1995 and 1996: when Immigration was almost curtailed

In the mid 1990s Congress came close to reducing the volume of legal immigration. It failed. It did enact a bill to focused on cracking down on illegal immigration, which eventually had no impact on the volume of illegal residents. Below is a capsule history of these failed efforts. Read this with 2016 in mind.

Background

The 1980s saw a great increase in the award of green cards (legal permanent residency) due to the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986. That act legalized three million immigrants who had entered the U.S. before 1982. The underlying rate of green card issuance to new arrivals stayed at around 600,000. Unauthorized immigrant migration grew, from 3.5 million in 1990 to 5.7 million in 1995.

First, California politics blows up over immigration

Southern California experienced the surge acutely, with the foreign born population of Los Angeles Country growing from 11% in 1970 to 33% in 1990.

Pete Wilson, a Republican who as mayor of San Diego (1971 – 1983) and U.S. Senator (1983 – 1991) had been arguing for a formal guest worker program for many years, served as state governor between 1991 and 1999.

While he was governor, California became the first state to enact a law, through Referendum 187 in 1994, that severely restricted access of undocumented residents from public services, such as health care and education. A federal court ruled in 1998 that the law was unconstitutional.

Wilson was running for gubernatorial re-election in 1994, against Democrat Kathleen Brown, a member of the Brown political dynasty. In 1993, Wilson issued an “open letter” to the national media saying that illegal immigration was an intolerable burden to state and local governments. The 1994 election year, punctuated by the Northbridge earthquake, saw a loud debate about immigration, resulting in 59-41 vote in favor of Proposition 187 and Wilson’s re-election. 66% of those with a high school or less education voted in favor.

Then, Congress fumbles

In his 1995 State of the Union address, President Clinton said, “All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.” In the Spring, the Jordan Commission issued a report recommending a sharp reduction in family-based green cards. Family based green cards, a feature of the 1965 immigration reform, were mainly granted to Mexicans. The Commission intended to reduce green card awards by about a third in total. The house of Representatives, now in the hands of Republicans for the first time in decades, created a immigration task force chaired by immigration restrictionist Elton Gallegy.

A bill reflecting the Commission and the task force was submitted June 22. The bill called for lower green card issuance, penalties employers who hire undocumented workers, and other measures. A key feature of the bill was the inclusion of both legal and illegal immigration provisions. A house sub-committee approved a version of the bill in the Fall on a largely party line vote, under the oversight of Congressman Lamar Smith.

Opponents to the bill were a strange coalition of church groups (who were pro-family reunification and pro refugee settlement), businesses that relied on cheap labor, such as hospitality, and Republican politicians (such as Jack Kemp) wanting not to alienate non-white constituencies. The Democrats were largely united in opposition. The opponents’ strategy was to split the legal and illegal immigration parts, to better protect the status quo of legal immigration laws.

Senator Alan Simpson submitted his own bill in November 1995 which would drastically lower family based immigration and lower employment based immigration by one third, and also lower refugee settlement.

Eventually most of the reductions in legal immigration were removed, and in the mid 1996 the House passed by 228-101 and the Senate by 78-21 the Illegal Immigrant Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The last remaining provision that was removed was that of denying the right of undocumented children to receive a public education (the Gallegly amendment). The court and enforcement system for unauthorized persons of today was largely created by this law.

Kicking legal immigrants off public assistance

Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 constrained legal immigrants from government services. First, most non-citizens who arrived in the country before August 22, 1996 were to be removed from SSI and food stamp rolls within a year. (This provision of the legislation, however, was never fully enforced).
Second, immigrants who entered the United States after August 22, 1996 are prohibited for five years from receiving most types of public assistance. The ban is lifted when the immigrant becomes an American citizen. (This summary by George Borjas, here). This restriction was carried in the Affordable Care Act.

Assessment

The new Republican Congress failed to reduce the level of legal immigration. It pursued, and got President Clinton to sign, new provisions that beefed up law enforcement and prevented / discouraged legal immigrants from accessing public programs. In sum, those who were concerned about foreigner free-loading off the country gained a partial victory. As Lamar Smith said at the time, “Immigration is not an entitlement, it is a privilege.” Republicans tried to make English the exclusive legal language, but abandoned the effort in face of a certain Clinton veto.

