citizenship.

o Similarly, individuals who have been working without legal status in the United States agricultural industry have been performing very important and difficult work to maintain America's food supply while earning subsistence wages. Due to the utmost importance in our nation maintaining the safety of its food supply, agricultural workers who commit to the long term stability of our nation's agricultural industries will be treated differently than the rest of the undocumented population because of the ole they play in ensuring that Americans have safe and secure agricultural products to sell and consume. These individuals will earn a path to citizenship through a different process under our new agricultural worker program.

II. Improving our Legal Immigration System and Attracting the World's Best and Brightest

The development of a rational legal immigration system is essential to ensuring America's future economic prosperity. Our failure to act is perpetuating a broken system which sadly discourages the world's best and brightest citizens from coming to the United States and remaining in our country to contribute to our economy. This failure makes a legal path to entry in the United States insurmountably difficult for well-meaning immigrants. This unarguably discourages innovation and economic growth. It has also created substantial visa backlogs which force families to live apart, which incentivizes illegal immigration.

Our new immigration system must be more focused on recognizing the important
characteristics which will help build the American economy and strengthen American families. Additionally, we must reduce backlogs in the family and employment visa categories so that future immigrants view our future legal immigration system as the exclusive means for entry into the United States.

The United States must do a better job of attracting and keeping the world's best and brightest. As such, our immigration proposal will award a green card to immigrants who have received a PhD or Master's degree in science, technology, engineering, or math from an American university. It makes no sense to educate the world's future innovators and entrepreneurs only to ultimately force them to leave our country at the moment they are most able to contribute to our economy.

III. Strong Employment Verification

We recognize that undocumented immigrants come to the United States almost exclusively for jobs. As such, dramatically reducing future illegal immigration can only be achieved by developing a tough, fair, effective and mandatory employment verification system. An employment verification system must hold employers accountable for knowingly hiring undocumented workers and make it more difficult for unauthorized immigrants to falsify documents to obtain employment. Employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers must face stiff fines and criminal penalties for egregious offenses.

We believe the federal government must provide U.S. employers with a fast and reliable method to confirm whether new hires are legally authorized to work in the United States. This is essential to ensure the effective enforcement of immigration laws.

Our proposal will create an effective employment verification system which prevents identity theft and ends the hiring of future unauthorized workers. We believe requiring prospective workers to demonstrate both legal status and identity, through non-forgeable electronic means prior to obtaining employment, is essential to an employee verification system; and, The employee verification system in our proposal will be crafted with procedural safeguards to protect American workers, prevent identity theft, and provide due process protections.

IV. Admitting New Workers and Protecting Workers' Rights

The overwhelming majority of the 327,000 illegal entrants apprehended by CBP in FY2011 were seeking employment in the United States. We recognize that to prevent future waves of illegal immigration a humane and effective system needs to be created for these immigrant workers to enter the country and find employment without seeking the aid of human traffickers or drug cartels.

Our proposal will provide businesses with the ability to hire lower-skilled workers in a timely manner when Americans are unavailable or unwilling to fill those jobs.

Our legislation would:

o Allow employers to hire immigrants if it can be demonstrated that they were unsuccessful in recruiting an American to fill an open position and the hiring of an immigrant will not displace American workers;

o Create a workable program to meet the needs of America's agricultural industry, including dairy to find agricultural workers when American workers are not available to fill open positions;

o Allow more lower-skilled immigrants to come here when our economy is creating jobs, and fewer when our economy is not creating jobs;

o Protect workers by ensuring strong labor protections; and,

o Permit workers who have succeeded in the workplace and contributed to their communities over many years to earn green cards.

January 22, 2013

Non-English preference speakers in the U.S doubled since 1980


The number of United States residents who speak a language other than English at home has more than doubled since 1980. Based on results from analysis of the 2007 American Community Survey, the Census Bureau report finds that a large majority of the population aged 5 and older in the United States (80 percent) speaks only English at home. However, the number of individuals who speak a language other than English at home more than doubled between 1980 and 2007. The magnitude of this growth is four times greater than the nation’s population growth.

The number of individuals who spoke a language other than English at home increased 140 percent from approximately 23.1 million in 1980 to 55.4 million in 2007. By contrast, the overall U.S. population grew 34 percent during this period. The findings also suggest that the prevalence of foreign-language speakers is highest among the younger ages. As shown in Figure 2, 21 percent of children aged 5 to 17 and 24 percent of adults aged 18 to 40 spoke a language other than English at home, compared to 17 percent of adults aged 41 to 64 and 14 percent of adults aged 65 and older.

Spanish speakers account for the largest share of the population who spoke a language other than English at home in 2007 (62 percent). Further, while there were eight languages spoken at home that more than doubled between 1980 and 2007, the largest numerical increase of foreign-language speakers was among those who spoke Spanish. By 2007 the number of Spanish speakers had grown by more than 23.4 million.

