Posts Tagged: immigrants
Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations
Overall, 85% of Latino parents say they speak Spanish to their children, according to the Center's 2015 National Survey of Latinos. Among immigrant parents, nearly all (97%) say they do this. But the share drops to 71% among U.S.-born second-generation Latino parents (those with at least one immigrant parent). And the share falls to just 49% among third or higher generation Latino parents – those born in the U.S. to U.S.-born parents.
Spanish use also declines in mixed families where one spouse or partner is non-Latino. About 92% of Latino parents with a Latino spouse or partner speak Spanish to their children. By contrast, just 55% of Latino parents with a non-Latino-partner or spouse say they speak Spanish to their children.
Spanish has long been a part of life for today's Latino adults. Nine-in-ten (90%) say Spanish was spoken in their home when they were growing up, and 81% say their parents often or sometimes encouraged them to speak Spanish when growing up. (Notably, 20% of Latino adults say their parents often or sometimes discouraged them from speaking Spanish when growing up.) Today, nearly all Latinos (96%) say their parents speak Spanish, and unlike some other language measures, this share holds relatively steady across generations.
Not only do nearly all Hispanic adults have a personal connection to Spanish, they also express a desire for the language to live on: 88% say it is important to them that future generations of Hispanics living in the U.S. be able to speak Spanish, with vast majorities holding this view across generations.
Overall, about 40 million people in the U.S. speak Spanish at home, making it the country's second-most spoken language. At the same time, growth in the number of Spanish-speaking Hispanics has slowed, according to the Center's analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. As a result, the share of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home has declined, while the share that speaks only English at home has increased, especially among children.
These trends are expected to continue as Hispanics born in the U.S. increasingly drive the group's population growth, in large part due to slowing immigration from Mexico (and, to a lesser extent, high intermarriage rates). Already, most U.S. Hispanics say a person doesn't need to speak Spanish to be considered Hispanic.
Source: Published originally on pewresearch.org, Most Hispanic parents speak Spanish to their children, but this is less the case in later immigrant generations, by Mark Hugo Lopez, Jens Manuel Krogstad & Antonio Flores, April 2nd 18th , 2018.
How the U.S. Hispanic population is changing
The Hispanic population has reached a new high, but growth has slowed. In 2016, Hispanics accounted for 18% of the nation's population and were the second-largest racial or ethnic group behind whites. (All racial groups are single race non-Hispanic.)
They are also the nation's second-fastest-growing racial or ethnic group, with a 2.0% growth rate between 2015 and 2016 compared with a 3.0% rate for Asians. The slowing of Hispanic population growth is occurring as immigration to the U.S. from Mexico levels off and the fertility rate among Hispanic women declines.
The U.S. Hispanic population is drawn from an increasingly diverse mix of countries.
Hispanics of Mexican origin account for 63.3% (36 million) of the nation's Hispanic population in 2015, by far the largest share of any origin group, but down from a recent peak of 65.7 in 2008. But this share has declined in recent years as fewer migrants from Mexico arrive in the U.S. and the number leaving the country rises. Meanwhile, the share among non-Mexican origin groups (36.7% in 2015, up from 34.3% in 2008) has grown as migration from elsewhere in Latin America has increased.
The foreign-born share has declined among U.S. Latinos. Today, 34.4% of Latinos are immigrants, down from a peak of 40.1% in 2000. And the share that is U.S. born has grown to 65.6% in 2015, up from 59.9% in 2000. This decline in the foreign-born share extends across the largest Latino origin groups. The foreign-born share among Guatemalans (61.3% in 2015) fell by 17.2 percentage points during this time, the largest percentage-point decline of the six largest Hispanic origin groups. Salvadorans' foreign-born share (58.8% in 2015) also had a significant drop, declining 16.9 percentage points. Meanwhile, the Mexican foreign-born share (32.2% in 2015), had a smaller decline – 9.3 points.
U.S. Hispanics are the youngest of the nation's largest racial and ethnic groups. But like the rest of the country, the Hispanic population overall has grown older.
