Poll: Trump vs Clinton supporters on immigration

The Pew Research Center for U.S. Politics and Policy released in late March results of polling voters about immigrant among other issues. Summary results are here, more in depth analysis here. For the complete poll report, go here.

Since the early 1990, Pew’s polls show that positive views were initially a minority but in about 2006 positive views exceeded negative views. What appears to have happened is that Republican views did not change much but Democratic sentiment swung very positive stating in about 2006. (See graphs here).

Are immigrants a burden? Trump supporters say yes, Clinton’s, no.

Overall, Pew reports, 57% of all registered voters say that immigrants in the United States today strengthen the country because of their hard work and talents, while 35% say they are a burden because they take jobs, housing and health care. Among those who support Trump, 69% say immigrants are a burden. Among Clinton supporters, 17% say that immigrants are a burden.

Legal path for undocumented immigrants: Trump supporters no, Clinton’s, yes.

Even when most Republican registered voters say immigrants are a burden on the country, 57% also say there should be a way for undocumented immigrants currently in the country to stay legally, if certain requirements are met. Among Trump supporters, 52% say undocumented immigrants should not have a path to legal status. Among Clinton supporters, 87% say there should be a path

On deportation: Trump supporters five times more likely to call for systematic deportation.

Among Trump supporters, 42% say there should be a national law enforcement effort to deport all immigrants who are now living in the U.S. illegally. Among Clinton voters, 8% agree.

Growing diversity in the country today: not helpful for Trump supporters, helpful for Clintonites.

Among all voters, 59% say an increasing number of people from many different races, ethnic groups and nationalities in the U.S. makes the country a better place to live; 31% say increasing diversity does not make much difference either way, 8% say increasing diversity makes the U.S. a worse place to live.

For Donald Trump supporters, 39% say that diversity makes the U.S. a better place to live, 42% say it does not make a difference, and 17% say it makes it worse. Among Clinton supporters, 72% say that diversity helps, 25% – plus say it does not matter, and hardly any say it makes it worse.

Mexican workers and American farms, 1945 – 2015

Agricultural business and technology have driven the importation of foreign, that is, Mexican farm labor, for generations. This gave rise to the large undocumented population in the U.S. Here is a 70 year snaphot.

Agricultural productivity in the U.S. after World War Two has risen at a faster pace than manufacturing productivity (1.9% vs. 1.3% annually, from 1948 through 1999). Inside this productivity gain was growing use of unskilled Mexican labor.

Between 1942 and 1964, the Bracero guest worker program brought in 4.6 million farm workers. As Eduardo Porter of the New York Times observes, investment in technology generally happens when the immigrant spigot is shut, and relaxes when immigration increases. After the bracero program ended and some farm wages began to rise, machines were developed top pick tomatoes. Within a few years, by 1970, tomato harvest jobs were by by two-thirds.

But farmers still wanted more cheap hired labor. The shift from family to corporate farming after World War Two sharply increased the demand for the hired worker. In 1950, only 25% of farm labor was hired labor; by 2008, that grew to 60%. This hired labor force was filled by Mexicans.

Before the 1986, perhaps a quarter of farm workers in California were undocumented. The Act legalized over 1.1 million farm workers, known as Special Agricultural Workers. The undocumented percentage of farm workers dropped to 10%. But many of these now-legal workers moved off the farm and into better paying urban jobs. (See a 2013 analysis by Philip Martin here).

The farms were saved by a flood of new undocumented workers in 1990s. As a prior post showed, it was easy to get into the U.S. illegally. The share of California crop workers who were undocumented shot up from 10% in the late 1980s to over 50% in the late 1990s. This depressed wages. Farmers’ investments in labor-saving technology all but froze. Farmers’ capital investments fell 46.7% from their peak in 1980 through 1999.

In 2010, the average earnings of crop workers were about $9 an hour, and median weekly earnings were 60% of those of workers in comparable private-sector nonfarm jobs. The undocumented status of these workers surely accounts for much of this wage disparity. They are captive to low skilled, low paying jobs.

According to the Brookings Institute, about 60% of immigrants in farming, are “miscellaneous agricultural workers, including animal breeders,” but only 20% of native born farm workers. These workers require little more than on-the-job training, largely planting and harvesting crops, operating farm equipment, and raising animals. The higher level ”farmers and ranchers” jobs are 97% native born, only 3% foreign-born.

English proficiency rising among young Hispanics

English proficiency has risen markedly among young Hispanics, an indication of greater integration of the Hispanic population and, perhaps, access to better jobs.

