Immigrant integration affects a large segment of the U.S. population. Today, one in nine U.S. residents is an immigrant. One in five children in the United States is the child of an immigrant. One in four poor children in the United States is the child of an immigrant. And one in four low-wage workers in the United States is foreign-born. New York City and Los Angeles are home to anywhere from 25 to 30 percent of the immigrant population in the United States. As such, these two cities provide a broad window on immigrant integration, a process that is increasingly a challenge to other U.S. cities as the immigrant population disburses away from its traditional settlement centers.
May's First Tuesday forum explored some of the key challenges facing immigrants in these two gateway cities, based on findings from a major multiyear household survey of immigrants in New York City and Los Angeles. Issues discussed included indicators of hardship such as food insecurity, poverty, and limited English proficiency. Panelists also addressed immigration policy developments in New York City, particularly those initiated after September 11th, and placed the survey in the context of the national policy debate over immigrants and their integration.
The forum was moderated by Michael Fix, a principal research associate in the Urban Institute's Population Studies Center and director of the Institute's Immigration Studies Program. Panelists were Leighton Ku, a senior fellow in Health Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Randy Capps, a research associate in the Urban Institute's Population Studies Center; Margie McHugh, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition; and Roberto Suro, executive director of the Pew Hispanic Center.
Panel Highlights | Questions from the Audience | Full Transcript
Selected Resources
Panel Highlights
Michael Fix, Urban Institute (moderator)
...[T]he results that we're going to be discussing here today include findings that I think are highly pertinent to th[e] welfare reform debate. The report brings home, I think, the fact that despite their strong attachment to the workforce many immigrants remain poor, and this suggests to me concerns about their welfare dependence, concerns that are very much still in the thick of the rhetoric about the restoration debate...
But the report, and the survey on which it's based, go beyond issues raised by welfare reform, and I think they give us a broader window on immigrant integration in the two cities, New York and Los Angeles, that together comprise... anywhere from 25 to 30 percent of the immigrant population in the United States. I would in particular note the number and share of working age immigrants who do not speak English, the tight linkage that we found between limited English language ability and poverty, food insecurity, and economic mobility, and I would also suggest how important I think the results are for having us begin to think systematically about what a national language policy might be, and how it might be funded.
Leighton Ku, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Let's start out with sort of the basic economic information that we have about immigrants in the U.S., and that is that immigrants tend to have high employment rates, high labor force participation, yet nonetheless are poor. In New York and Los Angeles, we found that about 30 percent of the immigrant families were below the poverty line. That is roughly double the rate that exists for native citizen families. This is so despite high labor force attachment... What happens is that immigrants tend to often have low-wage jobs, low-quality jobs, in many cases because they have some limited skills, they have English language difficulties.
One of the things that we also learned in the survey, however, is that immigrant status can improve over time... What we found was, for example, in New York City, when we look at immigrants who came in before 1996, 29 percent of the legal immigrants were below the poverty line. But when you look at the recent immigrants, those who came past 1996, 40 percent were below the poverty line.
Randy Capps, Urban Institute
...[O]ne of the primary indicators of hardship in the survey is food insecurity. ...[W]e find in our survey that a third of immigrant families in Los Angeles and New York were food insecure at the time of the survey. This is compared to only about 11 to 12 percent of the general population of these two cities according to the current population survey in the same year. So, in other words, we find that immigrant families are nearly three times as likely to be food insecure as the overall population. ... We... find that non-citizen families, those with legal immigrant and refugee and undocumented adults, are more likely to be food insecure than the families where the adults are citizens, where the adults have naturalized and become citizens that is.
But the area where we see the most difference, where we see the strongest impact on food insecurity rates, is when we look at how well the adults in the family speak English. ... [W]e find 3 million immigrant adults in these two cities do not speak English very well, 2 million adults in Los Angeles, and 1 million in New York. That represents three-quarters of all immigrant adults in Los Angeles, and two-thirds of all immigrant adults in New York. We also find, as Michael mentioned, that immigrants in families where the adults don't speak English very well are poorer, and more likely to be food insecure. In fact, in Los Angeles the food insecurity rates among families with limited English proficient adults is nearly double the rate for families where all the adults speak English very well, about 40 versus about 20 percent. Similarly, in New York City we find much higher rates of food insecurity in those families where the adults do not speak English very well, as compared to families with more proficient adults. Poverty rates are also about twice as high, in fact, more than twice as high in both cities for limited English proficient adults than for proficient adults.