Hispanics had a median age of 28 in 2015, up from 25 in 2000. Whites had the highest median age – of 43 in 2015 – followed by Asians (36) and blacks (34). Among Hispanics, those born in the U.S. and those born in another country differ widely in age. The median age of U.S.-born Hispanics was 19 in 2015, up from 18 years in 2000. Meanwhile, foreign-born Hispanics have a median age of 42 years, up from 33 in 2000.
A growing share of Hispanics have gone to college. Almost 40% of Hispanics ages 25 and older had any college experience in 2015, up from 30% in 2000. Among U.S.-born Hispanics, 52% reported they had gone to college, an increase from 41% in 2000. By comparison, 27% of foreign-born Hispanics reported some college experience, up from 22% in 2000.
The number of Hispanics who speak Spanish at home is at an all-time high, though growth is slowing. A record 37 million Hispanics ages 5 and older speak Spanish at home, up from 25 million in 2000. However, between 2010 and 2015, this number grew at an annual average of 1.8%, down from an annual average of 3.4% between 2000 and 2010.
At the same time, a record 35 million Hispanics ages 5 and older say they are English-proficient, up from 19 million in 2000. Among this group, 14 million Hispanics speak only English at home in 2015, up from 7 million in 2000.
California continues to have the largest Latino population among states, but Texas is seeing a faster growth rate. In 2015, 15.2 million Hispanics lived in California, a 39% increase from 10.9 million in 2000. Yet Texas has had even faster growth, with its Hispanic population increasing 60% over the same period, from 6.7 million in 2000 to 10.7 million in 2015. Meanwhile, Georgia's Hispanic population has more than doubled since 2000, the fastest growth among the 10 states with the largest Hispanic populations.
Source: Published originally on pewresearch.org, How the U.S. Hispanic population is changing, by Antonio Flores, September 18th , 2017.
What we know about illegal immigration from Mexico
With President Donald Trump's administration taking steps to reduce the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. — including through the construction of a wall at the southern border — here's what we know about illegal immigration from Mexico:
- The number of Mexican immigrants living in the U.S. illegally has declined by more than 1 million since 2007. In 2014, 5.8 million unauthorized immigrants from Mexico lived in the U.S., down from a peak of 6.9 million in 2007. Despite the drop, Mexicans still make up about half of the nation's 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants (52% in 2014).
- More non-Mexicans than Mexicans were apprehended at U.S. borders in fiscal year 2016 for the second time on record (the first was in fiscal 2014.) In fiscal 2016, 192,969 Mexicans were apprehended, a sharp drop from a peak of 1.6 million apprehensions in 2000. The decline in apprehensions reflects the decrease in the number of unauthorized Mexican immigrants coming to the U.S.
- Mexicans were deported from the U.S. 242,456 times in 2015 – up from 169,031 in 2005, but down from a recent high of 309,807 in 2013. The increase over the past decade is due in part to a 2005 shift in policy that increased the chances of being deported following apprehension in the border region. Prior to that change, many unauthorized immigrants were returned without a formal deportation order.
- Mexican unauthorized immigrants are more likely to be long-term residents of the U.S. As of 2014, 78% had lived in the U.S. for 10 years or more, while only 7% had been in the country for less than five years. By comparison, 52% of unauthorized immigrants from countries other than Mexico had lived in the U.S. for at least a decade as of 2014, while 22% had lived in the U.S. for less than five years.
- Unauthorized immigrants from Mexico make up at least 75% of the total unauthorized immigrant population in three states. This is the case in New Mexico (91%), Idaho (87%) and Arizona (81%). In California, Mexicans make up 71% of the state's unauthorized immigrant population, and they numbered more than 1.6 million in 2014 – the highest total of any state.
Source: Published originally on pewresearch.org, What we know about illegal immigration from Mexico by Jens Manuel Krogstad and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera on March 2, 2017.
A majority of English-speaking Hispanics in the U.S. are bilingual
Latino adults who are the children of immigrant parents are most likely to be bilingual. Among this group, 50% are bilingual, according to our 2013 survey. As of 2012, Latinos with immigrant parents (defined as those born outside the U.S. or those born in Puerto Rico) made up roughly half (48%) of all U.S.-born Hispanics. By comparison, a third (35%) of Hispanic immigrants are bilingual, as are a quarter (23%) of those with U.S.-born parents.