According to Jens Manuel Krogstad of the Pew Research Center, this is due to more young Hispanics being born in the U.S. rather than in their country of origin.

Why this matters:

The Hispanic population has always been younger than other ethnic/racial groups in the U.S. Like all groups, the Hispanic population in the U.S. has gotten older, but with the top line growth of this population a very large share of young people are Hispanic.

Thus, English language proficiency among young Hispanics is an important barometer of immigration integration (1st, 2nd and 3rd generation).

“Of the 74 million children in the United States today, 17.5 million are Hispanic. They are the largest racial/ethnic minority group of children, and also the fastest-growing. Today, one U.S. child in four is Hispanic; by 2050, it will be more than one in three.” (This from a Pew report on Hispanic  children.)

Krogdstad reports,

When asked about their language use and English proficiency in 2014, some 88% of Latinos ages 5 to 17 said they either speak only English at home or speak English “very well,” up from 73% who said the same in 2000.

And among Latinos ages 18 to 33, the share who speak only English at home or say they speak English “very well” increased from 59% to 76% during this time…A greater share of young Hispanics ages 5 to 17 are growing up in households where only English is spoken – 37% in 2014 compared with 30% in 2000.

By comparison, English proficiency among older Latinos has changed little since 2000. For instance, among Latinos ages 34 to 49, 55% spoke English very well or only spoke English at home in 2014 – nearly unchanged from 2000, when the share was 53%. Among Latinos ages 69 and older, just 43% said they spoke English proficiently in 2014, compared with 42% in 2000.

When will half of Hispanic households speak only English?

“Why [Mexican] Border Enforcement Backfired”

A big study of immigration published recently by the National Academy of Sciences noted that immigration policy has contributed to the rise on undocumented people in the U.S.  Now about 11 million, their numbers tripled since the mid 1980. How did that happen?

Douglas Massey and colleagues published an article in March, 2016, “Why Border Enforcement Backfired.”

According to Massey, undocumented migration from Mexico to the United States was largely a circular phenomenon, but the rise of aggressive border enforcement in the 1980s disrupted this pattern, imposing no effective controls on people coming into the U.S but deterring people from leaving.

The Immigration and Control Act of 1986 awarded green cards to 2.7 million undocumented immigrants, including one million farm workers. The Act also introduced tougher enforcement. Employers were required to check on legal status – but did not. Border enforcement budgets began to rise sharply.

“Our estimates reveal that the rapid escalation of border enforcement beginning in 1986 had no effect on the likelihood of initiating undocumented migration to the United States but did have powerful unintended consequences, pushing migrants away from relatively benign crossing locations in El Paso and San Diego.”(pg. 1590). Crossing deaths multiplied (figure 6). Coyote charges rose from $500 in 1990 to $2,000 in 2000 (figure 4). But the chance of successfully crossing the border albeit with multiple attempts was close to 100% until after about 2005 (figure 5). What greater enforcement did was to discourage undocumented residents from circulating back outside. “The probability of returning from a first trip fell sharply after the 1980s, going from a high of 48% in 1980 to zero in 2010.” “The shift from sojourning to settling as a prevailing migration strategy” took place.

Massey estimates that if border enforcement had remained at its 1986 level (as measured by the spending budget) there would have been 9.7 million undocumented persons in the U.S. in 2010 instead of the actual number of 14 million (pg. 1593).

A more open border policy would have produced less permanent immigration. “Now is the time to shift from a policy of immigration suppression to immigration management” (pg. 1595). The authors say that the times of large scale immigration is over, what with demographic changes and economic improvements in Mexico and tepid job growth in the U.S.

Why do we accept refugees?

The first international standard for accepting international refugees was created in the 1951 Convention on Refugees. The World War 2 era term “displaced persons” was retired in favor of refugees, though one still talks on displaced persons within a country (such as some 300,000 persons displaced within the Soviet Union by the 1986 Chernobyl disaster).

The Convention’s definition of refugee is too narrow, focusing on fear of persecution. A more realistic definition is Alex Shacknove’s: “persons whose basic needs are unprotected by their country of origin, who have no remaining recourse other than to seek international restitution of their needs, and who are so situated that international assistance is possible” (Ethics, 1985)

How many into the U.S.?

The United States’ Displaced Persons Act of 1948 authorized resettlement of 400,000 European theater-displaced persons. The Refugee Act of 1980 created the resettlement program of today. Refugees are individuals who enter the country with a refugee visa. People given asylum status (“asylees”) arrive here first then apply for that status. The total count tends to stay under 100,000 a year. Since 1980 3 million refugees have been admitted, roughly 10% of all arriving immigrants.

