A weblog about the business of immigrant work: employment, compensation, legal protections, education, mobility, and public policy.
Looking at the years 1990 to 2014, our finding suggest that undocumented immigration is generally associated with decreasing violent crime. The negative association between unauthorized immigration and violence is evidenced in both police reports and victimization data. None of our 57 observations show a positive association between undocumented immigration and violent crime.
From Michael Light et al, Does undocumented immigration increase violent crime? Criminology, 2018
Faith-based organizations have long served as key partners to UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) in providing services and protection to refugees and migrants. They include Lutheran World Federation, Islamic Relief Worldwide, and Caritas, a federation of 165 Catholic organizations.
For example, after the 2011 Côte d’Ivoire presidential elections, over half a million people were displaced. Local faith institutions and FBOs including parishes of the Roman Catholic Church, Caritas, Muslim mosques and communities, and Charismatic groups, stepped up to provide immediate emergency shelters and humanitarian assistance
An April 2018 study by Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA) and Boston College’s Center for Social Innovation highlighted dozens of pioneering faith-based programs providing protection for refugees and migrants (FADICA 2018, 1). These programs address root causes of migration, provide protection in transit, and facilitate successful resettlement through the provision of shelter, skills training, and trauma-healing.
Small-scale faith-based programs can have a huge impact for individuals to whom they serve as a lifeline in the midst of a treacherous journey. The Home for Migrants Shelter “Bethlehem” in Tapachula, Mexico at the Guatemalan border is one such program (SIMN 2014). Under the leadership of Scalabrinian priest Father Florenzo Rigoni, c.s., the shelter provides respite and vital services for migrants regardless of their identities and complexities. Pregnant girls, individuals with HIV and other infectious diseases, victims of sex trafficking, former prostitutes, and transgender individuals, are all welcomed and served through the on-site provision of wrap-around medical, financial, educational, and spiritual support at the shelter.
From here.
Pew Research has this site at which you can find by state the estimated unauthorized population and unauthorized labor force.
In 2014, one in five births (791,000) in the United States was to an immigrant mother, contrasted with 13% of the total population being foreign-born. Immigrant mothers accounted for half or nearly half of births in Miami, San Francisco, and San Jose, CA.
in 2012-2016, legal immigrants accounted for 12.4% of all births, and unauthorized immigrants accounted for 7.5% of all births and close to 40% of immigrant mother births.
Medicaid paid for 30% of non-immigrant mother births, 29% of legal immigrant mother births, and 14% of unauthorized mother births. Uninsured births: for 12% of non-immigrant mother births, 18% of legal immigrant mother births, and 53% of unauthorized mother births.
For entry-level positions in New York City: Circa 1940, the workforce was 66 percent black native workers, 6 percent Hispanic foreign-born, and 2 percent Asian foreign-born. But by 1990, those numbers had significantly shifted, with the black native-born population comprising only 30 percent of the workforce, compared with Hispanic foreign-born at 20 percent and Asian foreign-born at 15 percent.
Cited by Amy Wax, Low skilled immigration: the case for restriction, American Affairs, Winter 2017.
I shared the other day that Utah’s labor force—the number of people ages 16 and over holding or seeking a job—has grown an average of 1.9% a year from 2010 through January 2018, more than triple the nation’s 0.6% pace. Let’s put this in larger context.
Annualized working age population growth for 2000 through 2020 and 2020 through 2040 for areas of the world is estimated in the U.S. (+0.85%, +0.2%), Eurozone (+0.1%, -0.5%) and Japan (-0.6%, -0.8%).
The ratio of the number job openings to the number of unemployed workers at the end of 2018 was 1.7 in Japan, and slightly over 1 in the U.S.
Using data that ended in 2008 (but the basic pattern has continued), children of immigrant parents were above 30% of all children in some states.
Young children of immigrants account for more than 30% of children in seven states and 20–30% of children in 12 states. Children of immigrants accounted for between 10 and 20% of children in 18 states. Their share is lower in the remaining 14 states (less than 10%). The seven states with over 30% in 2008 were CA, TX, NV, AZ, FL, NJ and NY.
The number of young children of immigrants doubled between 1990 and 2008; this increase accounts for the entire growth in the U.S. population of young children since 1990. Currently, 8.7 million U.S. children age 0 to 8 have at least one foreign-born parent, a doubling from 4.3 million in 1990. By contrast, the number of children with native-born parents has declined slightly from 27.8 million in 1990 to 27.3 million in 2008. Thus, children of immigrants accounted for the entire growth in the number of young children in the United States between 1990 and 2008.
In 2008, 43% of the immigrant parents of children were from Mexico. This percentage has probably declined somewhat since 2008 because of the flattening out of migration from Mexico compared with the growth of Asian and Central American immigrants.
From here.
Sentiment moves against immigration
For the first time ever, the long-running Lowy Poll reported in 2018 A majority (54%) say ‘the total number of migrants coming to Australia each year is too high’ up from 40% in 2017. 30% say it is ‘about right’; and 14% say it is ‘too low’. The same-sized majority said that ‘Australia’s openness to people from all over the world is essential to who we are as a nation’. However, 41% said ‘if Australia is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation’.
The country is absorbing major changes in immigration since the mid 1990s.
The Guardian reported in 2018 on immigration trends since 1996:
14 members of Congress are foreign-born and 54 are children of immigrants in the 116th Congress. That’s 16% of the Senate (16) and 12% of the House (52).
19 represent California, or 35% of that state’s entire representation. California’s population is ¼ foreign born, and contains ¼ of all foreign born persons in the country.
Newly elected Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., was born in Mogadishu, Somalia, and fled with her family in 1991 after the country’s civil war started. Her family spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya and later moved to America, where she became a citizen in 2000. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., was born in communist Poland before coming to the U.S. at age 6 with his mother.
Others had parents who fled their native countries. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., was born to a Polish mother who survived the Holocaust and came to the U.S. in 1950. Rep. Joe Neguse, also a Democrat representing Colorado, was born to Eritrean parents who fled their country in 1980 when it was embroiled in war with Ethiopia.
The countries most represented by current or children of immigrants are: Mexico (13), Cuba (8), Germany (6), and India (5).
Under the U.S. Constitution, an immigrant taking office in the House must be a U.S. citizen for seven years or more, age 25 or older and living in the state where he or she is elected. Nine years of citizenship are required to serve in the Senate, and the person must be 30 or older and live in the represented state when elected.
By the authors of this study: “In this analysis, we examined lawmakers’ birthplaces and parentage through news stories, obituaries, candidate statements, and congressional and genealogical records, as well as contacting congressional staff.”
From Pew Research.
Remittances from countries and to others reflect the increasingly intertwined nature of the global economy, and the role of migration in particular. Since 1980 global remittances have grown on average by about 20% a year.
According to the World Bank remittances from the United States to other countries were $1.4B in 1980. That was 5% of the total $28.9B in global remittances, and the U.S. was the fifth largest source. In 2000 remittances from the U.S. were $34.4B, or 29% of total global remittances. It was the largest source by far. In 2017, Americans sent $67.9B. That was 15% of the global total of $445B.
Between 2000 and 2017, several countries greatly increased their sending of remittances. Countries which sent at large remittances in 2017 were United Arab Emirates ($44B) which tripled its remittances since the mid 2000s; Switzerland ($27B) which was a major remittance source for decades; Saudi Arabia ($36B), a long time major source; and Germany ($20B), a long time major source.