Widespread bilingualism has the potential to affect future generations of
Bilingualism is measured in our National Surveys of Latinos by asking Hispanic adults to self-assess their language abilities. Respondents rated their ability to carry on a conversation in Spanish and how well they can read a book or newspaper written in Spanish. The same questions are posed about their English-speaking ability. Bilingualism is linked to age. Some 42% of Hispanics ages 18 to 29 are bilingual. That share falls to about a third among Hispanics ages 30 to 49 and ages 50 to 64, but rises again, to 40%, among those ages 65 and older.
Due in part to bilingualism, in 2013 Spanish was the most spoken non-English language in the U.S., used by 35.8 million Hispanics in the U.S. plus an additional 2.6 million non-Hispanics. Overall, three-in-four Hispanics (73%) ages 5 and older speak Spanish in their homes, when including those who are bilingual.
Given the expected demographic changes, what is the future of language use among Hispanics in the United States? According to Census Bureau projections, the share of Hispanics who speak only English at home will rise from 26% in 2013 to 34% in 2020. Over this time period, the share who speak Spanish at home will decrease from 73% to 66%.
And as a sign of the times, Spanglish, an informal hybrid of both languages, is widely used among Hispanics ages 16 to 25. Among these young Hispanics, 70% report using Spanglish, according to an analysis we did in 2009..
Source: Published originally on pewresearch.org, A majority of English-speaking Hispanics in the U.S. are bilingual by Jens Manuel Krogstad and Ana Gonzalez-Barrera.
Trump and U.S. immigration policy
President Donald Trump campaigned on seven major issues, two of which involved migration: have the United States build and Mexico pay for a wall on the 2,000-mile Mexico-U.S. border, and deport the country's 11 million unauthorized foreigners,* over half of whom are Mexican. He has also promised to reverse President Barack Obama's executive orders that provide temporary legal status to some unauthorized foreigners, and to "put American workers first" in migration policymaking.
Since winning the election, Trump has modified some of his positions, notably announcing that deportation efforts would be focused on 2 million unauthorized foreigners convicted of crimes in the United States.
Trump's focus on unauthorized migration during the campaign has had several effects that may prove long-lasting, including polarizing public opinion about what to do about immigration in general and unauthorized foreigners in particular. Migration may join abortion and guns on the list of issues that deeply divide Americans.
Unauthorized migration
Unauthorized foreigners account for a quarter of the 44 million foreign-born U.S. residents. The remainder includes 19 million naturalized U.S. citizens, 12 million lawful immigrants, and almost 2 million lawful temporary visitors such as students and guest workers (Brown and Stepler 2016).
The number of unauthorized foreigners rose rapidly from the 1990s through the mid-2000s, peaking at 12 million in 2007 before declining during and after the 2008-2009 recession (Passel and Cohn 2016a) (fig. 1). Some 8 million unauthorized foreigners are in the U.S. labor force (fig. 1), comprising 5% of a 160-million-strong national workforce that also includes 20 million lawful foreign-born workers (Passel and Cohn 2016b). In 2014, unauthorized workers accounted for 9% of California's workforce.
Between 2007 and 2014, the number of unauthorized U.S. residents who were born in Mexico fell by a million from 7 million to 6 million, indicating that departures have been exceeding arrivals. That shift is part of a larger trend of fewer new unauthorized foreigners: In 2014, 66% of unauthorized foreigners had been in the country for 10 years or longer, compared with 41% in 2005 (Passel and Cohn 2016a).
Agriculture has the highest share of unauthorized workers of any major industry. Based on data broken out by industry category, about 17% of those employed in agriculture were unauthorized in 2014, followed by 13% in construction and 9% in hospitality. According to data on occupation categories, 26% of those with farming occupations were unauthorized, followed by 15% in construction and 9% each in production and services. Dependence on unauthorized workers is high in certain areas for instance, unauthorized workers account for over 50% of fruit pickers in California.