(Numbers in 000s)

Year     Refugees     Asylees
1990      122                  8
2000        22                32
2005        53                22
2010        73                21
2013        69                25

Rationale

Joseph Carens cites three justifications for refugee resettlement:

1. You broke, you fix it. What Carens calls “causal connection” explains high numbers from Cambodia. Vietnam, and Iraq.
2. Humanitarian concern. When the Jewish refugee-laden St. Louis was turned away from American waters in 1939, humanitarian principles were trashed.
3. the modern state system, which abhors a vacuum. All countries want to reduce to as little as possible the number of stateless people in the world, including people for whom their state of origin has failed into violence. This explains the large number of Somali refugees.

More information from the Migration Policy Institute is here.

EB-5 train wreck in Vermont

In his first year in office, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin flew in 2011 to Miami to promote a real estate / business project funded by so-called EB-5 investors. On April 8 of this year, according to the Vermont Digger, Shumlin’s general counsel asked the state’s tech department to delete “all archived email” for five people who worked in the governor’s office prior to January 2013 and were associated with this project. The employees included the governor’s former campaign manager and top aide and former chief of staff.

Here is what we know now about the biggest scandal in Vermont for years. Much of this information is found in reportage by the Vermont Digger, a non-profit daily news service.

What is EB-5?

Congress created the EB-5 program to stimulate investment in geographic areas needing development funds. Foreign nationals can earn green cards when they invest one million dollars and create or preserve 10 jobs. If they invest in a so-called Targeted Employment Areas (TEA), they need only invest $500,000 and create 10 new jobs to earn green cards. The program was stalled for many years in part due to Washington bureaucracy, but in the late 2000s, with some revisions in regulation, it took off. The Bookings Institute, which published a study in 2014, reported that during the 2010-2012 period, on average, 13% of immigrants and their family members were admitted under employment-based preferences. And of these employment-based visas 3% were for EB-5 visa investors and their immediate family members. This sums roughly to well under a legal limit of 10,000 EB-5-related visas a year.

According to Brookings, So far, EB-5 financing has been used for projects that include large commercial-property developments, assisted-living facilities, and manufacturing plants. (See the Brookings report here.

Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy has been the leading advocate of the EB-5 program in the Senate. He has allied with Senator Charles Grassley to renew the EB-5 program with reformed rules. The renewal date was supposed to be in September 15, 2015 but has been pushed off into 2016.

Why is it controversial?

A Washington Post editorial on Sept 5, 2015 said that the program is a “flop.” “It’s corporate welfare, enabling certain businesses to attract capital more cheaply than others based on a government-conferred sweetener — namely, a visa. Perhaps inevitably, the EB-5 has channeled funding to areas such as hotel ventures that suit the needs of EB-5 seekers and their myriad highly paid consultants — but not necessarily those of local communities.”

The editorial did to point fingers at particular parties, but one element in the is the involvement of firms that sought out EB-5 investors and got a large commission for placing these investors into projects. Rapid Visa is an example. It was part of the Jay Peak project until the relationship soured in 2012.

The Vermont project

Ariel Quiros and Bill Stenger began as partners to create a succession of EB-5 projects along the Vermont – Canadian border. Initially, the projects focused on Jay Peak, a prominent though rather remote ski resort, frequented by Americans and Canadians. In 2009, the Tram Haus Lodge was opened, funded by EB-5 investors. In 2011 a spectacular (for New England) all year indoor water park opened.

According to data collected by Vermont Digger, as of now the Quiros-Stenger partnership projected $500 million in diverse projects involving mainly ski resorts and downtown development in Newport, Vermont. All the projects were located in Vermont’s “Northeast Kingdom.” So far, 439 investors were granted permanent green cards and 134 granted conditional green cards. Presumably, these awards are for well more than 573 individuals as families may be involved. Assuming that each award gave an average of two persons access to permanent residency, that would come to over 1,000 individuals. And, the Quiros-Stenger projects are not by any means completed.

Collapse

During 2015, warning signals about problems with this multi-phased project began to go off. They concerned primarily a stalled project in Newport and shortage of approved funds for a hotel at Burke Mountain, another area ski resort. When the investigations are completed, it will probably become clear that many insiders knew in 2015, if not before, that entire undertaking was corrupted by the promoters.

