Posts Tagged: immigration
Critics Say Questions About Citizenship Could Wreck Chances for an Accurate Census
WASHINGTON — A request by the Justice Department to ask people about their citizenship status in the 2020 census is stirring a broad backlash from census experts and others who say the move could wreck chances for an accurate count of the population — and, by extension, a fair redistricting of the House and state legislatures next decade.
Their fear, echoed by experts in the Census Bureau itself, is that the Trump administration's hard-line stance on immigration, and especially on undocumented migrants, will lead Latinos and other minorities, fearing prosecution, to ignore a census that tracks citizenship status.
Their failure to participate would affect population counts needed not only to apportion legislative seats, but to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars in federal money to areas that most need it.
“I can think of no action the administration could take that would be more damaging to the accuracy of the 2020 census than to add a question on citizenship,” Terri Ann Lowenthal, a consultant and leading private expert on census issues, said in an interview. “It would completely pull the rug out from under efforts to have everyone participate in the census as the Constitution envisions.”
The government has sought to count everyone living in the United States, legally and otherwise, since the first census in 1790. The decennial census has not asked all respondents whether they were citizens since 1960, although much smaller Census Bureau surveys of the population have continued to include citizenship questions.
The Justice Department request, first reported by ProPublica, was made in a Dec. 12 letter that said more detailed information on citizenship was critical to enforcing Section 2 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in voting.
The number of voting-age citizens is one measure used to determine whether the minority population in a legislative district is sufficient to determine an election, and the department said the results of the American Community Survey, a smaller annual review that covers about 10 percent of the population each decade, were too imprecise to be reliable.
Voting rights advocates said, however, that the data from that smaller survey had long been used effectively to enforce the law. They said that adding a citizenship question to the census would not enhance voting rights, but suppress them by reducing the head count of already undercounted minority groups, particularly the fast-growing Hispanic population.
“The first effect, of course, is on reapportionment,” Tom Saenz, the president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said in an interview. “And that seems to be the overarching goal — to stop the shifting of representation from non-Latino states to heavily Latino states.”
A Justice Department spokesman, Devin M. O'Malley, said in a statement that the Census Bureau hac recognized that results of the American Community Survey are “not the most appropriate data” for use in districting matters. “The Justice Department is committed to free and fair elections for all Americans and has sought reinstatement of the citizenship question on the census to fulfill that commitment,” he said.
A substantial undercount would affect red and blue states alike — deeply Democratic California has nearly seven million eligible Hispanic voters, while deeply Republican Texas has nearly five million. But the true impact would fall on Democratic representation at all levels of government, because Latinos and other minorities are largely reliably Democratic constituencies.
The last census failed to find 1.5 percent of the Hispanic population, the Census Bureau said, an undercount exceeded only by the 2.1 percent of African-Americans who were missed. No reliable estimate exists of how many more might be deterred from participating in the census by a citizenship question, but among several experts interviewed, the consensus was that it could be substantial.
Even small variations can have large political consequences. In 1997, Republicans vigorously fought a proposal to statistically adjust census results to address undercounts and overcounts, in no small part because their own study suggested the tweaks could affect election results in as many as 26 of the 435 House seats.
In a so-called long-form version of the census that was dropped after 2000, about 17 percent of respondents were asked whether they were citizens, although not whether they were in the country legally. Since then, the citizenship question has been asked annually in the American Community Survey.
The citizenship question proposed by the Justice Department differs little, if at all, from the one in the American Community Survey. Experts fear, however, that requiring an answer from all Americans would cause many minorities to avoid responding to all census questions for fear that their responses would be given to other government agencies.
The dropouts would be likely to include not only undocumented migrants, but entire families who are in the country legally but who house friends or relatives who are not.
Census Bureau experts raised the same concern in a Sept. 17 memo to senior officials in which they noted a sharp rise “in respondents spontaneously expressing concerns about confidentiality in some of our pretesting studies” conducted since January, when President Trump took office. “In particular,” the memo stated, “researchers heard respondents express new concerns about topics like the ‘Muslim ban,' discomfort ‘registering' other household members by reporting their demographic characteristics, the dissolution of the ‘DACA' (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival) program, repeated references to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), etc.”