And, the law had little effect on the volume of both legal and illegal immigration in the years after.

More on Melania Trump

Per Politico, to enter the U.S. when Melania Trump did, which appears to have been in 1995, she needed a visa, because not until 1997 were Slovenian citizens allowed to enter without a visa. She could have used a B-1 Temporary Business Visitor or B-2 Tourist Visa, which typically last only up to six months and do not permit employment. She confirmed a reporter’s inquiry she had a H-1B temporary work visa, but that would not require her to repeatedly leave and return, which she said she did. Thus it was likely she was on a temporary non-work visa.

 

Farmworker Justice

Here is the 2015 annual report of Farmworker Justice.

Farmworker Justice  works with farmworkers and their organizations. Based in Washington, D.C, it was founded in 1981. In 1996, it became a subsidiary corporation of National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest constituency-based Hispanic civil rights organization. Farmworker Justice maintains an independent Board of Directors and 501(c)(3) status as a charitable corporation.

It focuses on civil and employment rights of farm workers; higher wages and better working conditions, including health and safety on the job, and comprehensive immigration reform,

 

Did Melania Trump break immigration laws in the 1990s?

Politico and other media organizations are speculating about the legal status of Melania Trump when she first came to the U.S. Working in the U.S. without authorization is a civil violation. Anyone who misrepresents her or himself to the U.S. government is subject to a criminal complaint. Melania may have incurred both vulnerabilities in the mid 1990s.

The official version (what she and the campaign said) was that she arrived first from Slovenia in 1996, returned regularly to Slovenia to renew her right to be in the U.S., became a legal permanent resident (LPR, Green Card) in 2001, and a citizen in 2001.

For her to work in the U.S. before gaining her LPR status in 2001, she would have had to have a visa allowing her to work, for instance as a model. Created by the Immigration Act of 1990, there is a complex system of temporary immigration statutes which enable foreigners to work for limited periods of time, and depending on the type of visa only at a designated occupation and employer.

A temporary work visa that Melania would have obtained would most likely have been a H-1B, which is available for skilled workers. According to Politico, she has said she came in 1996, but modeling photos of her were taken in the U.S. in 1995. Per Politico, “The nude photos were taken in New York in 1995 for the January 1996 issue of France’s now-defunct Max Magazine, according to the tabloid.”

The H-1B visa program (which includes one category for models) is for a minimum of three years. This would preclude Melania having to return to Slovenia repeatedly due to visa expiration and re-applying.

Politico writes: “In a January [2016] profile in Harper’s Bazaar, Trump said she would return home from New York to renew her visa every few months. “It never crossed my mind to stay here without papers. That is just the person you are,” she said. “You follow the rules. You follow the law. Every few months you need to fly back to Europe and stamp your visa. After a few visas, I applied for a green card and got it in 2001.”

A straightforward interpretation is that she did not initially have a visa allowing her to work. Apparently at the time a visa was not needed then for non-working stays in the U.S. for under 90 days, within any 180 day window. This means she would have to exit the U.S. often; wait for 90 days, and then return.

What low skills jobs do immigrants and native Americans appear to compete for?

The Atlantic reports on the dependence of landscaping businesses for temporary foreign workers to do landscaping work. Let’s put this demand for workers into the context of low skilled work not requiring much formal education. Are immigrants and native Americans broadly competing, when the supply of both workers is shrinking?

A close look at the jobs for which there appears to be competition leads one to see that the supply of poorly educated workers is shrinking among both immigrant and native born workers. This bodes for higher wages and increased automation.

There are fourteen jobs in America (including groundskeeping) not requiring a high school diploma, with at least 400,000 workers, and at least 20% of the jobs held by immigrants. The annual wages of these jobs range from $19,000 to $30,000 and average $23,000. About 16,800,000 in number, they account for about 11% of all jobs in the country, 21% of all immigrant workers and 9% of native American workers. Men hold 59% of these fourteen jobs. (The three held mostly by women are housekeepers, food preparers, and personal aides.)