Margie McHugh, New York Immigration Coalition
What we're seeing in New York, and this is more geared towards why are the uptake levels so low, why are immigrants not accessing these programs even when they are eligible. ... One of our biggest problems is poor training of government workers who are ... the gate keepers for these programs. But, first of all, there is just the flat out lack of eligibility. We have about 100,000 people a year entering New York since the laws were passed. We've had some recent victories in lawsuits and the like that are making certain categories of people eligible, but it's a very complicated patchwork about who is subject to the various bars.
Even when immigrants are eligible, they face a variety of other barriers, the first and most obvious one is language barriers, another is the poor training of workers, the intimidation of people in mixed-status families, ... and then sponsor liability questions.
Roberto Suro, Pew Hispanic Center
Welfare reform was designed to deal with what was then termed a culture of dependency. What this study shows us is that there is a culture of working poverty in this country, which has very different parameters, very different characteristics than the one that colored the welfare reform debate. The issue now is, what is government's responsibility, what is society's responsibility to people who work hard for low wages? What level of hunger do you accept at full employment? What level of medical care is the bottom of the safety net for people who are fully employed? The baseline question really is, what wage do you pay people in order for them not to be in poverty? The second question, the one that certainly prevails in this reform is, where is the safety net? Where is the level below which you will not allow people to sink when they're fully employed?
Clearly, now in dealing with the immigrant population, you have to think of work as a condition that includes poverty, that encompasses poverty, that work and poverty, rather than being opposites, actually can be two conditions that prevail at the same time for a large and growing part of our population. Before, the notion was that immigrants might be drawn here by welfare. Now, clearly immigrants are drawn here by low-wage work, by poverty work. Before the notion was that work was a solution to welfare. Clearly in this re-authorization, working isn't a solution to poverty for the immigrant population. And what we need is a welfare reform debate that addresses the question of what the safety net is for people who are fully employed.
Questions from the Audience
Phil Dearborn, Brookings Institution
In some areas we've looked at we've seen reduced and free school lunches going up very sharply, while food stamps were going down quite sharply. I'm wondering, and it seems like immigrants may be taking advantage of the school lunch but not food stamps, I'm wondering if this survey asked any questions about the utilization of school lunch programs?
Randy Capps, Urban Institute
We did, but I must admit, I don't recall the answers to that. ... But, let me just mention that immigrants remain eligible for school lunches, and for some other programs, whereas they're not for food stamps, so I mean, they were still eligible for some of those things.
Margie McHugh, New York Immigration Coalition
Can I also say that the application process is totally different. For the school lunch you do it at the school, you have assistance from people who are working at the school, whereas with food stamps you have to go to welfare offices, and so you're encountering such a different system—it's really not a surprise.
Mark Tajima, Los Angeles County
I have a couple of comments on your survey. I think possibly on your survey there may have been a fear that may have caused some of your people you interviewed to under report use of public assistance, because in past cases when we've looked at CPS data in the county compared to administrative data there seemed to be less reporting of receipt of aid than, in fact, there was. And in California, like one of the gentlemen commented, the state has provided the state-only food stamps, they still get the food stamp equivalent. The state has used the flexibility in their TANF, using state MOE [maintenance of effort] dollars to provide TANF-like benefits within the first five years.
And personally we think that's better for the immigrants, because the clock doesn't start against them, you have more flexibility in terms of providing ESL [English as a Second Language] ... And under TANF the two-parent work participation rate was 90 percent, and immigrants are disproportionately two parents, so the state had an interest in aiding them under the two-parent family. And third, the state provides state-only Medicaid non-emergency care within the first five years. And I think the bigger factors that we noticed is more the fear in terms of the immigration benefits... not that's enforceable, but a perception that they could potentially collect from the sponsors.
Many immigrants were trying to naturalize during that time period. And there were fears partly because INS suggested wrongly that receipt of public assistance could affect naturalization benefits, plus public charge would have affected their ability to allow more people coming in. And in terms of language, I think language is a big barrier to work, but prior to welfare reform, refugees and many of these immigrants were just as non-English speaking, but they had a much higher utilization rate. So I would tend not to think that the newer immigrants have lower capabilities, but there's been a lot of fears within the county.