On April 14, Vermont Digger reported that the SEC filed complaints against the operation. “In the 82-page SEC complaint, the federal regulatory body said it was taking action to “stop an ongoing, massive eight-year fraudulent scheme” in which Quiros and Stenger “systematically looted more than $50 million of the more than $350 million that has been raised from hundreds of investors” to construct resort facilities and a biomedical research facility. ‘The alleged fraud ran the gamut from false statements to deceptive financial transactions to outright theft,’ said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement, in a news release.

Some of Shumlin’s former colleagues have been working on the project and were in a position to know that something was amiss. They include Alex MacLean, the governor’s former campaign manager and top aide, and head of communications for Jay Peak between 2012 and 2015.

Snapshot of an immigrant: Ana Ramos Martinez

I interviewed Ana in January, 2016, in Medford, Massachusetts. Earl Dotter took photos.

Martinez is one of twelve children raised in a family of coffee and corn planters in El Salvador. As a young adult, she slipped over the American border in 1988 for one reason: to escape poverty. For the first month in America, she slept in a laundromat in Los Angeles. She worked as a clothes trimmer for eight years. She returned to El Salvador to bring her two young girls, walking for forty days, some of them in the desert. She paid off the coyote over seven years.

Today she is an American citizen, working in the Whole Foods Bakehouse in Medford, Massachusetts. One of her daughter works at the same facility. She owns a three family house in Chelsea, Massachusetts and a home in El Salvador. “To come here and succeed, you have to work”, she told us.

Martinez’s story uncovers some causes and consequences of immigration since passage of an historic immigration reform law in 1965. One way that her story is typical is that she is Hispanic (or, as some prefer, Latino). Without the surge in Hispanic immigration since 1965, there would be about 20 million persons in America who self-identify as Hispanic today. In fact,57 million self-identify that way. Roughly half of foreign-born Hispanics in America today are here without authorization.

She lives in a residential portal for low wage immigrants, Chelsea. In 2010, 38% of its population was foreign-born. Many low wage immigrant workers live in concentrations of similar immigrants.

Borjas on immigration’s impact on U.S. labor markets

George Borjas is an expert on immigration at the Harvard Kennedy School. He’s been analyzing the impact of immigration on the American job market. He refers to a “supply shock” of new immigrant arrivals starting in earnest in the 1980s. The total number of immigrants rose and in doing so shifted towards younger age. In-migration into the U.S., he and others found, lowered wages levels while increasing total employment. Some source countries saw their wage levels increase due to out-migration.

Borjas modeled the wage effects the immigrant influx 1990 – 2010. The model reported that the total hours worked by all high school dropouts rose by 25.9% and wages were adversely affected – lowered by 6.2% in the short run and 3.1% in the long run. It said that work hours of college graduates rose by 10.9%, with wages softened in the short run by 3.2% in the short run and 0.1% (i.e. nil) in the long run. (As this was a model, it didn’t reflect actual wage data.) Thus, more work for all and lower wages for some.

He also looked at changes in the employment rates of native-born Americans, legal immigrants and undocumented persons. The employment rate of the three groups was roughly similar in 1994, about 80%, but a marked divergence occurred afterward. The percentage of undocumented male workers employed went up from 80% in 1994 to 86% in 2014. Legal immigrants’ employment rate went up from 78% to 81%. Native-born Americans declined from 80% to 74%. He concluded that native-born Americans were the most sensitive to wage levels. Undocumented workers came here to work and do not withdraw from seeking employment if wages fall.

Borjas has looked at immigration in some pretty obscure areas, such as when 10% of the mathematicians emigrated from Russia after 1992, one third settling in the U.S. He found that the topics of papers written by the Russian immigrants and native-born Americans changed in response to this influx.

Educational status of new immigrants has been sharply rising.

The Pew Research Center reported on higher educational attainment of graduates. It noted a steady moderate increase from 1970 through 2007, then a sharp increase. Native-born Americans are better educated than in 1970, but especially in recent years new immigrants have outpaced native-born Americans in education.

Half of newly arrived immigrants in 1970 had at least a high school education; in 2013, more than three-quarters did. In 1970, a fifth had graduated from college; in 2013, 41% had done so. What is going on?

#1 Rise in foreign college graduates

Immigrants have been tilted to college graduates more than native-born Americans for fifty years, at least. In 1970, about 20% of newly arrived immigrants had at least a bachelor’s degree compared with slightly more than 10% of U.S.-born adults. In 2013, 41% of newly arrived immigrants had completed at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 30% of U.S.-born adults and 41% of White Americans.