The number of residents with low English proficiency is also increasing.

The Census Bureau classifies five percent of US households as linguistically-isolated.5 A linguistically-isolated household is one where no one in the home above the age of 14 speaks English only or speaks a second language and speaks English well. In 2007, 24.5 million individuals reported that they spoke English less than “very well.” The proportion of individuals who are less than proficient in English is especially high for those who speak Spanish at home – at 47 percent – and those who speak Asian and Pacific Island languages, at 49 percent.

The number of individuals with inadequate English-language skills is rapidly increasing, according to a second report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that analyzes trends not tracked in the Census report. The GAO study finds that adults who speak English less than “very well” rose 21.8 percent between 2000 and 2007, to about 22 million. The study also reports that the largest numbers of adult residents with limited English-language proficiency in 2007 lived in six large immigrant “gateway” states: California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas. A second group of states, however – Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Nevada and Tennessee – posted the highest growth rates in this population during the 2000 to 2007 period. These 12 states account for 75 percent of the national adult population with limited English-language proficiency.

Source: Curtis Skinner, Vanessa R. Wight, Yumiko Aratani, Janice L. Cooper, and Kalyani Thampi. English Language Proficiency, Family Economic Security, and Child Development. Publication Date: June 2010
http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_948.html

Other sources:

Government Accountability Office. 2009. English Language Learning: Diverse Federal State Efforts to Support Adult English Language Learning Could Benefit from More Coordination. Report to the Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Children and Families, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, U.S. Senate. Accessed May 19, 2010 from http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d09575.pdf

Shin, Hyon B.; Kominski, Robert A. 2010. Language Use in the United States: 2007. American Community Survey Reports, ACS-12. Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau. Accessed May 19, 2010 from http://www.census.gove/prod/2010pubs/acs-12.pdf.

January 18, 2013

Introduction to H-2A temporary agricultural worker program

The following is an introduction to the H-2A program for temporary agricultural workers. The introduction is drawn mainly from Congressional Research Service. Immigration of Temporary Lower-Skilled Workers: Current Policy and Related Issues.


Introduction

Foreign agricultural workers have been a recent focus of attention in Congress, with the immigration subcommittees of both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees holding related hearings in 2011 and 2012. A number of legislative proposals on agricultural guest workers have likewise been put forward in the 112th Congress. Some bills would amend INA provisions on the H-2A visa, while others would establish new temporary agricultural worker programs as alternatives to the H-2A program. Still other proposals would couple a legalization program for agricultural workers either with H-2A reform, as in the traditional AgJOBS formulation, or with other changes to current law on agricultural labor.

Of the 79,000 certified H-2A positions in 2010, 40% were in the top five states (in order of size): North Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida. [Table A-1, pg. 28]

How it works

The H-2A program allows for the temporary admission of foreign workers to the United States to perform agricultural labor or services of a seasonal or temporary nature, provided that U.S. workers are not available. In general, for purposes of the H-2A program, work is of a temporary nature where the employer’s need for the worker will last no longer than one year. Thus, an approved H-2A visa petition is generally valid for an initial period of up to one year. An employer can apply to extend an H-2A worker’s stay in increments of up to one year, but an alien’s total
period of stay as an H-2A worker may not exceed three consecutive years. An alien who has spent three years in the United States in H-2A status may not seek an extension of stay or be readmitted to the United States as an H-2A worker until he or she has been outside the country for three months.

Prospective H-2A employers are required to submit a job order to the state workforce agency (SWA) serving the area of intended employment before filing a
labor certification application. Once reviewed and cleared by the SWA, the job order becomes the basis for recruiting U.S. workers to fill the employer’s job openings. The employer can then file the labor certification application with DOL. In the DOL application the employer must first apply to DOL for a certification that (1) there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are qualified and available to perform the work; and (2) the employment of foreign workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers who are similarly employed.

Prospective H-2A employers must attempt to recruit U.S. workers and must cooperate with DOL-funded state employment service agencies (also known as state workforce agencies) in local, intrastate, and interstate recruitment efforts. Under the H-2A program’s fifty percent rule, employers are required to hire any qualified U.S. worker who applies for a position during the first half of the work contract under which the H-2A workers who are in the job are employed.


Among the other H-2A labor certification requirements, employers must provide a “three-fourths guarantee”; that is, they must guarantee to offer workers employment for at least three-fourths of the contract period. As discussed below, H-2A employers must pay their H-2A workers and similarly employed U.S. workers the highest of several wage rates and must also provide workers with housing, transportation, and other benefits, including workers’ compensation insurance. No
health insurance coverage is required. (H-2A workers, like non-immigrants generally, are not eligible for federally funded public assistance, with the
exception of Medicaid emergency services. )

Some 86,014 H-2A positions were certified for FY2009 and 79,011 were certified for FY2010. Employers in North Carolina received more H-2A certifications than
employers in any other state in both years. Other top states, in terms of number of H-2A positions certified, were Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana. [Appendix A of this report shows certifications by state.]

