Working Immigrants

The United States needs more primary care physicians, including family physicians. Projections based on current trends show a deficit of 52,000 primary care physicians by 2025.

There are about 120,000 family medicine doctors in the U.S. Each year about 5,000 newly educated medical doctors enter an accredited family medicine programs.

Since 2009, the overall proportion of US medical students entering family medicine increased from 9.0% to 12.6%. That was largely due to a rise in graduates in osteopathic medicine. However, the number of non-citizens graduating from foreign medical schools rose from 2000 to 2009, then appears to have declined. They constituted 10% of new family medicine entrants in 2000, 21% in 2009, then dropped to 8% in 2017.

It is unclear if any future increase in the total number of new family medicine doctors can happen without foreign graduates returning to higher numbers.

From here.

The Democratic sweep in this Tuesday’s elections in Virginia invites a look at immigration trends in the state and the possible impact of voting by naturalized citizens. Well-educated foreign-born, naturalized adult citizens have likely grown from perhaps 4% of eligible voters in 2000 to 8% in 2017. This is due to many more foreign-born adults, their higher education profile, and to naturalization trends.

Surge in foreign-born adults: foreign-born persons age 25 + rose from 6.4% of all persons 25 + in 1990, to 10.6% in 2000, to 18.6% in 2017. In absolute numbers, the foreign-born pop 25 + doubled 2000 – 2017 while the U.S. born population grew by 16%.

An increasing share of immigrants have naturalized and are eligible to vote. I infer that the 18 + population of naturalized citizens rose 250% from around 200K in 2000 to around 500K in 2017, while the vote-eligible U.S. born rose by only around 15%.

Note that the most recent figure is for 2017, i.e. would not reflect any greater proclivity to be naturalized during the Trump administration, as a risk management step.

Foreign-born adults are better educated than U.S. born in a state that is a leader in education. In 2017, 43% of foreign-born Virginians had at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with 38% of U.S. born adults in Virginia. Virginia is one of the best-educated states in the country).

From here.

What is the American presence in Mexico? A huge problem in coming up with estimates is that we really want to know two flows: U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens who circled back. The U.S. does not spend much time tracking “circular migration.” There may be a million U.S. citizens living in Mexico, and several million Mexicans who have circled back.

So, there are American citizens living there, and also persons who lived in the U.S. with a Green card. And there are unauthorized persons who returned, often it appears with a U.S. born child. There seems to be some agreement that a relatively small number of retirees who retired in Mexico after working in the U.S.

The State Department says 1.5 million American citizens live in Mexico. The Migration Policy Institute estimates that there are 899,000 U.S. born persons living in Mexico. The 2015 Mexican census puts the number of U.S. Citizens in Mexico at 739,000.

The Migration Policy Institute also surmises that very many of the total, whatever it is, includes includes approximately 1 million U.S.-born persons who moved, mainly to Mexico, over the 2010-15 period, and the majority of them were children, mostly it appears of unauthorized Mexicans who had lived in the U.S. and born children there. (10% of the Mexican workforce in about 2005 were in working in the U.S.)

The Mexico’s Ministry of the Interior estimates there could be 430,000 to 600,000 U.S. citizen minors living in Mexico, the great majority of them U.S. born children of Mexican households who had returned from the U.S.

Retirees: Only a very small percentage of American citizens living in Mexico are retirees. Retirement communities in Mexico – 10,000 are estimated to live in San Miquel de Allende, 35,000 in Puerto Vallarta, and 20,000 near Lake Chapala in central Mexico (according to the U.S. Embassy.) Only 58,000 who receive Social Security checks. (this number is not broken dwn between U.S. citizens and Green Card holders.) This number is equivalent to roughly 3% to 6% of American citizens living in Mexico. Compare that with 306,000 U.S. citizens living in Canada, and 111,000 persons receive Soc Sec checks there.

The surge is not news; the fact that non-English is embedded among U.S. born citizens is. This means that one tenth of U.S.born residents – citizens from birth speak primarily a language other than English at home.

The Center for Immigration Studies describes the growth of persons (five years or older) in the U.S. who speak a language other than English at home. One in five U.S. residents, or 67.3 million residents in the United States now speak a language other than English at home. The number has nearly tripled since 1980, and more than doubled since 1990. I will cover some of CIS’s report in this post, and include more findings in a follow up post.

Since 1980, the number who speak a foreign language at home grew nearly seven times faster than the number who speak only English at home. Even since 2010, the number of foreign-language speakers increased more than twice as fast as that of English speakers

Languages with more than a million people who speak it at home in 2018 were Spanish (41.5 million), Chinese (3.5 million), Tagalog (1.8 million), Vietnamese (1.5 million), Arabic (1.3 million), French (1.2 million), and Korean (1.1 million).