We had some sense of this drop off, and we've done some outreach, mainly since the time of the survey, and more people are going onto aid than before, and the utilization rate has crept. But, it's a little more complex. I know you have to simplify, you can't go into the complexity where immigrants aren't a monolithic group, if you look at ethnic groups they vary. But, I think there are certain other considerations, and the one unique thing about California is they were providing many of these benefits on a state-only basis during that same time period. So it wasn't like they weren't eligible for the benefits like in some other parts of the country.
Thank you.
Randy Capps, Urban Institute
I think one of the points that really interests me about California in particular, because of the level of benefits that the state has offered, that's as good or better than any other state basically, is that you still have the rolls declining and the participation rates declining even in California. And sort of an open question that I don't think our survey really answers all that well, and I wish there were some data that did, or some way to answer it, is how much damage was done. Like you mentioned, when the INS said some things about people either being reported or not being able to naturalize if they received benefits, how much damage was done in the situations that Margie McHugh mentioned early on in New York City, when there was this diversion that seemed to have affected immigrants more than other people, or limited English speakers more.
...[T]his is where I think outreach is important, because it's overcoming some of the perceptions, and some of the maybe even missteps that some agencies took early on. The situation on the ground may be very different now, but immigrants have every reason to say, why should we believe you, you changed the law, and then you changed it back again, and then you changed your policy about reporting, and now you say you're not going to report any more. How do we know that tomorrow you're not going to report us, and then we're stuck. So, to me, that's a really important question, and I think there's a need for further research in that area.
Susan Sheets, Food Stamps Program
I just want to make a correction, because I've heard a lot of talk today about participation rates going down. I just want to let you know that in the last two years participation in the Food Stamp program has gone from around 16 million to 19 million.
Randy Capps, Urban Institute
And I should say in response to that, that the figures I mentioned earlier on ended in 1999, so it's within the last—actually since 2000 that those rates have gone up. In our survey there's no doubt that a large share of the decline in food stamp use among the immigrant households was due to the improved economy. I mean, it's important not to underestimate that, and it's likely that if we did the survey now we'd see higher food stamp use, because of the decline in the economy. So point taken.
Leighton Ku, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
And also, the participation rates you were talking about were for immigrants, whereas the 16 to 19 that you're talking about is for the general food stamp caseload, of which immigrants are a small share, that became smaller.
Bert Seidman, Alliance for Retired Americans
The question I have is this, the people, for example, who devised the TANF program had a stereotype of the target population, and that was that it was predominantly African American, single families with unmarried mothers, et cetera, et cetera. A previous speaker said, for example, that the immigrant population is above average in families with two parents. And my question is whether the whole approach to the programs that you're talking about isn't very much colored by a complete misunderstanding of the people who need the help.
Michael Fix, Urban Institute
Let me just say that I don't know if it's a complete misunderstanding, but I would also say that the stereotypes may be persistent. For example, if you have anti-poverty policy, which the current one seems to be going in this direction, the goal of which is to promote family stability, and to promote marriage, and you look at poor immigrant families, poor immigrant families are much more likely to be two-parent families than are native families. Moreover, if you look at immigrant two-parent families they are twice as likely to be poor as native two-parent families. Forty-four percent of immigrant two-parent families are poor. So a policy that promotes marriage and stability is going to be a mismatch against that population, that's not the anti-poverty population that's required. So in some ways the war-on-poverty programs have always been an uneasy fit against a new demographic population.
Mark Nord, Economic Research Service, USDA
One of the most striking findings has to do with the limited English proficiency. And I haven't seen the full report, I've only looked at your summary. But, to what extent did you sort that effect out from the correlated time in country, particularly, and some other factors that would be associated with limited English proficiency? How sure are we that it's really the limited English proficiency?
Randy Capps, Urban Institute
I can answer that fairly directly, we did do some modeling where we looked at the effect of how long adults were in the country, the adults' legal status, family composition, one or two parents, and the English proficiency of the adults and the family together, and found that the English proficiency and the family composition were the strongest factors. Really, if you look at those factors side by side, the effect of the immigration status completely washes out, and so does the amount of time that they've been in the U.S. And it's the English proficiency that's really one of the strongest determining factors.
Carmen Delgado Votaw, Alliance for Children and Families
Who should have oversight over the TANF and other poverty-related legislation? I think the situation that Margie talked about, the diversionary tactics in New York, are unconscionable. And why did that need to go to the courts in order to be resolved? Who should be the watchdog, the oversight, over this type of legislation?
