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Immigration Affects the Whole Country
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! Total population: 270,299,000 (1998 CB est.) !
! Foreign-born population: 26,300,000 (CPS 1998) !
! Percent foreign born: 9.7% (1998) !
! Foreign-born stock: 54,716,000 (1997 CB est.)
! Illegal alien population: 5,000,000 (1996 INS est.) !
! New legal immigrants: 7,605,068 (1991 to 1998) !
! 2025 pop. projection: 335,050,000 (1996 CB proj.) !
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IMMIGRATION IS A NATIONAL ISSUE
Americans now realize that the costs of our present high level of immigration (legal and illegal)
are enormous and growing. (The Center for Immigration Studies estimated in 1995 that
immigration costs us a net $29 billion a year--more than the combined budgets of the
Departments of State, Justice and Interior.) These costs include both programs targeted toward
immigrants, as well as the increased costs of education, health care, and welfare programs that
are used by immigrants.
Much of the news coverage of this problem focuses solely on the six states with the highest immigration levels: California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey and Ilinois. But do not be misled; high immigration is not a problem just for these six states, it is a problem for the entire country.
EVERY STATE RECEIVES IMMIGRANTS AND FEELS THE IMPACT
Every state receives immigration. Mississippi, for example, is not known as a 'high-impact' state.
Yet it has the nation's fastest growing immigrant population (up by 476% since 1990 -- from less
than 1% of its population then to about 4.3% now). Other states that are newly expreiencing
large-scale immigrant settlement include Colorado (up 136%), North Carolina (up 129%),
Oregon (up 115%), Nebraska (up 107%) and Utah (up 102%).
Consider Hawaii. Although it receives fewer immigrants than, say, Florida, it still takes more than its fair share. In Hawaii, nine percent of the population consists of immigrants who arrived since 1980; by way of comparison, six percent of Florida's population consists of recent immigrants.
WE ALL PAY FOR IMMIGRATION THROUGH OUR FEDERAL TAXES
Much of the cost for immigration is paid by the states and municipalities, but a lot is paid for by
the federal government too. Illegal immigrants receive taxpayer support for their U.S.-born
children, immunizations, subsidized public health and other programs. Legal immigrants are
eligible for almost all federal programs. In many areas, such as education, the federal
government gives matching grants for state expenditures, which means paying twice for those
costs of immigration. When states hand a bill to the federal government for the costs of
immigration
(as is provided for by law in the case of incarceration of illegal immigrants, or welfare programs
for the illegal aliens who were "amnestied" in 1986), it is you who will pay regardless of where
you live.
The U.S. is a vast country; it is easy to be deceived into thinking that what goes on in other states does not affect us. But, directly or indirectly, the impact of high immigration on our country hits us all and hits us hard. For that reason, all Americans should demand that their representatives in Washington reduce the price they are paying for immigration. The best way to cut those costs is to reduce immigration itself.
1980 Census 1990 Census 1996 CPS* 1 Mexico 2,199 Mexico 4,298 Mexico 6,679 2 Germany 849 Philip. 913 Philip. 1,164 3 Canada 843 Canada 745 China 801 4 Italy 832 Cuba 737 Cuba 772 5 U.K. 669 Germany 712 India 757 6 Cuba 608 U.K. 640 Vietnam 740 7 Philip. 501 Italy 581 El Sal. 701 8 Poland 418 Korea 568 Canada 660 9 Sov.Un. 406 Vietnam 543 Korea 550 10 Korea 290 China 530 Germany 523 11 China 286 El Sal. 465 Dom.Rep. 515 12 Vietnam 231 India 450 Jamaica 506 All Others 5,949 All Others 8,585 All Others 10,189 Total 14,080 Total 19,767 Total 24,557 * Current Population Survey data is subject to sampling error.
For the nation as a whole, a list of the major nationalities of the Foreign Born in the 1990 Census is also available.
THE IMMIGRANT STOCK
NATIONAL DATA FROM THE CURRENT POPULATION SURVEY (CPS)
The 1998 CPS data show that the share of the foreign born living below the poverty level is
much higher than it is for the
native born (20% and 12.7%, respectively). The unemployment rate for the foreign born is
similarly higher than for the native born (5.6% and 4.6% respectively), and it is also higher for
food stamp recipiency (9.3% and 6.8%) and public assistance income receipts (4.6% and
3.1%). The data on the foreign born receipt of welfare benefits is artificially low because
included in the foreign born population are illegal alien residents who are barred from these
programs.