Of those who speak a foreign language at home, 45% were born in the United States.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs reports growing disagreement between Republicans and Democrats about the impact of immigration.

In its survey, it asked, “Possible threats to the vital interest of United States: large numbers of immigrants and refugees coming into the US.” In 2002, the members of the two parties thought alike: about 60% of each said it was a “critical threat.” In 2016, Reps had not changed their opinion but Dems were much less concerned. Since 2017, concerned Reps rose from about 60% to 78%.

The survey was conducted by the Council in June, 2019.

On November 8, 2016, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) conducted a nonpartisan, multilingual exit poll of Asian American voters. AALDEF’s exit poll surveyed 13,846 Asian American voters at 93 poll sites in 55 cities. The exit poll was conducted in English and 11 Asian languages. AALDEF has conducted exit polls in every major election since 1988.

The 2016 results: In November 2016, 79% of Asian Americans voted for Clinton. 90% of South Asians polled voted for Clinton, 90% for Obama in 2012, 93% for Obama in 2008, and 90% for John Kerry in 2004. 76% of Asian Americans voted for the Democratic House candidates and
16% voted for the Republican candidates.

Go here.

1,105 DACA recipients were surveyed in August/September this year.

First announced on June 15, 2012, 825,000 individuals have obtained official protection under the executive order which the Trump Administration has sought to reverse. Depending on possible revisions and on what criteria one uses, the total number of protected persons could be significantly higher than one million. The Supreme Court will hear arguments about DACA termination on November 12.

The survey results include:

After receiving DACA, 58 percent of respondents moved to a job with better pay. Among respondents 25 years and older, 20% have obtained professional licenses after receiving DACA.

Among respondents 25 years and older, median annual earnings total $44,583. (this compares with median for Hispanics 25 and over, of $726 weekly x 52 = $38,272). (From here.)

46 percent of respondents reported already having a bachelor’s degree or higher. 93 percent said that because of DACA, “[They] pursued educational opportunities that [they] previously could not.

The survey reveals DACA recipients’ deep fears of return and the potential harms that they could face if they lost their protection and were deported. 80 percent reported, “In my country of birth, I would be concerned about the physical safety of myself and my family.”

The average age of arrival to the United States among respondents is just 6.1 years old, and 69 percent reported not having any immediate family members who still live in their respective countries of birth.

Among those with children, 75 percent reported that they think about “being separated from [their] children because of deportation” at least once a day, while 72 percent reported thinking about “not being able to see [their] children grow up because of deportation” at least once a day.

69 percent reported that they think about a family member being detained or deported at least once a day.

Relatively few Brazilians are living in other Latin American countries. The largest population is in Paraguay at 76,000. There are far more Brazilians in Europe than in all other Latin American countries combined. (Date source here.)

64% of Brazilians in the U.S. reside in Florida (80,000), Massachusetts (65,000), California (39,000). New Jersey (29,000) and New York (25,000). (Source here)

In 2017, 42 percent of Brazilian immigrants (ages 25 and older) had at least a four-year college degree, compared to 31 percent of all immigrants and 32 percent of U.S.-born adults. Just 11 percent of Brazilian immigrants had less than a high school diploma, compared to 28 percent of all foreign-born adults and 9 percent of native-born adults.

Europe is population-wise flat. By about 2060 it will rise by about 3% before falling back. In the U.S. the population in 2060 will be 25% larger than now. Very few major first world countries have positive growth in both native-born population and in net migration. The U.S. is one of them,

Eurostat projections of population trends in Europe 2015 – 2080 see a scant total increase. Pretty much every country has a major in or out migration trend.

Total population starts in 2015 at 510 million, declining by a negative 57 million for natural means (births – deaths) alone. That is a decline by more than 10%. Net migration is a positive 65 million, resulting in a 2080 total projection of 519 million – basically flat.

Italy is due to decline naturally by 30% and is saved only by a very large in-migration; on net it still declines by 12%.

Germany’s native population is due to decline by 23%. It also expects a very large in-migration ending with a 6% total decline.

The United Kingdom is projected to grow by 26%, and France by 15%, due to positive natural growth and strong in-migration.

Romania and Bulgaria are clobbered by negative natural trends plus significant out-migration.

Compare this with U.S. population projections 2015 – 2060: 20% increase in native born, 60% increase in foreign born, resulting in a 25% increase while over that period Europe grows by less than 3%.