“Immigrant” or “Refugee?”
Numbers of Immigrants
Estimates of the numbers
of immigrants in the United States range from 28.4 to 31.1 million,
based on varying interpretations
of census data
collected in the year 2000. (The
total U.S. population in 2000 was 281 million.)
Photo
from: Echando Raices/
Taking Root
Iowa immigrants relax at
a soccer
game.
Immigration has been
growing rapidly in recent decades; an analysis by the Urban Institute
estimates that immigrants
have almost
doubled their share of the U.S. population since 1970.
In the year 2000, again according to the Urban Institute,
36 percent of immigrants (11 million people) were legally documented,
32 percent
(9.9 million) were naturalized citizens, 28 percent (8.5 million)
were undocumented, and 4 percent (1.3 million) were “legal nonimmigrants” (such
as students or temporary workers).
Immigration in Global Perspective
As of 2001, estimates of the worldwide number
of migrants ranged from 150 to 250 million. The worldwide number of refugees
was
estimated
at 35 million in the year 2000 by the U.S. Committee for Refugees
(USCR), including more than 14.5 million international refugees
and 21 million internally displaced people. The United States admitted
a cumulative total of some 460,000 refugees between 1987 and 2000,
or about 70,000–80,000 people a year — a very small
portion of the total.
Countries
of Origin
As of 2000, more than half of the foreign-born population
in the United States came from Latin America and the Caribbean, including
nearly
30 percent from Mexico, 9.9 percent from the Caribbean, and 6.6 percent
from South America. In 1960, by contrast, only 9 percent of the foreign-born
population was from Latin America.
Larger
view.
Countries of
birth of foreign-born
population with 500,000 or more,
in 1990
and 2000.
From “Profile of the Foreign-Born
Population,” U.S. Census
Bureau, Dec. 2001.
More than a quarter of the foreign-born population,
or 25.5 percent, was from Asia, with the largest numbers coming from
China, the Philippines,
India, Vietnam, and Korea. Immigrants from Europe constituted 15.3
percent of the total, and all other regions accounted for 8.1 percent.
Immigration from Africa, while still small in absolute numbers,
is growing rapidly, with the foreign-born population from Africa increasing
from 400,000 in 1990 to 700,000 in 2000
Legal Status of Immigrants
As
of 2000, the largest percentage of undocumented immigrants was from Mexico
(54 percent). Other sources of undocumented
immigration include
El Salvador (7 percent), Guatemala (3 percent), Canada (2 percent),
Haiti (2 percent), and the Philippines (2 percent). The remaining
30 percent came from other countries.
For the decade from 1990 to 2000, the highest percentage
of legally documented immigrants, 40 percent, was from Asia. Twelve percent
of legally documented immigrants were from Mexico and an additional
24
percent were from other Latin American or Caribbean nations. Twenty
percent were from Europe or Canada.
According to the National Immigration Forum, four
out of 10 undocumented immigrants enter the country legally on temporary
visas as students,
visitors, tourists, or temporary workers, and stay after their
visas expire. Policy changes enacted in 1996 (see Immigration
Law and Policy)
have made it far more difficult for undocumented immigrants to “adjust” their
status — that is, to apply for residency based on family ties
or other factors. Partly as a result, the total number of undocumented
people is rising quickly.
Where Immigrants Settle
Larger
view.
New Immigration Growth Centers.
Adapted from “The Dispersal
of
Immigrants in the 1990s “
by Michael E. Fix and Randolph
Capps, Washington, Urban
Institute, Nov. 2002.
Reprinted by permission.
The
map of immigrantion growth centers shows the states with the greatest
concentrations of immigrants in the year 2000:
California,
New York,
Florida, Texas, New Jersey, and Illinois. Most immigrants settle
in large urban areas, such as Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, or
Houston. These are considered the traditional “receiving areas” for
U.S. immigrants.