Today, among 18- 24 year olds, only about 5% of white native-born white Americans and 7% of black Americans do not complete high school. In 2015, 23.9% of the foreign-born labor force age 25 and over had not completed high school, compared with 4.6% of the native-born labor force.

It’s important to note that the education level of recent immigrants is going up, plus the new labor force entrants are increasingly weighted towards second vs. first generation. Thus, there are more native born Hispanic workers than foreign born. The peak of foreign born Hispanics (56%) was in 2007. All 18- 24 year old Hispanics in the U.S. finishing high school at a 88% rate.

The Frey index for computerization of thee fourteen jobs ranges from 38% (hand packagers) to 95% (grounds keepers). This is the percentage of the work that could be taken over by automation. As robots decline in costs and expand in application, they are likely to take over a lot of the work now down by poorly educated workers.

Hispanic formal education gap has greatly narrowed.

Formal education among first, second and even third generation Hispanics has been below that of native born Americans and other groups. Achievement in all groups has gradually improved, with the Hispanic gap closing.

Now the Pew Research reports that educational achievement of Hispanics “has been changing rapidly in recent years.”

High school completion: Among ages 18 – 24, the high school dropout rate for Hispanics dropped from 32% in 2000 to 12% in 2014. That’s still higher than for others — blacks (7%), whites (5%) and Asians (1%).

In 1993, the gap between Hispanic and White dropout rates was 24% (33% – 9%.) The gap in 2007 was 19% (24% – 6%). The gap in 2014 was 7% (12% – 5%).

Higher Ed: In 2014, 35% of Hispanics ages 18 to 24 were enrolled in a two- or four-year college, up from 22% in 1993. By comparison, 33% of blacks, 42% of whites, and 64% of Asians were enrolled in higher ed.

15% of Hispanics have a four-year bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to 41% of whites, 22% of blacks and 63% of Asians. They are much more likely to attend a two year college program. Nearly half do, compared to 30% of whites, 32% of Asians and 36% of blacks going to a community college.

 

Why have immigration? One in a series

It is a rare day when you come across a crisp vision statement on immigration to the United States. You can find one in the report of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, informally known as the Jordan Commission, for its chair, Barbara Jordan, a former Democratic Congresswoman from Texas.

The Commission examined and made recommendations on virtually every aspect of the immigration system: family reunification, employment-based immigration, enforcement measures to stem unauthorized immigration, and numerical limits on all classes of immigrants, non-immigrants, and asylees.

Between 1994 and 1997 it issued four reports. In the past report, Becoming An American: Immigration and Immigrant Policy, the Commission defined a vision in 90 words:

“Properly-regulated immigration and immigrant policy serves the national interest by ensuring the entry of those who will contribute most to our society and helping lawful newcomers adjust to life in the United States. It must give due consideration to shifting economic realities. A well-regulated system sets priorities for admission; facilitates nuclear family reunification; gives employers access to a global labor market while protecting U.S. workers; helps to generate jobs and economic growth; and fulfills our commitment to resettle refugees as one of several elements of humanitarian protection of the persecuted.”

More information about the Commission is here. The Commission recommended a 30% reduction in legal immigration, which then was trending about 675,000 a year (it is now about one million).

 

Children of immigrants: 88% born here, 1/3 with a native born parent

The Migration Policy Institute in April, 2016 issued an overview of the children of foreign-born parents. Also see here.

First-generation immigrant children are any foreign-born child with foreign-born parents. Second-generation immigrant children are any native-born child with at least one foreign-born parent. Children with immigrant parents are both first- and second-generation immigrant children. The estimates include only children under 18 years old.

In 2014, 17.5 million children lived with at least one immigrant parent.About a third of these children have one native born American as a parent. Of these, 2.1 million (12%) were born outside the country, and 15.4 million (88%) were born in the U.S. The percentage born outside the U.S. has declined.