“Respondents reported being told by community leaders not to open the door without a warrant signed by a judge,” the memo stated. It also reported that “researchers observed respondents falsifying names, dates of birth, and other information on household rosters.”
In a written statement, a Census Bureau spokesman, Michael C. Cook Sr., said on Tuesday that a complete and accurate census was “one of our top priorities.”
“We are evaluating the request and will process it in the same way we have historically dealt with such requests,” he said.
Several experts said, however, that the Justice Department request is all but unprecedented, at least in modern times. Census questions undergo a yearslong vetting process that includes trials and other research to ensure that a query elicits an accurate response and does not have unwanted side effects. In contrast, the Census Bureau must submit a final list of questions to Congress in less than three months — on April 1 — and will conduct only one major field test of the census process this spring.
Including a new question so late in the process effectively offers no opportunity to test and correct wording problems. And if a citizenship query did depress responses, as experts have predicted, it could add hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the count: Sending enumerators to track down and interview nonresponders is by far the most expensive part of the entire process.
Source: Published originally on The New York Times, Critics Say Questions About Citizenship Could Wreck Chances for an Accurate Census, by Michael Wines, January 2nd , 2018.
Is The U.S. Hispanic Market A Growth Market?
While the market definition has generally expanded during the last 10-15 years to include native-born second- and third-generation Hispanics, the “core” Hispanic market has been characterized by the unacculturated and partially acculturated Latin American immigrants who have represented separate and distinct market opportunities for companies to reach and sell to. The defining characteristic of this market has been the growth and use of Spanish language media and advertising, predominantly consumed by this “core” Spanish-speaking immigrant consumer.
Over the last 30 years, the Hispanic market has exploded, growing from 14.8 million in 1980 to 55 million in 2014, according to Pew Research, but 55% of that growth was driven by immigration in the 1980s and '90s that exceeded U.S. births. However, around 2004, immigration into the U.S. by Hispanics started a steady decline. In 2016, only 28% of the roughly 1 million annual immigrants into the U.S. were Hispanic. Starting in 2010, Asian immigration started to outpace Hispanic immigration.
Looking ahead, the percentage of Hispanic immigration is forecast to decrease steadily to 26% and potentially drop down below 25% by 2020, Pew found. This could trend even farther downward considering the current political environment in the United States.
So, while new Hispanic immigration into the U.S. is still forecast to top 250,000 per year, another trend, reverse immigration, primarily among Mexicans returning from the U.S., is forecast to continue at levels of approximately 200,000 per year. The result is that net Hispanic immigration into the U.S. will be anemic at best, with growth rates of less than 0.4% per year or less than 80,000 per year. This is not a growth market.
While geopolitical and economic factors may change this trend, the next five years look bleak for “core” Hispanic market population growth in sharp contrast to the go-go '80s and '90s when the market grew rapidly.
Overall, the U.S. Hispanic population is forecast to grow, but that growth will come primarily from U.S. births. Which leads to a critical question: Is this U.S.-born Hispanic market a separate and distinct market from the foreign-born immigrant Hispanic market? This question goes to the heart of the future of Hispanic marketing. I would argue that this U.S.-born, acculturated Hispanic is separate and distinct and the strategies and tactics that worked for marketing to immigrant Hispanics the last 30 years will not work for native Hispanics.
The numbers paint a very clear picture: there are two Hispanic markets — one that is stagnant and aging and one that is growing and getting younger. As I've argued numerous times over the years, the old way of Hispanic marketing is becoming irrelevant. A new way forward is required to address this new vibrant market. A new Hispanic market requires a new approach to Hispanic marketing.
Source: Published originally on mediapost.com as Is The U.S. Hispanic Market A Growth Market? by Jose Villa, May 25, 2017.
Immigrants arriving in the US
Immigration projected to drive growth in U.S. working-age population through at least 2035
The number of adults in the prime working ages of 25 to 64 – 173.2 million in 2015 – will rise to 183.2 million in 2035, according to Pew Research Center projections. That total growth of 10 million over two decades will be lower than the total in any single decade since the Baby Boomers began pouring into the workforce in the 1960s. The growth rate of working-age adults will also be markedly reduced.