Michael Fix, Urban Institute
I don't know the exact institutional response to that, but the most striking thing about this debate of the TANF reauthorization now, as opposed to when TANF was initially passed in 1996, is the fact that there was almost so little attention paid to immigrants and non-citizens when the law was passed in 1996, they were so far to the periphery, and now during this reauthorization they have moved, as a result of the work not just of immigrant advocacy groups, but mainstream advocacy groups and research, much more to the center of the agenda.
One of the things that we think about is whether we have an office for the resettlement of refugees in the United States. Do we need an office for the resettlement of refugees and immigrants in the United States that could serve as an agency, as a federal, if you will, ombudsman for immigrant populations as legislation proceeds to the Congress.
Leighton Ku, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
In a way, your point is essentially, shouldn't we have some strong authorities who are clearly in charge that can make sure that things like this don't happen. And the sad truth is, what's been in progress for a long time is a process of devolution, and welfare reform is certainly a big step of devolution away from the federal government towards states, towards disbursed authority that, on one hand, means that local governments have more ability to try new innovations. On the other hand, it means that sometimes some of the innovations they undertake we think, gee, that's not such a good idea, and that creates a tension, which is why it ends up in court, which is why it ultimately is useful that there are multiple advocacy organizations that will say, gee, we don't like this and we think that you are violating the law, and we should bring you to court. So there are some checks and balances in what is a system that's moved away from central authority.
Randy Capps, Urban Institute
And I would just like to add that there is a debate going on right now about access for people who don't speak English about requirements for interpretation and translation of services, and there are some regulations that were issued at the end of the Clinton administration that are currently under review that would hold social service agencies responsible for providing adequate interpretation and translation. And the outcome of that set of regulations at this point, you know, isn't clear.
Margie McHugh, New York Immigration Coalition
I hate to be negative, but if I could add to that that while we have that ruling, and that there's a basis in civil rights law for attempting to provide translation and interpretation services, which is what the executive order was built on, we've actually had to go to court in New York because we had a finding in the Office of Civil Rights [OCR] within HHS that there was discriminatory treatment of people who were limited English proficient who were attempting to access food stamps in New York. Actually, we've had that, and then a more general complaint about Medicaid and TANF. And even though we have the finding from OCR, we have not in, I think, 23 months, been able to get the state or the city to sign an agreement or a memorandum to settle the dispute. So I think that we're being forced into the regular courts because the federal authority through OCR is so weak.
Duncan Chaplin, Urban Institute
I just wanted to ask if you'd had a chance to look at the Earned Income Tax Credit [EITC] use, and sort of the way I was thinking about that is to help people that are concerned if we revamp TANF there will be the work disincentive effects, well, if the EITC can help offset that, and I'm just wondering is it being used at all?
Michael Fix, Urban Institute
I don't think we asked about EITC use in the survey that I recall. Certainly, we haven't analyzed those data. I'll comment, I mean, sort of on an anecdotal basis there is information that many immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants, though they have payroll deductions for their taxes, et cetera, but because of various fears that they have, actually never file their tax returns. So, in fact, never get things like EITC for which they are potentially eligible, or for just regular tax refunds.
Leighton Ku, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
There was a brief done with the National Survey of America's Families [NSAF] that looked at knowledge of and use of the EITC and broke it down by immigration status and found lower general knowledge and lower use by people who knew about it. So that is an issue that can be researched again in the next round of the NSAF as well.
Steve Albright, Children and Youth Funding Report
There were some benefits, public benefits, that were reestablished for immigrants after 1996. I was just wondering if you could tell me what those were, because I've forgotten. Also, do legal immigrants have access to childcare funds, like the CCDBG [Child Care and Development Block Grant] money?
Michael Fix, Urban Institute
I'll give you the first half. Legal immigrants who were here before 1996, which is a very bright line in immigrant law and policy, had their eligibility for supplemental security income in 1997, and legal immigrant children and the disabled and the elderly who were here before 1996 had their eligibility for food stamps restored. But none of the restorations penetrated the immigrants who came after 1996 line.
In terms of childcare, certainly immigrants who come after 1996 are not eligible for TANF, so to some extent to the degree that childcare flows from TANF eligibility, they're ineligible through that mechanism. Immigrants who were here before 1996 are eligible for TANF at the state level, and so in theory at least they're eligible for childcare.