The H-2A program is not subject to a statutory numerical limit and has grown significantly over the last 20 years. One way to measure the H-2A program’s growth is to consider changes in the number of H-2A visas issued annually by DOS. There is no precise measure available of the number of aliens granted H-2A status in any given year. While visa data provide an approximation, these data are subject to limitations, among them that not all aliens who are issued visas necessarily use them to enter the United States.

The number of H-2A visas issued increased more than fourfold between FY1992 and FY2000, when about 30,000 visas were issued. H-2A visa issuances remained at about 30,000 annually until FY2005 and then started to increase, peaking at more
than 64,000 FY2008. The number of H-2A visas issued subsequently declined, totaling some 55,000 in FY2011, according to preliminary DOS data.

Despite its growth since the early 1990s, the H-2A program remains quite small relative to total hired farm employment. This relatively small size has become an issue in the debate about the program. Critics of the H-2A program cite the low levels of participation as evidence of the program’s inadequacy to meet the needs of U.S. agricultural employers. Others, however, attribute the program’s low utilization to the availability of unauthorized workers, who are willing to work for lower wages than legal workers.

Regulatory Changes

In August 2007, in the aftermath of unsuccessful congressional efforts to enact comprehensive immigration legislation with guest worker provisions, the George W. Bush Administration announced that it would streamline existing guest worker programs within current law. In December 2008, DHS and DOL published final rules to significantly amend their respective H2A regulations, which went into effect on January 17, 2009. The Obama Administration retained the 2008 DHS rule on the H-2A visa. It sought to review the 2008 DOL rule, and unsuccessfully attempted to suspend it in 2009. DOL subsequently issued a new final H-2A rule, which became
effective on March 15, 2010, to replace the 2008 final rule. [U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration and Wage and Hour Division, “Temporary Agricultural Employment of H-2A Aliens in the United States,” 75 Federal Register 6884-6995, February 12, 2010]

Wage and other enforcement provisions

The 2010 DOL rule amended existing regulations to require H-2A employers to pay their workers the highest of four wage rates: the federal or applicable state minimum wage, the prevailing wage rate, the adverse effect wage rate (AEWR), or the agreed-upon collective bargaining wage. In addition, the ETA regulations in the 2010 DOL rule included a system of post-certification audits of H-2A employer applications, which were a revised version of the system in the 2008 rule, and expanded DOL’s authority to bar employers from participating in the program (known as debarment authority).

Wage and Hour Division regulations in the 2010 DOL H-2A final rule addressed enforcement of contractual obligations under the H-2A program. These regulations revised provisions in the 2008 final rule. Among the changes, the 2010 rule provided WHD with independent authority to debar employers for “substantial violations” and increased the civil money penalties for specified violations.

AgJOBS

Over the years, both growers and labor advocates have criticized the H-2A program. Growers complain that the program is administratively cumbersome, expensive, and ineffective in meeting their labor needs. Labor advocates argue that the program provides too few protections for workers.

In the late 1990s, representatives of growers and workers reached agreement on legislation to address the foreign agricultural worker issue. The legislation became known as the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act, or AgJOBS. It combined provisions to reform the H-2A program with a program to legalize the status of farm workers though a two-stage process.

During the 106th Congress, AgJOBs legislation became the basis of a bipartisan compromise on foreign agricultural workers, but that compromise fell apart at the end of the 2000s. (Two similar AgJOBs bills (S. 1814 and H.R. 4056) were introduced in the 106th Congress.) More recently, AgJOBS titles were included in comprehensive immigration reform bills considered in the 109th and 110th Congresses. None of these bills were enacted.


January 15, 2013

Asian immigrants adding largest numbers to workforce

In 2000, 60% of new legal immigrants were Hispanic and 20% Asians. In 2010, 37% were Asians and 31% Hispanic. Asia has become the largest origin of new legal immigrants, says Pew Research in a report issued in 2012. And, they are proportionally to other origins more likely to come here for work.

Asians recently passed Hispanics as the largest group of new immigrants to the United States. The educational credentials of these recent arrivals are striking. More than six-in-ten (61%) adults ages 25 to 64 who have come from Asia in recent years have at least a bachelor’s degree. This is double the share among recent non-Asian arrivals, and almost surely makes the recent Asian arrivals the most highly educated cohort of immigrants in U.S. history.

Compared with the educational attainment of the population in their country of origin, recent Asian immigrants also stand out as a select group. For example, about 27% of adults ages 25 to 64 in South Korea and 25% in Japan have a bachelor’s degree or more.2 In contrast, nearly 70% of comparably aged recent immigrants from these two countries have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Americans are 28% with college degrees. Asians are 49%; whites, 31%; blacks, 18%; Hispanics, 13%.

