A weblog about the business of immigrant work: employment, compensation, legal protections, education, mobility, and public policy.
Chicago has spent, since late 2022, $460 million in its New Arrivals program, which shelters and provides other services to international migrants (here and here).
Massachusetts is spending at an annual rate of $1 billion for its shelter program (for all recipients, of which international migrants are a major share) (go here).
Assuming that the total cost of shelter (lodging, food, admin expense) is $200 a day, to shelter 10,000 persons for 30 days costs $60 million.
Per Politico: At the Milwaukee [Police Association] event, [JD Vance] cit[ed] the 2002 film [The Gangs of New York] about an Irish man who returns to New York to kill his father’s killer, the leader of a gang that believes America should belong to native-born Americans and opposes immigration.
“What happens when you have massive amounts of illegal immigration,” Vance said. “It actually starts to create ethnic conflict. It creates higher crime rates. We’ve certainly seen that over the last few years. And I would like to stop it.”
Note: The film Gangs of New York, directed by Martin Scorsese, is set in the early 1860s. Amsterdam Vallon returns to the Five Points area of New York City seeking revenge against Bill “The Butcher” Cutting, his father’s killer. The backdrop of the film includes the social and political tensions of the time, particularly the conflicts between native-born Americans and Irish immigrants, during the American Civil War.
The most plausible ethnic enclave today that Vance might compare with Irish in the 19th Century is the Hispanic community, in particular in major urban areas. Hispanics accounted for 19% of adult arrests for violent crimes in 2019, proportional to their share (18%) of the U.S. population. For specific violent crimes like homicide, Hispanics made up only 2.3% of offenders.
I’ve posted often on the farm workforce in the United States. The role of unauthorized persons in farming, particular in California’s produce farms and in dairy farms in other parts of the country, was huge decades ago, but appears to have declined relative to persons legally able to work (go here). H-2A temporary work visas designed mainly for farm workers have soared in usage, from 75,000 in 2010 to close to 400,000 today (go here). Project 2025 calls for the elimination of these visas. Here is 2022 indepth demographic profile of unauthorized farm workers.
Here is a summary of a fresh report by the Farm and Food File:
Nearly 45% of U.S. agricultural workers, or 950,000 out of 2.2 million, are unauthorized migrants. Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation plan would severely impact states like Wisconsin, where 70% of dairy farm labor is performed by over 10,000 undocumented workers. The state’s dairy industry would collapse without these workers. The National Milk Producers Federation states that immigrant labor accounts for 51% of all dairy labor, producing 79% of the U.S. milk supply. California would also be heavily affected, as approximately 75% of its farmworkers are undocumented.
The Department of Homeland Security has halted further admissions through a Biden program to let people from certain countries into the U.S. on a temporary basis. The reason for the halt has not been stated, but the Miami Herald reports it is due to concerns about fraud.
This is an intensely attractive venue for entry; the program is overwhelmed – just like the amnesty system, with its backlog of 3.4 million applications. Family and friends in the U.S are trying to push through applications. Some applicants have been waiting for well over a year. It is inevitable that many applications will have sketchy if not fraudulent elements, such as manipulation in making financial attestations and actors seeking to game the process.
The Humanitarian Parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, or CHNV parole process, was established by the Biden administration in January 2023. was modeled after the Uniting for Ukraine program, which was implemented in 2022 to assist Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion.
The program was created to reduce the number of persons coming to the Mexican border to apply for asylum. It has been credited with reducing these numbers. But, like a balloon pressed down in one part, another part will expand.
The program allows up to 30,000 individuals per month from these four countries to enter the U.S. for a period of up to two years, provided they have a U.S.-based supporter who agrees to financially support them during their stay. About 500,000 people from these four countries had flown to the United States through the end of June: over 100,000 Cubans, roughly 200,000 Haitians, more than 90,000 Nicaraguans, and more than 110,000 Venezuelans.
DHS considers an average of only 1,000 applications a day. CHNV parole applications must be filed online. This has created a backlog 2.6 million records. (Many of these may be duplicates due to USCIS’s rules that can delete an application prematurely, which incents people to multiple file.)