The largest segment of working-age adults – those born in the U.S. whose parents also were born in the U.S. – is projected to decline from 2015 to 2035, both in numbers and as a share of the working-age population. The Center's projections show a reduction of 8.2 million of these adults, from 128.3 million in 2015 to 120.1 million in 2035.
That numerical loss will be partially offset by an increase in the number of working-age U.S.-born adults with immigrant parents, who are projected to number 24.6 million in 2035, up from 11.1 million in 2015. But perhaps the most important component of the growth in the working-age population over the next two decades will be the arrival of future immigrants. The number of working-age immigrants is projected to increase from 33.9 million in 2015 to 38.5 million by 2035, with new immigrant arrivals accounting for all of that gain. (The number of current immigrants of working age is projected to decline as some will turn 65, while others are projected to leave the country or die.) Without these new arrivals, the number of immigrants of working age would decline by 17.6 million by 2035, as would the total projected U.S. working-age population, which would fall to 165.6 million.
The Pew Research Center projections for foreign-born working-age adults are based on current rates of immigration, combining lawful and unauthorized. They assume that two-thirds of immigrants arriving through 2035 will be ages 25 to 64, as is true of today's new immigrants. The declining number of U.S.-born working-age adults with U.S.-born parents means that they will become a smaller share of the working-age population: 66% in 2035, compared with 74% in 2015. U.S.-born children of immigrants will make up a growing share of working-age adults: 13% in 2035, compared with 6% in 2015. The immigrant share of working-age adults will inch up, from 20% in 2015 to 21% in 2035.
The decrease in working-age adults born in the U.S. whose parents also were born in the U.S. largely reflects the aging of the Baby Boom generation, born from 1946 to 1964. The youngest Boomers turn 65 by 2030 (of course, some Baby Boomers are immigrants or have immigrant parents, but the share is smaller than among younger Americans). Birth rates, which have stayed relatively low since the 1970s, also play a role.
The largest group joining the nation's working-age population will be the 60 million people who were born in the country to U.S.-born parents and turn 25 between 2015 and 2035. But they will be outnumbered by U.S.-born adults with U.S.-born parents who turn 65 or who die, according to the projections, and so this group will have a net loss in number.
There will also be 18 million U.S.-born people with immigrant parents who will join the working-age population from 2015 to 2035. This group already lives in the U.S.; they were ages 5 to 24 in 2015. They will outnumber the working-age adults in this group who turn 65 or die over the next two decades, resulting in a net gain of 13.6 million working-age adults who are U.S. born with immigrant parents.
The projections indicate that 17.6 million new immigrants will be added to the working-age population by 2035, offsetting the aging or death of other working-age immigrants. Without them, the number of working-age immigrants would decline by 2035 and the total U.S. working-age population would drop by almost 8 million (or more than 4%) from the 2015 working-age population.
Growth rates and immigration's role
The relatively weak growth rate projected for the total working-age adult population – averaging 0.3% per year for both the decades between 2015 and 2035 – is well under the increases in recent decades. The annual growth peaked at 2% in the decade from 1975 to 1985, when the Baby Boomers were coming of age, and growth rates were at least 0.8% in all other decades since 1965.
These projections, which are based on analysis of census data trends, focus on the working-age population, defined as ages 25 to 64. They exclude young adults, many of whom are enrolled in training programs or higher education, as well as adults ages 65 and older, most of whom are not working. However, the patterns are similar if the age range includes those as young as 18 or as old as 69.
These projections do not look at the future labor force – that is, how many people in each of these groups will be employed or looking for work. Labor-force participation differs by gender and generation. Currently, foreign-born men are somewhat more likely to work than all U.S.-born men (including those with immigrant parents and U.S.-born parents), but foreign-born women are somewhat less likely to work than U.S.-born women, in part because many are staying home to raise children.
Immigrants also play a large role in future U.S. population growth. Assuming current trends continue, future immigrants and their U.S.-born children will account for 88% of the nation's population growth between 2015 and 2065, according to Pew Research Center projections.