Recent Asian immigrants are also about three times as likely as recent immigrants from other parts of the world to receive their green cards—or permanent resident status—on the basis of employer rather than family sponsorship (though family reunification remains the most common legal gateway to the U.S. for Asian immigrants, as it is for all immigrants).

About 15% of green card awardees get their card for employment reasons. About half of all Korean and Indian immigrants who received green cards in 2011 got them on the basis of employer sponsorship, compared with about a third of Japanese, a fifth of Chinese, one-in-eight Filipinos and just 1% of Vietnamese. The Vietnamese are the only major subgroup to have come to the U.S. in large numbers as political refugees; the others say they have come mostly for economic, educational and family reasons.

The modern immigration wave from Asia is nearly a half century old and has pushed the total population of Asian Americans—foreign born and U.S born, adults and children—to a record 18.2 million in 2011, or 5.8% of the total U.S. population, up from less than 1% in 1965.3 By comparison, non-Hispanic whites are 197.5 million and 63.3%, Hispanics 52.0 million and 16.7% and non-Hispanic blacks 38.3 million and 12.3%.

January 12, 2013

Chamber of Commerce for comprehensive immigration reform

U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Thomas J. Donohue gave his annual state of business address on January 10, and said the following about immigration reform (excerpted). I’d say he is calling for comprehensive reform, including normalizing the status of undocumented immigrants.

…..But we still need immigrants. We are locked in a global competition for the world’s best talent. This is the competition that will separate the economic leaders from the laggards in the 21st century.

The Chamber is already teaming up with the labor unions, faith organizations and ethnic groups, and law enforcement to build a coalition for comprehensive reform.

We believe immigration reform should include the following inter-related components:

We need to secure our borders. It is imperative that people and commerce flow efficiently and lawfully through our nation’s ports and across our borders.

In addition, our laws must be revised to welcome needed labor and talent into our economy through thoughtfully-designed guest worker programs. This includes provisional visas for lesser-skilled workers. It also includes expanding the caps for high-skilled visas, and, expanding green cards for foreign nationals who graduate from our colleges and universities with advanced degrees.

We also need a workable, reliable national employee verification system. And, we need to provide a path out of the shadows for the 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the United States today—provided that they meet strict conditions.

Introduction to H-2A temporary agricultural worker program

The following is an introduction to the H-2A program for temporary agricultural workers.The introduction is an excerpt from Congressional Research Service. Immigration of Temporary Lower-Skilled Workers: Current Policy and Related Issues 12/13/12 report.

Introduction

Foreign agricultural workers have been a recent focus of attention in Congress, with the immigration subcommittees of both the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees holding related hearings in 2011 and 2012. A number of legislative proposals on agricultural guest workers have likewise been put forward in the 112th Congress. Some bills would amend INA provisions on the H-2A visa, while others would establish new temporary agricultural worker programs as alternatives to the H-2A program. Still other proposals would couple a legalization program for agricultural workers either with H-2A reform, as in the traditional AgJOBS formulation, or with other changes to current law on agricultural labor.

Of the 79,000 certified H-2A positions in 2010, 40% were in the top five states (in order of size): North Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Florida. [Table A-1, pg. 28]

How it works

The H-2A program allows for the temporary admission of foreign workers to the United States to perform agricultural labor or services of a seasonal or temporary nature, provided that U.S. workers are not available. In general, for purposes of the H-2A program, work is of a temporary nature where the employer’s need for the worker will last no longer than one year. Thus, an approved H-2A visa petition is generally valid for an initial period of up to one year. An employer can apply to extend an H-2A worker’s stay in increments of up to one year, but an alien’s total
period of stay as an H-2A worker may not exceed three consecutive years. An alien who has spent three years in the United States in H-2A status may not seek an extension of stay or be readmitted to the United States as an H-2A worker until he or she has been outside the country for three months.

Prospective H-2A employers are required to submit a job order to the state workforce agency (SWA) serving the area of intended employment before filing a
labor certification application. Once reviewed and cleared by the SWA, the job order becomes the basis for recruiting U.S. workers to fill the employer’s job openings. The employer can then file the labor certification application with DOL. In the DOL application the employer must first apply to DOL for a certification that (1) there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are qualified and available to perform the work; and (2) the employment of foreign workers will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of U.S. workers who are similarly employed.

Prospective H-2A employers must attempt to recruit U.S. workers and must cooperate with DOL-funded state employment service agencies (also known as state workforce agencies) in local, intrastate, and interstate recruitment efforts. Under the H-2A program’s fifty percent rule, employers are required to hire any qualified U.S. worker who applies for a position during the first half of the work contract under which the H-2A workers who are in the job are employed.

