Year: 2018

Hispanic vote in mid-term elections

A record 29 million Latinos were eligible to vote – 12.8% of all eligible voters, a new high. In actual voting, Latinos appeared to be 11% of voters. An estimated 69% of Latinos voted for the Democratic candidate and 29% backed the Republican candidate.

27% of Latino voters said they were voting for the first time, compared with 18% of black voters and 12% of white voters.

Texas: in the Senate race, 64% of Latinos voted for Democrat Beto O’Rourke while 35% voted for Republican incumbent Ted Cruz.

Florida: In the Senate race, 54% of Hispanics voted for Democrat Bill Nelson and 45% backed Republican Rick Scott. Latinos voted similarly in the race for governor, with 54% of Hispanics voting for Democrat Andrew Gillum and 44% voting for Republican Ron DeSantis. Latino registrations were 8.4% higher than in 2016.

From Pew Research

Persian Gulf guest worker programs

Most advanced counties allow for immigrants to settle down, have families, and become citizens. This creates the gains and stresses of assimilation. No so with some Persian Gulf countries.

Qatar is extremely open to and dependent on migrant workers, who are roughly 94% of the workforce and 70% of its population. But these workers are severely restricted from settling.

In Qatar, restrictive employment contracts severely limit the ability of migrant workers to even visit their families back home. Well paid employees are allowed to sponsor dependents to join them. But there was almost no path for migrant workers or their offspring to become naturalized citizens. It’s only recently that the children of Qatari women with non-Qatari fathers were granted permanent residency status. Migrants are either for bidden from bringing spouses and children with them or discouraged from doing so.

From Reihan Salam, Melting Pot or Civil War?

What the Dems in the House need to do on immigration

The dividing partisan issue today is immigration. Dem and Rep voters both want protection of pre-existing conditions. But they think very differently on immigration, in part due to Trump’s skillful exploitation of the issue to frame it as a law and order issue. The issue is very attractive to Trump because he can do much with executive discretion. Dems play into his hands with calls for elimination of ICE. The Dems have no coherent vision for immigration.

Note ABC’s exit polling: “On the issues, health care prevailed, cited as the country’s top challenge by 41%, vs. 23% for immigration, 22% for the economy and 10% for gun policy. It sharply split the vote: Health care voters went Democratic by 75-23 percent; immigration voters were precisely the opposite; economy voters voted Republican by almost 2-to-1, 63-34 percent.” The sharp party division obscures a messier reality: when law and order is removed from the immigration debate, then a moderate center emerges.

It seems foolhardy to sit back and allow the Reps to characterize the Dems without a fight. The House Dems can use hearings to engage the country in discussion that brings immigration as a topic back from being a law and order issue to one of economic prosperity and cultural assimilation. These are the two key themes for a Dem vision for immigration. They haven’t had a platform to articulate this until now.

They need to directly address cultural assimilation because that is an underlying cause of malaise in the U.S (even more in Europe) over immigration. On the whole, assimilation is working well with a key major exception: poorly educated Hispanics.

Riehan Salam’s book, “Melting Pot of Civil War,” focuses on failure of economic assimilation, the creation of a multi-generational underclass. I think he overdoes it but he still has a valid point. The Dems need to acknowledge that cultural and economic assimilation is a matter of concern, and that the American economy and way of life have a means to bring it about.

ICE enforcement partnerships have driven Hispanic kids from schools 

From a study just published: For more than a decade, ICE has pursued enforcement of immigration laws through structured partnerships with local law-enforcement agencies (i.e., so-called “287(g) agreements”). These ICE partnerships provide local law-enforcement agencies with the training and authority to enforce federal immigration laws under the supervision of ICE officers.

Over 80 percent of unauthorized residents originated in Mexico and other Latin American countries. Additionally, roughly half of undocumented adults lived with their own children, most of whom were themselves U.S. citizens.