Comment: This program is shifting a big part of the border crisis into a bureaucratic backroom that does not produce photos of persons crossing the border.
For the Miami Herald article, go here. For an aggressive allegation of major fraud go here. for another perspective, go here.
In “Seventy Miles in the Darien Gap,” an Atlantic article to be published in the September edition, Caitlin Dickerson describes the perilous journey of migrants through the Darién Gap, the dense jungle connecting Colombia and Panama. She had received a Pulitzer for an article about Trump’s child separation policy. Here are some excerpts from her new article:
“More than 600 people were in the crowd that plunged into the jungle that morning, beginning a roughly 70-mile journey from northern Colombia into southern Panama. That made it a slow day by local standards. They came from Haiti, Ethiopia, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Venezuela.”
“According to the United Nations, more than 800,000 may cross the Darién Gap this year—a more than 50 percent increase over last year’s previously unimaginable number. Children under 5 are the fastest-growing group. The U.S. has spent years trying to discourage this migration, pressuring its Latin American neighbors to close off established routes and deny visas to foreigners trying to fly into countries close to the U.S. border. Instead of stopping migrants from coming, this approach has simply rerouted them through the jungle.
“Crossing the jungle can take three days or 10, depending on the weather, the weight of your bags, and pure chance. A minor injury can be catastrophic for even the fittest people.
“In the three trips I took to the Darién Gap over the course of five months, I saw new bridges and paved roads appear deeper in the jungle, Wi‑Fi hotspots extend their reach, and landmarks that were previously known only by word of mouth appear on Google Maps.“Once we entered Panama, we faced new threats: robbery and sexual assault. Most of these attacks happen at the hands of Indigenous Panamanians. For years their villages were routinely ransacked by narco traffickers and paramilitary groups. Some Indigenous Panamanians took up arms in self-defense, or got involved in trafficking themselves. The government did little to protect them then and does little to stop them now.
“In June, the Panamanians installed a razor-wire fence across the border at the same spot where we had crossed. When I asked one of our Colombian guides what the cartel was going to do next, he replied, “Make another route.” Before the week’s end, someone had cut a hole in the fence, and migrants were streaming through.
“Beyond the Darién Gap, migrants and their smugglers continue to find ways around the roadblocks set before them. Recently, hundreds of thousands of migrants have flown into Nicaragua, for example, which has bucked U.S. pressure to restrict visas.
“Mari Carmen Aponte, the U.S. ambassador to Panama, and other State Department officials I interviewed said the American government was trying to balance deterrence with programs to keep migrants safe. They pointed to offices that the United States is opening throughout Latin America to interview people seeking refugee status. The U.S. hopes to approve as many as 50,000 this year to fly directly into the country, far more than in the past.
“Key to these screenings, the officials told me, will be distinguishing between true refugees and economic migrants. But most people migrate for overlapping reasons, rather than just one. Many of the migrants I met in the Darién Gap knew which types of cases prevail in American immigration courts and which do not. They were prepared to emphasize whichever aspect of their story would be most likely to get their children to safety.
“After passing through Central America, those who could afford it took express buses to Mexico City. The rest slept in shelters and on the streets. One of the poorest families was kidnapped in southern Mexico. They sent desperate messages to the group, begging for money. Most said they had nothing to spare.
“In Mexico City, Elimar applied for an interview with American immigration officials using U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s app CBP One, which was created to streamline arrivals at the border. But she lost patience after a month and found someone to shuttle her and the kids across the border illegally. They turned themselves over to immigration authorities and were given a court date in 2029. That long a wait is not unheard-of. They now live in an apartment complex on the outskirts of Dallas, where her children are enrolled in public school. Elimar cleans offices and her boyfriend works as a cook at a chain restaurant.”
I’ve posted several times about foreign-born entry trends in the Biden administration. It’s complicated because of Biden’s aggressive use of temporary visas. I estimated in May that the total increase of foreign-born under Biden was five million. This level might be composed of a net increase by green cards of 2.5 million, two million asylum applicants, and the parole and TPS persons. (This adds to more than five million.)