Between 1990 and 2014, the number of children of immigrants grew 213% from 8.2 million to 17.5 million, almost exactly the rate of growth of the entire foreign-born population. During this period, the total number of children in the US grew by only 15%, thus foreign-born children accounted for the great majority of new children. They went from 13% to 25% of all children. Foreign-born children account in 2014 for only about 3% of all children.

These states have at least one third of all children as being off-spring of immigrants: California (49%), Nevada, New Jersey, New York, and Texas (all between 35% and 38%).

31% of the 30.3 million children living in poor families (i.e., with family incomes below 200% of the federal poverty threshold) are children of immigrants.

Immigrant children are more likely than children of non-immigrants to live in a two parent household.

 

Opinions stable but partisanship sharper on immigration since mid 1990s.

Public opinion in the United States about immigration has been remarkably stable over the years, while a political partisanship gap emerged. Republicans care about immigration; Democrats and Independents don’t. Neither party articulates a coherent immigration vision.

1960s through mid 1990s

Over generations, popular sentiment has been vaguely inclined to not to increase immigration, but also not to cut it back. Party lines were not clearly drawn because both parties were internally conflicted.

James Gimpel wrote this month that “A 1965 Gallup survey showed that….Republicans and Democrats were divided internally, with similar shares of respondents in both parties favoring a decrease. In 1977, a survey continued to show that partisan differences were negligible. In 1986, as the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) was passing with a bipartisan congressional majority, a CBS News/New York Times poll recorded no statistically significant partisan differences in opinion toward overall immigration levels.”

In recent years public opinion *on the whole* has drifted slightly less concerned about immigration. Since 1999, Gallup polls show that people favoring a decrease in immigration went from about 43% in 1999 to about 36% in 2015; and those wanting to keep the present level stayed at about 40% throughout. Young people and higher income people are significantly more friendly to immigration (as is the case also in Europe).

Since 1990s, party divide

Partisanship shot up starting in the mid 1990s, The two topics that have most sharply divided parties have been immigration and taxes. The Republican messaging has almost entirely been on law enforcement issues, mainly illegal immigrants and a supposedly (but statistically non-existent) higher crime rate of illegal immigrants.

The Chicago Council on Global Affairs polls have tracked the party divide on immigration. During 1998 – 2002, Dems and Reps were in consensus about the ill effects of “mass immigration,” and for both the 9/11 attack sharply heightened concerns about illegal immigration. Since then Rep concern about mass immigration stayed high but most Dems and, by even more, Independents stopped expressing concern. And a similar divide emerged about illegal immigration. Only Reps still consider this a burning issue.

Repubican mmigration policy as a subcategory of law-and-order policy

Reps have conflated the issue of immigration with the issue of law and order. Gimpel told me that the persistence of illegal immigrants is “patently unfair” in the minds of many. Pew Research polls suggest that Reps and Dem come down very differently on the unfairness question.  With much less vigor, Reps equate high levels of immigration with job loss of native-born Americans. The 2016 Republican Convention platform’s section on immigration demands that legal immigration be cut back, “in light of the alarming levels of unemployment and underemployment in this country.”

 

Old industrial cities and recent immigration

I looked at the 2010 – 2014 population trends in the counties of these old industrial cities: Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh and Toledo. Each experienced net out-migration of native-born Americans, partially (and for Milwaukee completely) compensated by natural growth (births less deaths). All combined, they lost the equivalent of about 2% of the combined 2015 population over these four years these ways.

Foreign-born in-migration (combined, five cities) in 2010 – 2014 was equivalent to 1% of 2015 population. Thus foreign in-migration made up about half the loss from native-born exits and births/deaths, and about one third of the loss by exiting native-born exits.

What’s not shown in these summary figures is the likelihood that the exiting native-born persons were tilted towards working age (15 – 64) and that the immigrants moving in were more likely of prime working age and more engaged in the workforce. Thus, the workforce impact of these migrations was probably larger.

Summary: continued incremental shifting of the workforce toward immigrants in old industrial cities. An annual average shift from native to foreign-born workers of perhaps… .0.3 – 0.5 percent?