Note that since 1990, college graduation rates by persons in the United States increased. “From 1990 to 2014, the percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds who had attained a bachelor’s or higher degree increased for Whites (from 26 to 41%), Blacks (from 13 to 22%), Hispanics (from 8 to 15%), and Asians/ Pacific Islanders (from 43 to 61 percent).” Go here.

#2: Rise in post-graduate degrees

Newly arrived immigrants also are more likely than U.S.-born adults to hold advanced degrees: In 2013, 18% did so, compared with 11% among those born in the U.S.

#3 Huge impact of more Asian immigrants, fewer Central American

In 2013 new Asian immigrants, half of whom have college degrees, for the first time exceeded Latin American immigrants in number. The number of new Asian immigrants was stable from 2000 until 2008, and then rose. New Latin American immigrant numbers started dropping in 2005; in 2013 their number had dropped by half, and Mexican numbers really dropped.

Asian immigrants are highly educated compared to 28% of the total immigrant population and 30%:

  • In 2013, 4% of Chinese immigrants (ages 25 and over) had a bachelor’s degree or higher
  • 76% of Indian immigrants have college degrees.

The composition of Latin American immigrants has changed. New South American immigrants are better educated than Central American immigrants.  17% of recent Mexican immigrants have some college or more, up from 13% in 1990.

# 4 The entire world is better educated.

The improved levels of education of recently arrived immigrants partly reflects rising education levels worldwide. In 2010, 45% of the world’s population had attended secondary school, up from less than 20% in 1960. Half of 20 to 24 year olds in Mexico graduated from high school compared to less than 10% in 1965. In 2013, 23% of new arrivals did not have a high school degree compared to 50% in 1970.

Still, the share of recent arrivals without a high school education is higher than native-born Americans. Native born Americans with at least high school degree rose steadily since 1970, when about 40% did not have a high school degree. Today, 10% of native-born Americans do not have a high school degree.

The educational profile of all Hispanics in the U.S. remains low, due to the low formal education of previous waves of Hispanic immigrants. “1990 and 2014, the percentage of 25- to 29-year-olds who completed at least a high school diploma or its equivalent increased for Whites (from 90 to 96 percent), Blacks (from 82 to 92 percent), Hispanics (from 58 to 75 percent), and Asians/Pacific Islanders (from 92 to 97 percent).” Go here.

Do immigrant workers win big from a $15 minimum wage?

California has enacted a phased introduction of a $15 an hour minimum wage. Is this law especially helpful for immigrant workers, who are disproportionately represented among low-wage workers?

The Golden state’s employed workforce of 18 million is 34% foreign-born, compared to employment nationwide which is 16% foreign born. An estimated 2 million-plus workers in California are undocumented. Median household income figures (for the entire country) indicate that foreign born workers earn less than native born workers, and for California’s largest by far immigrant population, Mexicans, they earn much less.

Let’s do a very preliminary, very incomplete analysis by looking at several of California’s largest occupations. This analysis can’t be relied on except to strongly suggest that immigrants may be greatly affected by a major minimum wage increase.

The analysis assumes that all positions in the jobs cited below are covered by the $15 minimum.

The median wage in the state in 2015 was $19.15, per federal surveys. The state’s minimum wage as of January 1, 2016 was $10.00 an hour. (The national median wage was $17.40, and minimum wages vary by state.)

Let’s start with maids and housekeeping cleaners (37-2021). In 2015 102,000 Californians worked in this job paying, in California, a median hourly wage of $11.12. Assuming that the $15 wage will come in overnight – which it will not, and all are at the median wage – which they are not, a 34% increase in hourly wage will give these workers an $804 million annual earnings boost. Nationwide, 49% of these workers were estimated in 2009 – 2011 to be foreign born, and half of them were estimate to be illegal. I cannot find an estimate of the foreign born share of jobholders in California.

The same analysis for jobs with very large immigrant share could be done for cooks (California median wage $11.89/hr, 30% immigrant share nationwide) and janitors and building cleaners ($12.40/hr, 27% share).

To make a sharp contrast, let’s look at the state’s pool of 212,000 secretaries and administrative assistants, whose 2015 media hourly wage was $18.43. Using the same simplistic assumptions above, the $15 minimum wage will benefit no one. Nationwide, 8% of these workers are immigrant and less than 1% are undocumented. The same analysis could be done for construction laborers (median wage in California, $18.16/hr, 34% immigrant share nationwide).

For waiters (California median wage $11.19, 16% immigrant share nationwide) the immigrant share matches the total immigrant share in the economy.