Among the other H-2A labor certification requirements, employers must provide a “three-fourths guarantee”; that is, they must guarantee to offer workers employment for at least three-fourths of the contract period. As discussed below, H-2A employers must pay their H-2A workers and similarly employed U.S. workers the highest of several wage rates and must also provide workers with housing, transportation, and other benefits, including workers’ compensation insurance. No
health insurance coverage is required. (H-2A workers, like non-immigrants generally, are not eligible for federally funded public assistance, with the
exception of Medicaid emergency services. )

Some 86,014 H-2A positions were certified for FY2009 and 79,011 were certified for FY2010. Employers in North Carolina received more H-2A certifications than
employers in any other state in both years. Other top states, in terms of number of H-2A positions certified, were Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Louisiana. [Appendix A of this report shows certifications by state.]

The H-2A program is not subject to a statutory numerical limit and has grown significantly over the last 20 years. One way to measure the H-2A program’s growth is to consider changes in the number of H-2A visas issued annually by DOS. There is no precise measure available of the number of aliens granted H-2A status in any given year. While visa data provide an approximation, these data are subject to limitations, among them that not all aliens who are issued visas necessarily use them to enter the United States.

The number of H-2A visas issued increased more than fourfold between FY1992 and FY2000, when about 30,000 visas were issued. H-2A visa issuances remained at about 30,000 annually until FY2005 and then started to increase, peaking at more
than 64,000 FY2008. The number of H-2A visas issued subsequently declined, totaling some 55,000 in FY2011, according to preliminary DOS data.

Despite its growth since the early 1990s, the H-2A program remains quite small relative to total hired farm employment. This relatively small size has become an issue in the debate about the program. Critics of the H-2A program cite the low levels of participation as evidence of the program’s inadequacy to meet the needs of U.S. agricultural employers. Others, however, attribute the program’s low utilization to the availability of unauthorized workers, who are willing to work for lower wages than legal workers.

Regulatory Changes

In August 2007, in the aftermath of unsuccessful congressional efforts to enact comprehensive immigration legislation with guest worker provisions, the George W. Bush Administration announced that it would streamline existing guest worker programs within current law. In December 2008, DHS and DOL published final rules to significantly amend their respective H2A regulations, which went into effect on January 17, 2009. The Obama Administration retained the 2008 DHS rule on the H-2A visa. It sought to review the 2008 DOL rule, and unsuccessfully attempted to suspend it in 2009. DOL subsequently issued a new final H-2A rule, which became
effective on March 15, 2010, to replace the 2008 final rule. [U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration and Wage and Hour Division, “Temporary Agricultural Employment of H-2A Aliens in the United States,” 75 Federal Register 6884-6995, February 12, 2010]

Wage and other enforcement provisions

The 2010 DOL rule amended existing regulations to require H-2A employers to pay their workers the highest of four wage rates: the federal or applicable state minimum wage, the prevailing wage rate, the adverse effect wage rate (AEWR), or the agreed-upon collective bargaining wage. In addition, the ETA regulations in the 2010 DOL rule included a system of post-certification audits of H-2A employer applications, which were a revised version of the system in the 2008 rule, and expanded DOL’s authority to bar employers from participating in the program (known as debarment authority).

Wage and Hour Division regulations in the 2010 DOL H-2A final rule addressed enforcement of contractual obligations under the H-2A program. These regulations revised provisions in the 2008 final rule. Among the changes, the 2010 rule provided WHD with independent authority to debar employers for “substantial violations” and increased the civil money penalties for specified violations.

AgJOBS

Over the years, both growers and labor advocates have criticized the H-2A program. Growers complain that the program is administratively cumbersome, expensive, and ineffective in meeting their labor needs. Labor advocates argue that the program provides too few protections for workers.

In the late 1990s, representatives of growers and workers reached agreement on legislation to address the foreign agricultural worker issue. The legislation became known as the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act, or AgJOBS. It combined provisions to reform the H-2A program with a program to legalize the status of farm workers though a two-stage process.

During the 106th Congress, AgJOBs legislation became the basis of a bipartisan compromise on foreign agricultural workers, but that compromise fell apart at the end of the 2000s. (Two similar AgJOBs bills (S. 1814 and H.R. 4056) were introduced in the 106th Congress.) More recently, AgJOBS titles were included in comprehensive immigration reform bills considered in the 109th and 110th Congresses. None of these bills were enacted.


Temporary worker programs: Introduction

In December the Congressional Research Service issued a report on two key temporary worker programs, H-2A and H-2B. This posting excerpts from the report's introductory overview of both programs. Later postings will address the programs in greater detail. These postings will bring you up to speed on the basics of temporary foreign worker programs in the U.S.

There are many temporary work visa programs. A comprehensive list of them in contain in a 2009 report by the Migration Policy Institute, "Aligning Temporary Immigration Visas with U.S. market needs." In 2008, some 262,000 temporary visas were issues for high skilled labor, and 158,000 such visas for low skilled labor, almost entirely H-2A and H-2B. In addition there were 168,000 "mixed skilled" temporary visas issued.

The report excerpted below and in later postings is: Congressional Research Service. Immigration of Temporary Lower-Skilled Workers: Current Policy and Related Issues. 12/13/12.