Here in Pew Research’s latest take as of July 22:
Pending asylum claims: they stood at 2.1 million in Sept 2021. On June 2024, they were 3.2 million. During the Trump years, the backlog grew by about 700,000; under Biden to date,1.9 million.
Parole: through December 2023, about 500,000 new immigrants were paroled into the country through two federal programs – the Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan (CHNV) program and Uniting for Ukraine (U4U). Groups like these have traditionally been considered part of the unauthorized immigrant population, but almost none of them appear in the 2022 estimates.
Popularly defined as unauthorized: These are people who crossed illegally or were overstays. In 2008, they totaled about 12.2 million. Since 2007, the Mexican component of this population dropped by nearly 3 million, from 6.9 million to 4 million. It is not clear at all if this population has recovered from this decline by other nationalities.
Pew’s figures infer, but to do state explicitly, that what we can call irregular persons has shifted significantly to those given temporary authorization to live in the U.S. They include asylum applicants, Parolees, Temporary Protected Status ( roughly 600,000 increase under Biden), and DACA (basically no change under Biden.
From the United Nations Refugee Agency (the UN Commissioer for Refugees, or UNHCR):
“Resettlement is a process that enables refugees to relocate to another country with a legal status ensuring international protection and ultimately permanent residence. Through the Projected Global Resettlement Needs, UNHCR estimates the number of refugees who require resettlement in the following year, provides an overview of the humanitarian and protection contexts that lead to those needs and describes how resettlement is linked to regional protection and solutions strategies.”
Syrians continue to be the largest refugee population in need of resettlement, with close to 933,000 refugees, followed by refugees from Afghanistan (558,000), South Sudan (242,000), Myanmar (226,000), Sudan (172,000) and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (158,000).
U.S.refugee admissions since 2014:
There are about 36 million refugees living outside their country today. The countries hosting the largest numbers are Iran (3.4 million), Turkey (3.4 million), Germany (2.5 million) and Colombia (2.5 million). The UNHCR asks that about 1.8 million be resettled in the next twelve months.
India is overcoming China in working age (16-64) population. The rich country community is flat. China and advanced countries can increase workers only by immigration.
China’s secret population and fertility figures: Yi Fuxian wrote in Project Syndicate, “Even though everyone knows that China’s official demographic figures are systematically overestimated, the authorities have consistently cracked down on anyone who questions the data.” She estimates the India overtook China in total population in 2014, and China’s population began to decline in 2018. China did not replace its one-child policy with a selective two-child policy until 2014, before enacting a universal two-child policy in 2016.
Here is more information: China’s total fertility rate (births per woman) was 2.6 in the late 1980s – well above the 2.1 needed to replace deaths. It has been between 1.6 and 1.7 since 1994, and slipped to 1.3 in 2020 and just 1.15 in 2021. (Go here.)
Below is a graph showing the working age population ages 16-64, from 2000 through 2021. for China, India, U.S. and all high income countries. India’s working ago population has surged, China’s has not, and all high income countries’ has remained close to flat.
Here is a graph of the total world population 15 – 64, with the combined US / Euro working age population and the combined India /China working age population (from here.)
And, here is the demographic crisis in Japan and Korea.India’s fertility rate has moved to below replacement.
By the way, the Congressional Budget Office estimates growth of the U.S. population entirely due to immigration.
One thing thise shows is that of artifical intelligence empowers educated working age people to increase their productivity, the demand for these people living in India in particular will surge, as more workers with skills will be able to enter the job market.
Also go here,
Over half a million Americans are homeless on any given night, with many relying on emergency shelters and temporary housing solutions. The arrival in the U.S. of more than a million migrants with asylum applications, almost of them with very limited financiual means, and many without family ties in the U.S., has exacerbated a pre-existing housing crisis.
Deporting migrants from Texas
Governor Abbott brought the border crisis to major cities, and others such as Boston have been impacted as well. (The NY Times and Boston Globe have been covering this phenomenon.)