Leighton Ku, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Let me just add on to what Michael was saying, one of the things that's so important and good about the Farm Bill, which is almost concluded, is that hopefully this will be important by restoring eligibility for food stamps to children arriving past 1996, will be the first time that Congress has recognized some of the problems and seen fit to actually restore eligibility to a post-1996 group. And, again, personally, I hope that they will broaden that vision to include some of the other benefit programs as well.
Michael Fix, Urban Institute
And this obviously is a population of some significant size. We estimate that the post-'96 immigrant population is about two-and-a-half to three million people, and we estimate that the legal component of that grows by five or six hundred to seven hundred thousand a year. So, as time progresses, this bar becomes more and more significant, and has a broader and broader impact on social welfare systems.
David Nielsen, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
I would just like to clarify, though, that legal immigrants are eligible for the CCDF [Child Care and Development Fund]. So even though there is the interaction with the TANF funding, that particular funding stream doesn't have the restrictions on legal immigrants.
Randy Capps, Urban Institute
And things like Headstart and such, too.
Renee Brierton, Catholic Campaign for Human Development
What will happen, though, in terms of states that have, perhaps, a progressive policy [given] the financial state that most states are in?
Robert Suro, Pew Hispanic Center
Well, it depends. In many cases, as was noted in California, states are already using their state funds to provide these services as a replacement. To the extent that federal eligibility is restored, it actually makes things easier in those states. It helps those states out by getting federal matching funds. And that's part of the reason that groups like the National Governor's Association, National Conference of State Legislatures, have tended to be supportive of these things.
Typically, food stamps is a federalized program, 100 percent federally funded. TANF and Medicaid are joint state-federal programs, in which if things come back they are likely to be restored as options in which if a state does not want to cover immigrants, it is not required to. On the other hand, for the numerous states that already do so, it's to their very substantial financial gain to have eligibility restored.
Margie McHugh, New York Immigration Coalition
If I might add, in New York, we have a proposal before the state right now to try and get facilitated enrollers who are currently enrolling children in Child Health Plus, or families in a slightly broader program that we have, to actually enroll people in food stamps as well for exactly the reasons that you're getting at here. I think we only have 27 percent of eligible families in New York City accessing food stamps, and so the thought is that since we've got a $5 billion budget gap and we're about to just slash so many important social supports, that one of the things we could do is have better access to federal food stamp money, get that 27 percent usage rate up by funding in a strategic way facilitated enrollment. If people are already coming in through this facilitated enrollment system for Child Health Plus, and it's been very successful, just sort of layer on to that the food stamp application.
Robert Ramirez, U.S. Census Bureau
How is immigration status ascertained among the respondents?
Leighton Ku, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
We had a series of questions, it's all self-reported. And if you want at some point we can show you the battery of questions, but it's a battery of questions that goes through asking how were you admitted to the U.S., when did you arrive to the U.S., are you a citizen, do you have pending citizenship, so on, and so on, and so on. And then, finally, if essentially-speaking you didn't check any of the above, but you report that you were foreign-born, then we impute that you are undocumented. Then after that whole process, we went through and sort of on a case-by-case basis sorted things through, and tried to see, geez, does this make sense. So, every now and then you would find things which say, gee, I've been here on a tourist visa for the past ten years. We would figure, well, you're probably undocumented then, you are not a tourist anymore.
Robert Ramirez, U.S. Census Bureau
That would lead to my second question. Of the undocumented that you estimated in the survey, do you have a percentage of those undocumented that were visa overstayers, for example?
Leighton Ku, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
I guess we could probably figure that out, but I don't think we did. Jeff, do you have—is Jeff Passel still here someplace? What's the general impression that you have from other statistics?
Jeff Passel, Urban Institute
To the extent that, first of all, to the extent that anybody has done this by actually looking at the overstayers, it's been about eight or nine years now, and the general result is that almost everybody from places other than Mexico and Central America and Canada are visa overstayers, and almost all of the Mexicans are illegal entrants, and came without visas. For Central America and Canada, the situation is a little bit mixed.
My own assessment overall based on this survey is that somewhere between probably 25 and 35 percent of undocumented population, maybe a little higher, are visa overstayers as opposed to people who snuck in across the border. But the LA group, of course, has a lot of Mexicans in it, and the New York group has very few Mexicans. So it's going to vary from place to place.