The [Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952], as originally enacted, authorized an H-2 nonimmigrant visa category for foreign agricultural and nonagricultural workers who were coming temporarily to the United States to perform temporary services (other than services of an exceptional nature requiring distinguished merit and ability) or labor. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) amended the INA to subdivide the H-2 program into the current H-2A agricultural worker program and H-2B nonagricultural worker program and to detail the admissions process for H-2A workers. The H2A and H-2B programs are administered by the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) of the Department of Labor (DOL) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The H-2A and H-2B programs are administered by DOL and DHS, with DOL making a determination on the labor certification application and DHS adjudicating the non-immigrant visa petition.

While there are many differences between the H-2A agricultural worker program and the H-2B nonagricultural worker program, the process of importing workers under either program entails the same steps. Employers who want to hire workers through either program must first apply to DOL for labor certification, as discussed in the next section. After receiving labor certification, a prospective H-2A or H-2B employer can submit an application, known as a petition, to DHS to bring in foreign workers. If the application is approved, foreign workers who are abroad can then
go to a U.S. embassy or consulate to apply for an H-2A or H-2B nonimmigrant visa from the Department of State (DOS). If the visa application is approved, the worker is issued a visa that he or she can use to apply for admission to the United States at a port of entry.

In both the H-2A and H-2B programs, there is a tension between providing protections to U.S. and foreign workers on the one hand and making the programs responsive to legitimate employer needs on the other. While these competing interests are longstanding, the current environment— with relatively high levels of U.S. unemployment; discussions about expanding the E-Verify electronic employment eligibility verification system (as discussed below); and concerns about
shortages of legal workers, especially in agriculture—has heightened the tensions.


Temporary Labor Certification

DOL’s ETA is responsible for administering the labor certification process under the H-2A and H2B programs. Under both programs, employers submit applications in which they request the certification of a particular number of positions.

INA provisions on the admission of H-2A workers state that an H-2A petition cannot be approved unless the petitioner has applied to DOL for certification that

(1) there are not sufficient workers who are able, willing, qualified … and available at the time of application for a visa and admission to the United States and at the place where the alien is to perform such skilled or unskilled labor, and (2) the employment of such alien will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed. [INA §218(a)(1)(A), (B)]

There is no equivalent statutory labor certification requirement for the H-2B program. The INA, however, does contain some related language. For example, it defines an H-2B alien, in relevant part, as an alien “who is coming temporarily to the United States to perform other temporary service or labor if unemployed persons capable of performing such service or labor cannot be found in this country.” [INA §101(a)(15)(H)(ii)(b)] The H-2B labor certification requirement instead appears in DHS regulations. These regulations state:

“The petitioner may not file an H-2B petition unless the United States petitioner has applied for a labor certification with the Secretary of Labor ... and has obtained a favorable labor certification determination ...[8 C.F.R. §214.2(h)(6)(iii)(C)].

The H-2A and H-2B labor certification requirements are intended to provide job, wage, and working conditions protections to U.S. workers. They are implemented in both programs through a multifaceted labor certification process that requires prospective H-2A and H-2B employers to conduct recruitment for U.S. workers and offer a minimum level of wages and benefits that varies by program.

January 9, 2013

Wealth of 2011 data on foreign born workers

Foreign born workers are about 2/3 non-citizens and 1/3 citizens. The Bureau of Labor Statistics issued in mid 2012 a wealth of data on all foreign-born workers. it is not feasible to fairly summarize from even the press release, included below, but here are a few quick facts for 2012: 24.4 million foreign born persons in the labor force, or 15.9% of total; half are Hispanics’ one fifth are Asians; average compensation 22% less than native born (but the average disguises and hourglass profile of immigrant workers – many low wage, a good number high wage). The survey includes undocumented workers as well as all others.

The press release is below. The BLS page with many reports listed is here.

FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS: LABOR FORCE CHARACTERISTICS -- 2011

Technical information: (202) 691-6378 * cpsinfo@bls.gov * www.bls.gov/cps
Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * PressOffice@bls.gov


The unemployment rate for the foreign born was 9.1 percent in 2011, down from 9.8 percent in 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The jobless rate of the native born was 8.9 percent in 2011, compared with 9.6 percent in the prior year. The foreign born made up 15.9 percent of the labor force.

Data on nativity are collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample survey of approximately 60,000 households. The foreign born are persons who reside in the United States but who were born outside the country or one of its outlying areas to parents who were not U.S. citizens. The foreign born include legally-admitted immigrants, refugees, temporary residents such as students and temporary workers, and undocumented immigrants. The survey data, however, do not separately identify the numbers of persons in these categories. For further information about the survey, see the Technical Note.

Highlights from the 2011 data:

-- In 2011, there were 24.4 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. labor force, comprising 15.9 percent of the total. (See table 1.)