We find robust evidence that partnerships between ICE and local law-enforcement agencies led to substantial reductions in Hispanic student enrollment (i.e., a 7.3 percent reduction overall but one that grew to about 10 percent within two years). These reductions in Hispanic student enrollment appear to be concentrated among the youngest students. Based on this evidence, we estimate that, during our study window, ICE partnerships displaced more than 300,000 Hispanic students (i.e., by encouraging them to leave and discouraging them to arrive).

The study is found here.

Hispanic voters in Florida growing fast

The number of Hispanics eligible to vote in Florida has reached a high of nearly 3 million this year, up from 2.9 million from 2016. As of August 31, there are about 837,000 registered Democrats, 775,000 unaffiliated voters, 527,000 Republicans for a total of 2,139,000 or about 70% of eligible Hispanic voters.

Nationwide, eligible Hispanic voters register to vote much less (57%) than the national average (70%).

Since 2010, all registered voters have increased every two years by an average of 3.9%. Hispanic registered voters have increased by an average of 11.8%. Today they account for 16.4% of all registered voters.

Some of the Hispanic voter growth may be due to Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans have been the state’s fastest-growing Hispanic-origin group over the past decade. The state’s Puerto Rican population now rivals that of New York, the main destination of the mid-20th century’s migration from the island. They make up a third (31%) of Florida’s Hispanic adult citizens, a similar share to that of Cubans (31%),

Since the 2016 election, the number of Hispanics registered as Democrats has increased by 5%, approximately twice the 2% growth rate for Hispanics registered as Republicans. The number of Hispanic registered voters with no party affiliation has grown the fastest (14%).

From Pew Research

Why Trump focuses on immigration so much – survey data

Devoted Conservatives comprise 6% of the public; Traditional Conservatives 19%; and Moderates, 15%. These blocks make up the vast majority of those who vote Republican. Except for Devoted Conservatives, these blocks tend to agree with value-based immigration policy, such as that America should bear some of the burden. of taking in refugees fleeing from war or persecution. A majority of them support DACA children gaining citizenship. (Even Devoted Conservatives agree by 48%.)

Where opinion breaks hard against immigration is when law and order and national security come in. 88% percent of Devoted Conservatives and 64% of Traditional Conservatives support a Muslim travel ban, which they view as an exercise of sovereignty that is consistent with prioritizing America’s national security. By contrast, it is supported by just 29% of Moderates

The Conservative segments are more sensitive to immigration issues than other groups. 74% of Devoted Conservatives say they think about issues related to immigration at least once a week, more than twice the national average (36%) and significantly more than Traditional Conservatives (44%). 60% of Devoted Conservatives say that issues of immigration “make me very frustrated,” nearly three times as much as the national average (22%).

From Hidden Tribes report.

Examples of sanctuary city programs

Chicago’s July 2012 Welcoming City Ordinance, per a press release from the city, “builds on an existing ordinance and longtime City policy that prohibits agencies from inquiring about the immigration status of people seeking City services, and provides that the Chicago Police Department will not question crime victims, witnesses and other law-abiding
residents about their legal status.

Santa Clara County, in which San Jose is located, has a Rapid Response Network, to alert people about ICE raids. “Training is led by Pangea Legal Services, Sacred Heart Community Service and PACT: People Acting in Community Together. The Rapid Response Network aims to expand the community’s capacity to monitor and document ICE operations in real time.”

New York City enacted in December, 2017 a law (2017/228) “That would prohibit City agencies from partnering with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to enforce federal immigration law, including through 287(g) agreements. Additionally, this bill would prohibit the use of City resources, property, and information obtained on behalf of the City in furtherance of federal immigration enforcement.”

San Francisco passed in 1989 the “City and County of Refuge” Ordinance (also known as the Sanctuary Ordinance). The Sanctuary Ordinance generally prohibits City employees from using City funds or resources to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the enforcement of Federal immigration law unless such assistance is required by federal or state law. In 2013, San Francisco passed the “Due Process for All” Ordinance. This ordinance limits when City law enforcement officers may give ICE advance notice of a person’s release from local jail. It also prohibits cooperation with ICE detainer requests, sometimes referred to as “ICE holds.”