There are two major policy approaches to deal with unauthorized migrants: enforcement-only, and comprehensive reforms. The latter generally involve three components: enforcement, a path to legalization, and guest worker provisions. Congress has considered multiple proposals of both types in the past decade, but none have become law.
In December 2005, the House of Representatives approved an enforcement-only bill, HR 4437, requiring all employers to verify, using a government database, the legal status of newly hired workers (within a week of hiring) as well as current workers (within 6 years of the bill becoming law). Suspected unauthorized workers would have been required to contact the government to correct their records or be fired. HR 4437 also called for penalties on those who supported or shielded unauthorized foreigners, and ordered the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the Mexico-US border.
Despite pressure from farmers and other employers who hire large numbers of unauthorized workers, HR 4437 did not include new or expanded guest worker programs. It prompted strong reactions from Mexico and outcry in many U.S. cities, including the "A Day Without Immigrants" protests on May 1, 2006. Ultimately, the Senate did not pass the bill.
In May 2006, the Senate introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill, S 2611. The enforcement provisions in S 2611 were similar to those in HR 4427, with the addition of a system of appeals and reimbursement in cases of government error in the verification process.
S 2611 took a tiered approach to legalization, dividing unauthorized foreigners into three groups based on their length of time in the United States. Under the bill, unauthorized foreigners who had been in the country for at least 5 years (estimated at 7 million people) could become "probationary immigrants" by meeting certain conditions, and would be eligible for regular immigrant visas after 6 more years of U.S. work and tax payments (Migration News 2006). Unauthorized foreigners in the country for between 2 and 5 years (roughly 3 million people) could receive a 3-year temporary lawful work status, but they would be required to return to their countries of origin within 3 years and re-enter the US legally a so-called touchback requirement. Unauthorized foreigners in the country for fewer than 2 years would be required to leave.
S 2611 also provided for a new large-scale H-2C guest worker program. Employers in any U.S. industry could "attest" that they need to hire migrants, and a foreigner outside the United States with a job offer from such an employer could have paid $500 and obtained a 6-year work permit. Guest workers could change jobs if they received an offer from another employer that had completed the attestation process.
President George W. Bush supported S 2611, but House Republicans did not support the legalization provisions, and the bill died. A similar comprehensive bill, S 1348, was introduced in 2007. Although it included "trigger" provisions, meaning that stepped-up enforcement would have to be deemed effective before new guest worker or legalization programs could begin, it did not pass the Senate.
Obama to Trump
After his 2008 election, Obama said that immigration was not a first-term issue, and instead tackled the economic recession in 2009 and health care in 2010. However, during his first term, Obama met with migrant rights groups frequently and urged them to persuade Congress to act on comprehensive immigration reforms (Migration News 2009). Immigration reform also featured in his 2010 State of the Union speech.
Midterm elections in November 2010 increased the clout of Republicans in Congress, changing the conversation from comprehensive to piecemeal immigration reform. Piecemeal reform meant reviving efforts to pass measures that had bipartisan support, including the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act (introduced several times, first in 2001), which provided a path to citizenship for unauthorized foreigners brought to the United States as children; and the Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and Security Act (AgJOBS, originally introduced in 2003) to legalize unauthorized farm workers and make it easier to hire guest workers. Both measures had been blocked in the Democrat-controlled Congress by proponents of comprehensive immigration reform who feared that dealing with the "easy" aspects of immigration reform would become a substitute for comprehensive action.
While campaigning for re-election in June 2012, President Obama created by executive order the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has so far granted 2-year work and residence permits to 741,000 unauthorized foreigners who arrived in the United States before age 16, are between the ages of 16 and 30, lived illegally in the United States at least 5 years, and have a high school diploma or are honorably discharged veterans.
Many hoped that Obama's re-election in 2012 would encourage Congress to approve comprehensive immigration reform. A bipartisan group of eight senators introduced S 744, an immigration reform bill that increased border and interior enforcement, created a 13-year path to U.S. citizenship for most unauthorized foreigners, and revised and expanded guest worker programs. The Senate approved S 744 by a 68-32 vote in June 2013, but House leaders said they preferred an incremental or piecemeal approach to immigration policymaking, and did not act (Migration News 2013).