Selected Resources
How Are Immigrants Faring After Welfare Reform? (Research Paper)
Author(s): Randolph Capps, Leighton Ku, Michael E. Fix, Chris Furgiuele, Jeffrey S. Passel, Rajeev Ramchand, Scott McNiven, Dan Perez-Lopez
This report provides findings from a 1999-2000 survey of 3400 immigrant families in Los Angeles County and New York City, two cities that account for roughly a quarter of the nation's immigrant population. The survey was conducted in five languages and probed the respondents' legal status (naturalized citizen, legal permanent resident, refugee, undocumented immigrant, etc.). The report measures housing affordability, food insecurity and hunger among immigrant populations. Health insurance coverage, health care access and self-reported health status are also highlighted. The study uses these measures to assess the need for food stamps, Medicaid and other benefits and services and differing immigrant subpopulations.
Published: March 04, 2002
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Limited English Proficient Students and High-Stakes Accountability Systems (Research Report)
Author(s): Jorge Ruiz-de-Velasco, Michael E. Fix
In 1994 Congress required all states to implement comprehensive accountability systems for schools receiving federal funds under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). This new federal requirement responded to civil rights advocates' concerns that schools serving large numbers of poor, minority, and limited English proficient (LEP) students set lower standards for their education and thus ratified lower expectations for their performance.
Published: April 16, 2002
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Scope and Impact of Welfare Reform's Immigrant Provisions, The (Discussion Paper)
Author(s): Michael E. Fix, Jeffrey S. Passel
Between 1994 and 1999, there were substantial declines in legal immigrant families' use of all major benefit programs: TANF (-60 percent), food stamps (-48 percent), SSI (-32 percent), and Medicaid (-15 percent). Low-income legal immigrant families with children had lower rates of usage for TANF and food stamps than low-income citizen families with children, but the rate of Medicaid enrollment did not differ. These results may reflect the effects of welfare reform on immigrant families and the success of policies intended to broaden health insurance coverage among children. Increased naturalizations or rising incomes within immigrant families did not account for the declining benefit use occurring between 1994 and 1999. Relying on 1995-2000 Current Population survey (CPS) data, this analysis distinguishes between legal immigrants, refugees, naturalized citizens and undocumented immigrants. It focuses on families with children whose incomes are below 200 percent of poverty.
Published: January 15, 2002
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Immigration Policy in the Wake of September 11th (First Tuesday)
Author(s): The Urban Institute
The terrorist attacks of September 11th moved immigration to the forefront of American policy debate. Our December First Tuesday panel discussed the current proposals for immigration reform, including a reorganization of the INS, increased vigilance at U.S. borders, expanded enforcement and detention activities, limitations on judicial review, and upgraded sharing of information among federal, state and local authorities.
Published: January 15, 2002
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The Integration of Immigrant Families in the United States (Research Paper)
Author(s): Michael E. Fix, Wendy Zimmermann, Jeffrey S. Passel
What do we know about the integration of immigrant families within the United States—the progress these families are making and their reception in the communities where they settle? How are immigrants affected by the nation's integration policies or lack thereof? What directions might immigrant integration and the policies governing it take in the future? This paper examines these and other pertinent immigration questions.
Published: July 01, 2001
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Are Immigrants Leaving California? (Research Paper)
Author(s): Jeffrey S. Passel, Wendy Zimmermann
In this paper, we use data from U.S. decennial censuses and March Supplements to the Current Population Surveys (CPS) of 1995-1999 to examine the historic patterns of immigrant settlement within the United States, recent shifts in these patterns, and the extent to which changes are due to international versus internal migration, focusing particularly on California. We examine the characteristics of internal migrants, comparing those moving out, those moving in, and those staying put. We also revisit briefly the so-called "welfare magnet" theory to see if immigrants are drawn to states with the strongest safety nets for immigrants.
Published: April 01, 2001
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Hardship Among Children of Immigrants: Findings From the 1999 National Survey of American Families (Report)
Author(s): Randolph Capps
The report documents substantial poverty and hardship among immigrant children in the post-welfare reform era. In 1999, nearly one-quarter of all children of immigrants lived in families that were poor compared with 16 percent of children of natives. Children of immigrants were more likely to live in families experiencing food hardship; more than twice as likely to live in families that pay more than half of their income on housing; more than four times as likely as children of natives to live in crowded housing; and more than twice as likely to be uninsured than children of natives. The brief shows great variation among CA, CO, FL, MA, NJ, NY, TX, and WA, home to 71 percent of all children of immigrants. These findings are all the more striking since 78 percent of the children of immigrants are U.S. citizens.
Published: February 01, 2001
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Full Transcript of the Session