(Source: here.)

Farm labor shortages in California

From a 2017 member survey by the California Farm Bureau Federation:

Fifty-five percent of survey respondents said they were experiencing employee shortages to various degrees. A majority of farmers who reported shortages said they were unable to recruit up to 50 percent of their seasonal workforce needs, with 15% unable to recruit more than 50% of employees. Of the farmers who reported shortages, the majority employ 15 or fewer people on a permanent basis and hire 50 employees or fewer during peak season.

When asked what actions they have taken in response to employee shortages, one third of respondents said they used mechanization if available; another 29% attempted or investigated mechanization. One-third of respondents elected not to engage in labor-intensive cultivation activities such as pruning and grapevine canopy management. About 9.5% planted fewer acres and 9% did not harvest some of their crop. The most frequent action, taken by 49% of respondents, was to offer increased wages, benefits and additional incentives to prevent employees accepting work with other growers or leaving agriculture altogether.

Fewer than 3% of those responding use the existing H-2A agricultural immigration program. Farmers in California have for many years said they find the H-2A program inadequate to meet their employment needs, given the program’s high cost, bureaucratic difficulties and the diversity of seasons, workforce needs and timing of those needs, which often conflict and overlap. In spite of increases in the number of people being employed in California through the H-2A program, it still represents a small fraction of the overall agricultural labor force in the state.

Youth in America today

Latinos account for about half or more of all K-12 students in three states – New Mexico (61%), California (52%) and Texas (49%).

The population of the youngest Latinos, those under 18 years old, grew by 22% from 2006 to 2016, a Pew Research Center analysis of Census Bureau data finds. This growth helped keep the nation’s youth population steady at about 73 million over the past decade. During this time, the under-18 population of whites and blacks declined by 11% and 7%, respectively. Among Asian Americans, a group with a fast-growing population overall, the number of people under 18 years old jumped by 21%. But at 3.5 million, this group is far smaller than the under-18 Hispanic population of 18.3 million.

Latinos accounted for 25% of the nation’s 54 million K-12 students in 2016, up from 16% in 2000. In 14 states, Latinos accounted for at least 20% of K-12 students in 2016, up from six states in 2000, according to Census Bureau data. States new to this list in 2016 are Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington. Latinos account for about half or more of all K-12 students in three states – New Mexico (61%), California (52%) and Texas (49%).

From here.

The underclass scenario in immigration

Reihan Salam writes about the risks of a persistent, multi-generational underclass of American residents. This class compromises immigrants and their subsequent generations who do not get the education and social skills needed to rise up economically in the American economy.

Very large numbers of Latin Americans are here, legally or unauthorized, with little formal education and limited English.

Despite what we like to think about our “knowledge” economy, some 25 million jobs — 15 percent — do not require either much formal education or English language proficiency. At the lowest level of education, five million workers today have no more than an eighth-grade education. Four million of them are foreign-born. They comprise a special underclass marked by far greater economic and social isolation and vulnerability to exploitation than native-born workers, even if these foreigners feel better off than they were in their home countries.

Within our native-born labor force, barely 1 percent have an education level of eighth-grade or lower. Among Mexican and Central American workers, that share is 34 percent, or about 3.3 million workers. For the rest of the foreign-born labor force, it’s 4 percent, or about 600,000 people.

In all likelihood, at least half — and possibly more — of these 4 million foreign-born workers are living here illegally. Many of them likely came to the United States over the Mexico-U.S. border during the 1990s and early 2000s.

These 4 million workers crowd into farming and low-level construction jobs, cooking, housekeeping, groundskeeping and building cleaning, among other occupations. The jobs can be socially isolating. It is easy to avoid, for years, learning more than rudimentary English.

Waiting tables, retail sales and personal-care jobs are often off limits for many of these foreign workers because of their limited English, as well as a lack of social skill sets that native-born Americans take for granted.

See Reihan Salam, Melting Pot of Civil War.

For education figures go here.