-- Hispanics accounted for 49.0 percent of the foreign-born labor force in 2011. Asians accounted for 22.3 percent. (See table 1.) (Data in this news release for persons who are white, black, or Asian do not include those of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. Data on persons of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity are presented separately.)

-- Foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service occupations; production, transportation, and material moving occupations; and natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations. (See table 4.)

-- The median usual weekly earnings of foreign-born full-time wage and salary workers were $609 in 2011, compared with $780 for their native-born counterparts. (See table 5.) (Differences in earnings reflect a variety of factors, including variations in the distributions of foreign-born and native-born workers by educational attainment, occupation, industry, and geographic region.)

Demographic Characteristics

The demographic characteristics of the foreign-born labor force differ from those of
the native-born labor force. In 2011, men accounted for 59.0 percent of the foreign-
born labor force, compared with 52.3 percent of the native-born labor force. By age,
the proportion of the foreign-born labor force made up of 25- to 54-year-olds (75.4
percent) was higher than for their native-born counterparts (64.5 percent). Labor
force participation is typically highest among persons in that age bracket. (See
table 1.)

In 2011, nearly half (49.0 percent) of the foreign-born labor force was Hispanic, and
22.3 percent was Asian, compared with 8.5 and 1.4 percent, respectively, of the native-born labor force. About 19 percent of the foreign-born labor force was white and 8.8 percent was black, compared with 76.4 and 11.6 percent, respectively, of the native-born labor force.

In 2011, 25.5 percent of the foreign-born labor force 25 years old and over had not
completed high school, compared with 5.3 percent of the native-born labor force.
The foreign born were less likely than the native born to have some college or an
associate degree--17.5 versus 29.9 percent. Similar proportions of foreign-born and
native-born persons in the labor force had a bachelor's degree or higher (31.7 and
36.1 percent, respectively).

Labor Force

The share of the U.S. civilian labor force that was foreign born was 15.9 percent in
2011, little different from 15.8 percent in 2010. (See table 1.)

In 2011, the labor force participation rate of the foreign born was 67.0 percent. The
labor force participation rate of the native born was 63.6 percent. The labor force
participation rate of foreign-born men was 79.5 percent in 2011, compared with 68.8 percent for native-born men. Among women, 54.6 percent of the foreign born were labor force participants, compared with 58.7 percent of the native born.

Among the foreign born, the labor force participation rate for blacks was 71.2 percent in 2011, little different from the participation rate for Hispanics (69.8 percent). The participation rate for whites was 60.2 percent, while that for Asians was 65.6 percent. Among the native born, the labor force participation rate for whites was 64.3 percent, followed by Hispanics (63.2 percent), Asians (61.5 percent), and blacks (60.1 percent).

In 2011, foreign-born mothers with children under 18 years old were less likely to be labor force participants than were native-born mothers--59.8 versus 73.2 percent. Labor force participation differences between foreign-born and native-born mothers were greater among those with younger children than among those with older children. The labor force participation rate of foreign-born mothers with children under age 6 was 50.5 percent in 2011, much lower than that for native-born mothers with children under age 6, at 67.3 percent. Among women with children under age 3, the participation rate for the foreign born (45.2 percent) was nearly 20 percentage points below that for native-born mothers (64.3 percent). The labor force participation rates of foreign- and native-born fathers with children under age 18 were similar, at 93.8 and 93.1 percent, respectively. (See table 2.)

By region, the foreign born made up a larger share of the labor force in the West
(24.0 percent) and in the Northeast (18.5 percent) than for the nation as a whole
(15.9 percent) in 2011. In contrast, the foreign born made up a smaller share of the
labor force than for the nation as a whole in the South (14.2 percent) and Midwest
(8.0 percent). (See table 6.)

Unemployment

From 2010 to 2011, the unemployment rates of the foreign born and the native born each declined by 0.7 percentage point, to 9.1 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively. Overall, the unemployment rates of the foreign born in younger age groups (ages 16 to 34) tend to be lower than the jobless rates for the native born, while for older workers (ages 35 and up), unemployment rates of the foreign born tend to be higher than for the native born. (See table 1.)

In 2011, the unemployment rate for foreign-born men was 8.8 percent, compared with 9.5 percent for native-born men. Among women, however, the jobless rate for the foreign born was higher than for the native born, 9.5 versus 8.3 percent.

Among the major race and ethnicity groups, blacks had the highest unemployment rate in 2011, regardless of whether they were foreign born or native born. Among the foreign born, blacks had an unemployment rate of 12.5 percent in 2011, compared with 6.7 percent for Asians, 7.6 percent for whites, and 10.1 percent for Hispanics. Among the native born, the jobless rate of blacks (16.3 percent) was higher than the rate for whites (7.2 percent), Asians (8.2 percent), and Hispanics (13.0 percent).