Source: Published originally on PewResearchCenter Immigration projected to drive growth in U.S. working-age population through at least 2035, by Jeffrey S. Passel and D'VeraCohn, March 7, 2017.
/span>Illegal immigrants help fuel U.S. farms. Does affordable produce depend on them?
Who picks your strawberries?
If you haven't delved into this question, you probably believe it's virtually all immigrants, many of them illegal, because Americans don't want to do those jobs and we don't have enough legal ways to get foreigners here to do them.
If you have delved into the question, you know that's absolutely true.
Estimates of the number of farmworkers employed in the United States vary. According to Robert Guenther, senior vice president for public policy for the United Fresh Produce Association, a produce industry trade group, it's about 1.5 million to 2 million. Of those, a large portion is illegal. Again, estimates vary, but Guenther puts it at 50 to 70 percent, a wide range. The Department of Labor, in its National Agricultural Workers Survey , puts it at 46 percent.
No matter which estimate you accept, it's a lot of people. And the Trump administration's aggressive enforcement of immigration laws and promise to build a wall to keep more people from crossing the border illegally threaten the viability of the on-farm workforce.
If we lose the workers who are here illegally, it's hard to see how they'll be replaced, because Americans are reluctant to take these jobs, particularly the ones harvesting crops. There's a lot of evidence for this, both anecdotal and statistical, including a particularly compelling case study done in North Carolina in 2011. That year, 489,000 people were unemployed statewide. The North Carolina Growers Association listed 6,500 available jobs. Just 268 of those 489,000 North Carolinians applied, and 245 were hired. On the first day of work, 163 showed up, and a grand total of seven finished the season. Of the mostly Mexican workers who took the rest of the jobs, 90 percent made it through to the end.
Lynn Jacquez, a D.C. lawyer specializing in immigration law, says, “There's sufficient evidence that over the last 30-plus years there's a dearth of U.S. workers that want to go into this field.” Whether the pun is intended, these jobs are acceptable only to people who have very few, very bad options.
The work is brutally hard. Ricardo Salvador, who is director of the food and environment program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, and whose family includes farmworkers, described a typical day to me. (I tried to talk with a farmworker directly, but the political environment has made many very reluctant to speak with the press.)
Days often begin in the middle of the night — say, 3 a.m. — to leave enough time to get to a pickup point (a parking lot or vacant lot), be picked up (or not — the labor contractors who collect workers and deliver them to farms generally don't take all of them), and get trucked to the worksite. Each crop is different; you're stooping to pick (fruits like strawberries) or cut (vegetables like broccoli) essentially nonstop, usually with pressure to keep up with a truck that's collecting the harvested produce. If you fall behind, you could get kicked out and lose both a day's wages and a ride home. Conditions vary, of course, but there are often very limited breaks.
“It's not just the physical stress,” says Salvador. “It's the psychological stress. You have to keep up, you can't afford to lose this job.” And the pay? Between $10 and $12 an hour, generally. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes less. But, because there isn't year-round work, according to Salvador, “these families are earning $10,000 a year.”
It is disconcerting that two different scenarios, one threatening to farmworkers, one supportive of them, could have a similar effect in our food system. The threatening scenario is a restriction of the labor force driven by immigration enforcement. According to both Guenther and Jacquez, that force is already shrinking, in part because of enforcement under the Obama administration, but also because better conditions in Mexico reduce the incentive to come here, and the aging workforce isn't being adequately replaced. This has put pressure on the sector, which has boosted competition for laborers and raised wages in some places. Stepped-up efforts to close the border, combined with the ongoing aggressive effort to deport people who are here illegally, would increase that pressure.
The supportive scenario looks very different. Many U.S. produce buyers (including me) would like to see the people who bring our fruits and vegetables out of the fields work in decent conditions and earn family-sustaining wages, a situation that could be brought about by legislation (including minimum wage and immigration reforms), collective bargaining, or both.
Either scenario (and, in this political climate, we can hazard a guess as to which is more likely) would raise prices. So it makes sense to ask: What happens when labor prices increase? What if we raise pay from the current rates — about $12 an hour — to, say, the minimum wage that many are advocating, $15 an hour?