With no comprehensive immigration package attracting majority support in Congress, President Obama expanded DACA after the November 2014 elections and proposed the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) program, which would have given temporary legal status to unauthorized foreigners whose children were legal residents. Half of the states sued to block DAPA, and it was not implemented (Rural Migration News 2016).
Unknowns under Trump
During his campaign, President Trump pledged to deport unauthorized foreigners, so it can be expected that he will step up enforcement at the border and move aggressively to remove foreigners convicted of crimes. What is not yet clear is how fast an increase in enforcement could be implemented for instance, such measures may require congressional funding appropriations.
Much of the debate about enforcement inside U.S. borders is likely to involve relationships between federal, state and local governments to identify unauthorized foreigners.
Under the Secure Communities policy that began in 2008, state and local police shared the fingerprints of all persons arrested with the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). If suspected unauthorized foreigners were detected, DHS could ask state and local police to hold the person until DHS agents arrived.
Secure Communities was ended in 2014 by the Obama Administration amidst complaints from migrant communities that "innocent activities," such as being stopped at a DUI checkpoint while driving to go shopping, could result in deportation. Many states and cities went further, declaring themselves to be "sanctuaries" and ordering their law enforcement agencies not to cooperate with DHS.
Trump has promised to withhold federal funds from sanctuary states and cities, but since his election, some cities have approved resolutions pledging not to cooperate with DHS enforcement efforts even if the result is less federal money.
One area where Trump can act quickly is refugee policy. The president, in consultation with Congress, determines the number of refugees to be resettled in the United States each year, and admitted 85,000 in the 2016 fiscal year. Obama proposed to admit 110,000 refugees in fiscal year 2017, but Trump could reduce or stop refugee admissions.
There are many other migration issues that Trump could tackle administratively. For example, Trump could order DHS to resume the workplace raids in meatpacking and other sectors thought to employ large numbers of unauthorized foreigners, or increase the number of audits of the I-9 forms completed by employers and newly hired workers, which could disrupt sectors that hire large numbers of unauthorized workers, such as agriculture. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) laid out 79 actions that the president could take administratively, including closer examination of those seeking student, investor and guest worker visas (CIS 2016).
Some administrative actions that President Trump could take are likely to be controversial. He has promised to rescind some of the executive orders issued by Obama, including the one that created DACA. Many have called on Trump to abstain from fulfilling this pledge, emphasizing that the 741,000 DACA youth have been screened and many are now working lawfully. Trump may allow current temporary DACA status to expire rather than to use the information provided by DACA recipients to target them for removal.
Trump's migration agenda is likely to interact with other agendas, including trade. The number-one source of migrants, Mexico, is also the third largest U.S. trade partner, with two-way trade totaling $584 billion in 2015.
One reason for the upsurge in Mexico-U.S. trade is the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trade agreement that Trump has pledged to re-negotiate. Mexico's oil monopoly PEMEX faces declining production and is seeking foreign partners to invest in new oil fields. Since Trump wants to increase fossil fuel production, there could be a complex negotiation with Mexico involving migration, trade and energy. Similarly, with China the number two source of migrants and also a target of Trump's ire for running a trade surplus with the United States, there could be negotiations with China that link migration and economic issues.
Trump's election was a surprise, and there may be similar surprises about his migration policies. His campaign rhetoric changed the vocabulary of politics in many areas, including migration, but it is not yet clear if this changed rhetoric will also change migration policy. The United States is likely to remain the country with the world's largest immigrant population, but the fate of the 11 million unauthorized foreigners is uncertain. The extremes of removing most of them at one end, and putting most on a path to U.S. citizenship at the other, are less likely than an in-between solution that gives most unauthorized foreigners some type of temporary legal status.
Source: Published originally on UC ANR California Ag, Trump and U.S. immigration policy, by Philip L. Martin, UC Davis. January 23, 2017.