NET INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION
POPULATION PROJECTION
The chart (above) is based on a projection of U.S. population growth through the year 2050. The
projection was done by the Census Bureau in 1996 with different assumptions (scenarios). The two scenarios depicted in the
chart are for zero-net immigration and the "middle series" based on the current demographic
trend, including immigration. FAIR judges that the middle series projection understates future population growth,
because the assumptions about the level of both legal and illegal immigration appear to be too low.
The zero-net scenario assumes the number of new immigrants
coming into the country balances those who leave or die. The difference of about 80 million people between the two
scenarios depicts the impact of post-1990 immigrants and their offspring on the size of U.S.
population. That amount shows how today's and tomorrow's immigrants and their offspring are likely to account for over 60 percent of
the nation's population growth over the next half century if nothing is done to change current policies.
In the Census Bureau's "high" immigration projection, assuming annual net
immigration of 1,370,000, the population in 2025 is more than six percent higher than in the
middle projection, and it is over 11 percent higher by 2050. The high immigration projection
would mean a U.S. population in 2050 of 438,299,000 people. If today's mass immigration were
significantly scaled back, the population increase attributable to immigration could be
significantly reduced over time. See Immigration and Population
Growth
INS DATA ON IMMIGRANT SETTLEMENT
Each year the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) releases annual data on the number
of new immigrants. Some are newly arrived from abroad and others may already be in the
United States in another status before being granted immigrant status. The number of new
immigrants by state beginning with fiscal year 1991 are provided below for the country as a whole (and in summary form table below by state in the column "91-97
Legal,".
INS data show that since 1990 the average number of immigrants admitted for legal residence has been over 950,000 per year (through FY'98). This average is inflated
by the effects of the 1986 amnesty for illegal aliens, as 1.1 million of the 1991 "new"
immigrants were part of the nearly three million former illegal aliens converting their status.
Just among the long-term resident amnesty applicants (excluding the amnestied agricultural workers), the number applying nationwide was 1,663,595.
The data for FY'95, FY'97 and FY'98 were artificially low because the
INS was not able to issue green cards to all the applicants for adjustment of status who
were already in the United States. In those three years, new immigration could have registered
as much as 30 percent higher, if the INS had issued more visas. If the INS begins to catch up with its backlog of adjustment to legal residence,
there will have been over ten million new immigrants admitted during this decade -- and unprecedented number.
STATE SUMMARY DATA
There are about 55 million people in the United States who may be considered "immgrant stock."
The immigrant stock is a term that refers to first generation immigrants, the "1.5 generation"
(children of immigrants who are born abroad), and the second generation (the native-born Americans whose parents immigrated).
There are about 10 to 11 million children under the age 18 who are chldren of immigrants.
This information is derived from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study. -- the largest research project on the topic in the country.
(Source: The Houston Chronicle, October 3, 1999)
In 1998 the number of foreign-born residents (including some, but not all resident illegal aliens)
numbered an estimated 26,300,000. That was 9.7 percent of the population -- up from 7.9
percent as
recently as the 1990
Census and 4.8 percent in 1970. Just over one-third (35.1%) of the foreign born were naturalized
U.S.
citizens. This was
down from 40 percent in 1990 despite the recent surge in naturalizations, because the recent
surge in
immigration means that a larger share are newcomers who are not yet eligible to apply for
naturalization. As of 1996, 6,579,000 of the foreign-born residents had entered the United States
since 1990.
The Census Bureau released national population estimates in December 1998 that put the
population in July 1998 at 270,299,000. That represented a one-year increase of about 1.1
million. Since 1990, the NIM total amount of increase has been 6,697,000 (an average annual
net increase of over 837,000). All of the states (and Washington DC) were estimated to
have had population increases due to net international migration. The amount of the last
year's estimated increase is shown below in the column marked "97-98 NIM."
The 1997 Census Bureau population projection has the nation growing by 27.5 percent
between 1995 and 2025 (increasing more than 60 million above the 1995 estimated population to
335,048,000). The projected rate of increase is less than the rate of increase in the foreign-born
population between 1980 and 1990, and it is clear that immigrant settlement is a major
component in the rate of projected population increase.