I checked in with a few agricultural economists — Jayson Lusk at Oklahoma State University, Philip Martin at the University of California at Davis, and a USDA economist who spoke on the condition of anonymity because public statements would require agency authorization — to understand how that change would reverberate through the food supply.
A wage increase will mostly affect fruits and vegetables, because commodity crops — corn, soy, wheat, cotton, and others — are highly mechanized, so most of the work is done by machines. With produce, about a quarter of every dollar we spend at the supermarket goes to the farmer. A third of that quarter — about 8 cents of your produce dollar — goes to the farmworker.
If wages increased 25 percent (from $12 to $15), and that cost were passed on to us, produce prices would rise 2 to 3 percent. The yearly impact would be in the range of $30 per household, certainly affordable for many but not for all.
But would the costs get passed on to us? It's a critical question, and it's hard to answer. Small increases might, but the supply chain might also respond in other ways. Martin told me in an email that “historically, rising ag wages led to labor-saving mechanization or imports, and food cost as a share of household spending has been falling.” If that's what happens, you won't see that increase in the grocery store because either farmers invest in machinery to reduce labor costs or the supply chain turns to imports. That means smaller farmers, without the economies of scale to support mechanization, are going to have the hardest time.
The larger the increase, the greater the likelihood that the supply chain looks elsewhere, the larger the threat to farms and farmworkers. Everyone I've spoken to on this issue wants to see a system that allows for workers to come here to make sure our crops make it out of the field and into the stores. If we don't have these workers, we risk food rotting in fields and farmers on the margins going out of business. Nobody wants to see an immigration crackdown that leads to that.
But what about the supportive scenario, an across-the-board increase in farmworker wages? If that cost gets passed along, it would increase produce prices commensurately, and making the most healthful foods in our diet even a little more expensive is tough on the consumers least able to afford them. (Although Salvador points out that, if those consumers also earned $15 an hour, we might not have that problem.) If it makes the supply chain look elsewhere for green beans, it could jeopardize the livelihood of farmers and farmworkers alike.
I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford fresh vegetables, and I'm willing to pay more to make sure everyone along the way lives decently. But I also want to safeguard the spinach for our most vulnerable. There's no easy answer.
In order for farmworkers to be paid wages that make it viable to support a family, American produce buyers have to ask what they're willing to pay. While many lower-income consumers have trouble affording fresh produce even at the current levels, higher-income buyers may be willing to pay slightly more. Americans are paying more attention to our food's provenance, and pressure for more attention to animal welfare and environmental responsibility is forcing change throughout the food chain. If we want farmworkers to live decently, it is us, the eaters, who need to pay.
Source: Published originally on The Washington Post, Illegal immigrants help fuel U.S. farms. Does affordable produce depend on them?, by Tamar Haspel, March 17, 2017.
UCLA leads nationwide, multiracial survey of attitudes about politics and policy
More than 10,000 adults offered their thoughts on health care reform, immigration, climate change and other issues.
To capture a demographically and geographically diverse snapshot of the electorate, the survey queried more than 10,000 people and was conducted in five languages.
Initial findings from a UCLA-led nationwide survey of more than 10,000 adults reveal some of the differences and similarities among whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians when it comes to the White House agenda on immigration, taxes and health care reform.
Survey results showed significant differences in support toward both improving the Affordable Care Act and federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid and health services. Majorities from all groups — 77 percent of black respondents, 70 percent of Latinos, 68 percent of Asian respondents and 54 percent of white respondents — said they think that Obamacare should be amended and improved, not repealed. And while 57 percent of white respondents supported increasing spending for Medicaid and Medicare, the numbers were higher for all other groups — for Asians it was 60 percent, and 68 percent for Latinos and 76 percent for blacks.
UCLA political scientist professors Matt Barreto and Lorrie Frasure-Yokley served as co-principal investigators with Janelle Wong, professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland and Edward Vargas, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
“With this data, we can better understand how racial and ethnic groups differ in their views toward today's most pressing political and policy issues,” Frasure-Yokley said.