Occupation

In 2011, foreign-born workers were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in service occupations (24.6 versus 16.4 percent). Within service occupations, about two-thirds of the foreign born were employed in food preparation and serving related occupations and in building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (combined), whereas about one-half of the native-born service workers were employed in the same occupations. Foreign-born workers also were more likely than native-born workers to be employed in production, transportation, and material moving occupations (15.8 versus
11.0 percent) and in natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (13.5 versus 8.5 percent). (See table 4.)

Native-born workers were more likely than foreign-born workers to be employed in
management, professional, and related occupations (39.3 versus 28.6 percent) and in sales and office occupations (24.8 versus 17.5 percent).

Employed foreign-born men were more likely than their native-born counterparts to work in natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations; service occupations; and production, transportation, and material moving occupations. Compared with native-born women workers, employed foreign-born women were more likely to be in service occupations and in production, transportation, and material moving occupations. The disparity was especially great in service occupations. In 2011, 32.2 percent of foreign-born women workers were in service occupations, compared with 19.4 percent of native-born women workers. Employed native-born women were more likely than employed foreign-born women to be in sales and office occupations, 32.6 versus 24.5 percent.

Earnings

In 2011, the median usual weekly earnings of foreign-born, full-time wage and salary workers ($609) were 78.0 percent of the earnings of their native-born counterparts ($780). Among men, median earnings for the foreign born were $624 per week, while the native born earned $879 per week. The median usual weekly earnings for foreign-born women were $585, compared with $701 for native-born women. Differences in earnings reflect a variety of factors, including variations in the distributions of foreign-born and native-born workers by educational attainment, occupation, industry, and geographic region. (See table 5.)

Hispanic foreign-born full-time wage and salary workers earned 77.0 percent as much as their native-born counterparts in 2011. For white, black, and Asian workers, earnings were similar for the foreign born and the native born.

The earnings of both foreign-born and native-born workers increase with education.
In 2011, foreign-born workers age 25 and over with less than a high school education earned $417 per week, while those with a bachelor’s degree and higher earned about 2.8 times as much--$1,148 per week. Among the native born, those with a bachelor’s degree and higher earned about 2.3 times as much as those with less than a high school education--$1,151 versus $497 per week.

Native-born workers earn more than the foreign born at most educational attainment levels. The gap between the earnings of foreign-born and native-born workers narrows with higher levels of education. For example, among those with less than a high school diploma in 2011, full-time workers who were foreign born earned 83.9 percent as much as their native-born counterparts. Among those with a bachelor’s degree and higher, foreign-born workers earned essentially as much (99.8 percent) as native-born workers.

January 6, 2013

Key findings about immigration’s economic impact

Sari Pekkala Kerr and William Kerr wrote an article “The Economic impacts of immigration: a survey” (see citation below) in which they report on their review of many studies of economic impact. Most of these studies were on Europe, and some on the United States. Here is a summary of their findings:

Globally, the U.S. has a very high immigrant population share:

Some 3% of the world’s population live permanently outside their country of birth. In Europe, the foreign born population is about 7%. In the U.S., 13% of the population is foreign born, (These figures include people who have become naturalized in their host country.) Therefore, both Europe and the U.S. have a much higher share of foreign born nationals than the rest of the world –perhaps a reflection of the very low such shares in India and China.

Immigrants today greatly contribute to workforce growth in the U.S and Europe, but they do not appreciably reduce the demographic shift to the elderly.

Immigrant earnings start low, then rise.

The findings are somewhat cloudy. This is in part due to the fact that one quarter of more of foreign born persons eventually leave (“re-migration”), perhaps back to their country of origin. At their outset in their new country (Europe and the U.S.) the foreign born earn less.

The most recent findings report that immigrant-native wages gaps tend to close over time but overall do not disappear. To the extent that less successful immigrants may be disproportionately left the receiving country, the wage improvement trend may be exaggerated. We do not know the precise mechanisms by which this wage gap narrows. Children of immigrants to the U.S. assimilate well economically.

Immigration has a downward effect on U.S. born worker wages, but the amount is debatable:

“The likelihood and magnitude of adverse labor market effects for natives from immigration are substantially weaker than often perceived….the parts of the population most typically affected are the less educated natives or the earlier immigrant cohorts.”(page 25)

Credible studies showing a very modest effect include the 1980 Mariel boatlift from Cuba to Miami (1); 1962 repatriation of French returning from Algeria; and the impact of Russian Jews moving to Israel after 1990. However, Princeton-based expert George Borjas estimates that there is a nationwide adverse effect that might not be noticed in a particular locality.

(1) From George Borjas: “In April 1980, when Fidel Castro declared that Cubans wishing to emigrate could leave from the port of Mariel, 125,000 people accepted the offer and Miami’s labor force suddenly grew by 7 percent. Yet, the trends in wages and unemployment rates in Miami between 1980 and 1985, including those of black workers, resembled those observed in comparable cities.”

Source: Finnish Economic Papers. Spring 2011 24 (1)