A more recent phenomenon is the influx of immigrants
to smaller cities and towns in the Southeast and Midwest. The “restructuring” of
the meat-packing industry is typical of the economic changes bringing
immigrants to these new destinations — and of the very particular
challenges they face on their arrival.
Other Changes in
Immigration Patterns
The graph of immigrant numbers shows overall changes
in immigration over the past 150 years. Absolute numbers of immigrants
are higher
than ever before. Their percentage of the U.S. population, however,
has grown much more slowly. Estimates of the foreign-born population
in 2000 ranged between 10.5 and 11 percent — higher than it
has been since 1930, but still well below the peak of nearly 15 percent
between 1870 and 1910.
Larger
view.
From “Immigrant
Numbers and
Flows,” Jeffrey Passell,
Urban Institute, Dec. 2001.
Reprinted by permission.
Marked increases in Mexican immigration during the 1990s were a key
factor in the overall increase in both legally documented and undocumented
immigration. The Mexican-born population of the United States has nearly
doubled over the past decade, largely as a result of some of the economic
changes discussed in the Roots of Migration.
Immigrant
Households
Overall statistics do not indicate the large number of children
who live in immigrant
families. Relatively few children under 18 (3.8 percent
of all children in the United States) are immigrants themselves.
A much larger number (15.5 percent), however, are U.S.-born children
of immigrants.
When these numbers
are added together, they show
that nearly one in five children in the United States are children
of immigrants. In California, 49 percent of all children are children
of immigrants.
Many immigrant households are “mixed status” households — that
is, they include members with different immigration status. For example,
one spouse may be a permanent resident while the other is undocumented.
U.S.-born children cannot help their parents adjust their status until
they are over 21. Even if they would otherwise be eligible, many low-income
immigrants cannot meet the stiff income requirements established by
federal law for sponsoring their family members to become legal residents.
As a result, the many uncertainties and vulnerabilities experienced
by undocumented immigrants — economic, social, and legal — also
affect countless citizens and legal residents, because they live
in mixed-status households.
Immigrants and Labor Markets
Immigrants are integrated into the U.S. economy
in many different ways. In line with the overall “racial segmentation” of the
U.S. labor force, immigrants of different ethnic groups and different
national origins may have very different occupations and income levels.
Immigration status also plays a key role in determining immigrants’ degree
of economic security. In addition, the economic situation of immigrants
may vary considerably depending on how long they have been here.
Some immigrants are entrepreneurs, high-tech workers,
computer programmers, or health professionals. Other immigrants are
skilled
industrial workers — machinists,
pipe fitters, tool and die makers, and the like. Still others are domestic
workers, factory workers, restaurant or hotel workers, farm workers,
or laborers.
Most individuals move through several of these categories
over a period of time. José Alejandro Salazar, one of the members of the Association
for Citizenship and Residency in America who appear in the AFSC video
documentary Echando Raices/Taking Root, recounts how he began his life
in Houston as a waiter. “My first paycheck for a week’s
work was for $110,” he says, “for working more than 100
hours.” When he obtained his first work permit (because of a
class action suit filed by “late amnesty” applicants; see
Immigration Law and Policy) he was able to obtain a 40-hour-a-week
job with health coverage. Over time, he learned a skilled trade as
a pipe fitter in the oil industry; at the time of his interview, he
was a master craftsman. His dream today is to open his own restaurant.
As this example illustrates, statistics cannot convey the complexity
of immigrant life. What they do show, however, is that immigrants
are more vulnerable to poverty than the population as a whole. Low-wage
work is a major factor: in 1999, according to census data, fulltime,
year-round workers earning less than $20,000 a year represented 36.3
percent of immigrant workers, compared to 21.3 percent of U.S.-born
workers. Immigrants who fell in this category included 57.1 percent
of workers from Mexico and Central America, 22.4 percent of those
from
Asia, and 16.2 percent of those from Europe. At the other end of
the spectrum, professional and managerial workers included nearly 39
percent
of Asian immigrants, 31 percent of U.S.-born workers, and 7 percent
of immigrants from Mexico and Central America.
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