The migrant affected are most likely all legally in the U.S. with applications for asylum. The backlog of asylum cases in the immigration court system rose from 1.4 million in Sept 2021 to 3.4 million today. Texas’ practices significantly contributed to the spreading of applicants throughout the country. But many more applicants spread across the country on their own than Texas deported. I have seen no report that credibly estimates the entire flow of ayslees.
In the past two years, Texas has transported over 119,000 migrants to Democrat-led cities, significantly impacting migration patterns and immigration debates in the U.S. This initiative began in September 2021 when over 9,000 migrants crossed into Del Rio, Texas, overwhelming local resources. By April 2022, Texas started busing migrants to cities like Washington, D.C., New York, and Chicago.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott continued offering free bus rides to migrants, aiming to alleviate pressure on Texas border towns and highlight the challenges of large-scale unauthorized immigration. The program paused briefly in early 2023 but resumed and expanded, targeting cities supportive of the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
The influx of migrants strained resources in destination cities, leading to overcrowded shelters and hotels. New York, for instance, spent over $5.1 billion handling the surge, with projections reaching $10 billion by mid-2025. Denver, another major recipient, saw significant impacts, with many migrants moving on to other states due to limited local resources.
Abbott’s program has forced cities to adapt, often with limited coordination from Texas, leading to chaotic arrivals and strained local services. The influx of migrations exacerbated a pre-existing housing crisis, putting severe pressure on temporary shelter programs.
Massachusetts:
On August 7, 2023, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey announced an emergency declaration as more than 5,600 families with children are living in state-funded shelters, 80 % higher than one year ago. The declaration asked the federal government for funding and to authorize work permits for new migrant arrivals.
In mid-December 2023, Governor Healey’s administration reported roughly 3,500 migrants in the state’s emergency shelter system.
On July 24, 2024 Governor Healey announced changes to the state’s emergency housing system that prioritizes needy Massachusetts families over migrants for longer-term placements. As of Aug. 1, stays in so-called overflow shelters will be limited to just five days, and would require people to wait at least six months before they could qualify for placement at a longer-term facility.
As of today, Massachusetts is currently housing around 23,000 people, including 7,499 families. The state has also capped its family shelter system at 7,500 families.
The term “multicultural” gained widespread use in the late 20th Century, to be replaced by “diversity.”
The terms are closely associated with (1) increases in foreign-born populations in the U.S. (2) assertive Black culture expression, (3) gender diversity and (3) trends in reaction to / adaption of these phenomena.
In 1965, the year in which the historic The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (the Hart-Celler Act), 5% of the population was foreign born. Today, 14% is foreign born and (due to age composition) 20% of all babies have foreign born mothers. in 1965, about 85% of the population was non-Hispanic white compared to 59% in 2020, and is expected to be 47% in 2050.
1970s: With new waves of immigration from Latin America, Asia, and the Caribbean, debates around multiculturalism shifted towards language rights and acknowledgment of diverse cultural histories in education.
1980s-1990s: This period saw a sharp rise in discussions about multiculturalism. In popular culture were Spike Lee movies. In academic circles, Samuel P. Huntington wrote his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order” in 1996. Arthur Schlesinger’s “The Disuniting of America” (1991) and Nathan Glazer’s “We Are All Multiculturalists Now” (1997) brought the concept to wider public attention. Pat Buchanan stated perhaps the most nationally recognized critique of cultural diversity via immigration.
Late 1990s-early 2000s: The debate intensified during the “culture wars.” The focus shifted more towards specific issues like immigration policy and affirmative action. The foreign-born population rose from 8% in 1990 and 14% in 2010. Many inland and otherwise non-traditional destinations for foreign-born persons began to see a sharp increase in foreign-born persons.
2010s-present: The term “multicultural” has become less prominent in public discourse, partly replaced by concepts like “diversity” and “inclusion,” particularly with respect to sexual practices and identity. Modern Family (2009-2020) Will & Grace (1998-2006, 2017-2020) were popular TV shows highlighting gay and gender diversity. Lawrence v. Texas (2003), United States v. Windsor (2013) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) were key Supreme Court decisions. JD Vance has stated positions hostile to these decisions and similar administration actions.