The survey asked people in the four groups their opinions about the 2016 election and ongoing public policy issues that also included climate change, federal spending, policing, racial equality and more.
To capture a demographically and geographically diverse snapshot of the electorate, the 2016 “Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Survey” queried more than 10,000 people and was conducted in five languages — English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese. To include the most comprehensive list of electoral, civic and policy-related survey questions, 86 researchers from 55 colleges and universities contributed questions. A full list of collaborators and access to topline results is available at Latino Decisions, the political opinion research firm that led the data-gathering effort.
In spring 2016, with the presidential primaries in full swing, the co-principal investigators began building a national cooperative of scholars in the social sciences whose research interests focus on the study of U.S. racial and ethnic politics. With its collaborative focus, the CMPS also contributes to building an academic pipeline of scholars in the social sciences, by bringing together a multidisciplinary group of researchers at varying stages of their careers, Frasure-Yokley said.
Majorities of respondents across all groups surveyed said they believe that taxes on the rich should be increased to give the middle class a tax break — 73 percent of all black, Latino and Asian respondents agreed with this sentiment, and 63 percent of white respondents did as well.
“While there was dovetailing agreement on many pressing issues, we see that race still matters in America,” Frasure-Yokley said.
Strong majorities from all racial groups surveyed favor a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants — 76 percent of black respondents, 81 percent of Latino, 69 percent of Asian and 71 percent of whites. Yet whites were much more likely than other racial groups to support deporting of undocumented immigrants. However, even in that case, less than one out of three whites said they supported deportation. Whites are the only group in which a majority supported increased public spending on border security and police.
Less than a quarter of Latino, white and Asian respondents agreed that there should be a constitutional ban on gay marriage. Slightly more —27 percent — of black respondents favored such a ban. Unusually, in response to this statement about a third of respondents in each group neither agreed nor disagreed.
Black and Latino respondents were the strongest supporters of increased spending on public education at 80 and 70 percent, respectively. Sixty-one percent of whites favored increased education spending and 66 percent of Asians.
“As academics and analysts we have a responsibility to help bring to light information that will aid in policy decision-making,” said Barreto, who is co-founder of Latino Decisions.
Participating scholars, which includes junior and senior faculty as well as graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, will convene to share findings during a conference this summer at UCLA. All who provided content and financial backing for the survey received access to responses from the complete set of 394 questions.
“One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that it is truly collaborative from across the country,” Barreto said. Frasure-Yokley and Barreto also were part of teams that conducted smaller post-election multi-ethnic surveys after the 2008 and 2012 elections. “Bringing a diversity of views and voices to the project greatly improved the topics and content we covered.”
Of those surveyed, 60 percent were registered voters. Of those voters, 92 percent of black respondents voted for Hillary Clinton and 5 percent for Donald Trump. For Latinos, 77 percent said they voted for Clinton and 19 percent voted for Trump. Asian respondents voted 73 percent for Clinton versus 22 percent for Trump. And 37 percent of white respondents voted for Clinton and 57 percent for Trump.
Attitudes were split on climate change. Only 49 percent of white respondents said the federal government should pass laws to combat climate change, compared to 69 percent of Asians, 65 percent of Latinos and 62 percent of black respondents.
Personal experiences with discrimination also varied widely, as did feelings about Black Lives Matter. Nearly two thirds of blacks support activism by the Black Lives Matter movement, along with nearly half of all Latinos and nearly 40 percent of Asians. Thirty-seven percent and 42 percent of Latinos and Asians, respectively, neither support nor oppose the movement's activism. On the other hand, 44 percent of white respondents oppose such activism.
The cooperative survey was self-funded through the purchase of question content by contributors. The survey is among the first to use an online platform in combination with web-based random sampling directly from the voter registration rolls. It included video and audio stimuli and split-sample experimentation in question wording, consistent with the latest methods and approaches in survey research. After collecting all responses, researchers weighted the final data with a standard model to bring it in matching balance with the 2015 U.S. Census demographics for each racial group.
Source: Published originally on UCLA Newsroom. UCLA leads nationwide, multiracial survey of attitudes about politics and policy, by Jessica Wolf, March 10, 2017.