Immigrant settlement in the United States has risen since
the adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. The recent rate of new immigrants has about tripled from the rate of the late 1960s.
FY LEGAL IMMIGRATION
91 1,827,167 by nationality
92 973,977 by nationality
93 904,292 by nationality
94 804,416 by nationality
95 720,461 by nationality
96 915,900 by nationality
97 798,378 by nationality
98 660,477 by nationality
Total 7,605,068 by nationality
It should also be kept in mind that the INS numbers for legal
immigrant settlement understate the impact of immigration because there are additional hundreds
of thousands of immigration applicants already in the United States in a backlog caused by INS
processing problems who are eligible for immigrant status but have not yet received their green
cards. The number in this backlog has been growing rapidly in the past several years and stands at 881,000 at the end of fiscal year 1998. Foreign-Born 91-97 97-98
STATE No. Share Illegal Legal NIM
Alabama 95,000 2.2% 4,000 14,245 2,480
Alaska 36,000 5.5% 3,700 8,494 1,835
Arizona 638,000 13.7% 115,000 100,585 9,224
Arkansas 55,000 2.1% 5,400 9,797 1,934
California 7,955,000 24.4% 2,000,000 2,109,302 230,895
Colorado 262,000 6.6% 45,000 57,924 11,085
Connecticut 317,000 9.6% 29,000 72,855 16,689
Delaware 28,000 3.8% 2,500 8,663 1,606
Dist. of Col. 52,000 10.1% 30,000 26,801 3,763
Florida 2,324,000 16.0% 350,000 545,515 137,312
Georgia 223,000 2.9% 32,000 92,656 16,434
Hawaii 205,000 17.3% 9,000 55,972 12,352
Idaho 86,000 6.8% 16,000 15,987 1,616
Illinois 1,193,000 9.9% 290,000 320,607 64,573
Indiana 125,000 2.1% 14,000 28,065 5,585
Iowa 70,000 2.5% 6,400 18,411 3,610
Kansas 100,000 3.8% 20,000 24,237 3,679
Kentucky 65,000 1.7% 6,000 13,905 3,205
Louisiana 123,000 2.9% 22,000 26,649 4,645
Maine 27,000 2.2% 3,300 6,328 1,237
Maryland 479,000 9.5% 44,000 120,591 24,706
Massachusetts 598,000 10.0% 85,000 158,069 22,866
Michigan 493,000 5.0% 37,000 104,114 186,428
Minnesota 217,000 4.6% 7,200 54,169 8,763
Mississippi 33,000 1.2% 3,700 6,765 1,817
Missouri 81,000 1.5% 16,000 31,596 6,754
Montana 8,000 0.9% 1,200 3,508 741
Nebraska 58,000 3.5% 7,600 14,332 2,685
Nevada 196,000 11.4% 24,000 40,373 11,548
New Hamp. 44,000 3.6% 2,000 8,919 1,839
New Jersey 1,181,000 14.8% 135,000 343,062 71,334
New Mexico 118,000 6.4% 37,000 34,919 903
New York 3,633,000 20.0% 540,000 1,039,283 180,480
N. Carolina 247,000 3.4% 22,000 54,856 7,341
N. Dakota 6,000 0.9% 800 3,938 1,039
Ohio 349,000 3.1% 23,000 65,724 8,873
Oklahoma 66,000 2.0% 21,000 24,680 5,021
Oregon 307,000 9.3% 33,000 65,060 9,323
Pennsylvania 487,000 4.1% 37,000 115,737 20,386
Rhode Island 109,000 11.6% 12,000 20,889 4,003
S. Carolina 62,000 1.6% 4,800 17,021 4,259
S. Dakota 7,000 0.9% 800 3,658 935
Tennessee 85,000 1.5% 13,000 26,810 6,339
Texas 2,302,000 11.7% 700,000 602,916 57,636
Utah 137,000 6.6% 15,000 24,619 5,622
Vermont 20,000 3.5% 2,700 4,560 1,227
Virginia 443,000 6.6% 55,000 131,445 25,386
Washington 372,000 6.5% 52,000 138,365 22,869
W. Virginia 16,000 0.9% 2,000 4,379 355
Wisconsin 146,000 2.8% 7,700 32,346 2,694
Wyoming 6,000 1.1% 1,700 7,209 421
FAIR, 12/99.
