Immigrant Women in the United States

Introduction:

Following a history of majority male migration through the mid-20th century, women have migrated to the United States in large numbers as a result of the emphasis on family reunification ushered in by the 1965 Immigration Act. Female immigrants represent 51 percent of the overall foreign-born population, with 21.2 million immigrant women residing in the United States in 2013, out of a total immigrant population of 41.3 million. The female share of the immigrant population is higher in the United States than it is globally, where about 48 percent of the international migrant stock is female (see Figure 1). Even as female migration has increased globally since 1980, the share in the United States—the world’s top immigrant destination—has decreased slightly from 53 percent in 1980 to around 51 percent in 2013.

Source: Migration Policy Institute

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Lessons from the Local Level: DACA's Implementation and Impact on Education and Training Success

Since its launch in 2012, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program has brought together immigration policy and the education and career-training fields in an unprecedented manner. Applicants for DACA must meet the program's educational requirements in order to qualify for relief from deportation and work authorization, relying on schools to furnish transcripts as evidence. For those who lack a high school diploma or equivalent, DACA carves out a role for adult education programs to help unauthorized immigrants meet the educational requirements to qualify for protection. And schools at K-12, adult education, and postsecondary levels have played an important role in outreach and sharing of information about DACA. Furthermore, college completion is particularly important for this group, as future DREAM Act-type legislation could be predicated on a postsecondary education requirement.

This report examines the ways in which local educational institutions, legal service providers, and immigrant youth advocates have responded to the first phase of DACA. Based on extensive interviews with stakeholders in seven states—California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Texas—the report identifies initiatives undertaken by educational institutions and other community stakeholders to support DACA youth’s education and training success, and examine the impact of deferred action on grantees’ academic and career pursuits. It provides examples of promising practices, additional challenges, and key takeaways at the high school, postsecondary, and adult education levels, as well as an exploration of the nature and scope of DACA legal outreach initiatives.

Source: Migration Policy Institute

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Migration of Professionals to the U.S.; Evidence from LinkedIn data

We investigate trends in the international migration of professional workers by analyzing a dataset of millions of geolocated career histories provided by LinkedIn, the largest online platform for professionals. The new dataset confirms that the United States is, in absolute terms, the top destination for international migrants. However, we observe a decrease, from 2000 to 2012, in the percentage of professional migrants, worldwide, who have the United States as their country of destination. The pattern holds for persons with Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD degrees alike, and for individuals with degrees from highly-ranked worldwide universities. Our analysis also reveals the growth of Asia as a major professional migration destination during the past twelve years. Although we see a decline in the share of employment-based migrants going to the United States, our results show a recent rebound in the percentage of international students who choose the United States as their destination.

Source: LinkedIn

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Unauthorized Immigrant Totals Rise in 7 States, Fall in 14

From the overview:

The U.S. unauthorized immigrant population has leveled off nationally after the Great Recession, but state trends have been more volatile. From 2009 to 2012, according to new Pew Research Center estimates, the population of unauthorized immigrants rose in seven states and fell in 14.

 Five East Coast states were among those where the number of unauthorized immigrants grew from 2009 to 2012—Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Numbers also rose in Idaho and Nebraska, according to the center’s estimates.

Source: Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project

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Latino and Asian American Attitudes Toward the Building Blocks of Comprehensive Immigration Reform

From the abstract:

This paper speaks to three sets of scholarly questions.  First, I analyze the predictors of attitudes toward immigration policies in the contemporary debate among Latinos and Asian Americans.  Second, I assess whether there are predictable differences in these attitudes across immigrant generations.  Finally, I compare Latino and Asian American attitudes.

Source: Center for the Study of Democracy, UC Irvine [via eScholarship Repository]

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Immigration and New York City: The Contributions of Foreign-Born Americans to New York's Renaissance, 1975–2013

Introduction:

This Americas Society/Council of the Americas report shows how immigration has helped revitalize New York City since the mid-1970s by making communities safer, increasing public revenue, and boosting the city’s population.

The data shows that immigration has reduced New York City’s crime rate by up to two-thirds over the last two decades, increased the city’s housing wealth by $188 billion since 1980, and significantly contributed to the city’s population growth, thereby helping the local economy to thrive and remain strong.

Using U.S. Census and American Community Survey data, Immigration and New York City: The Contributions of Foreign-Born Americans to New York’s Renaissance, 1975–2013 quantifies the impact immigrants have had on the quality of life of New York’s 8.2 million residents, providing a socioeconomic boost to areas that might otherwise have seen high vacancy rates, abandoned housing, and little economic opportunity.

• Download the PDF of the report.
• Read Wall Street Journal coverage of the report.

Skilled Immigration and the Employment Structures of US Firms

From the Executive Summary:

The immigration of skilled workers is of deep importance to the United States, particularly in occupations closely linked to innovation and technology commercialization. Appropriate policies and admissions levels for skilled workers remain bitterly debated in the popular press. The authors analyze how the hiring of skilled immigrants affects the employment structures of US firms. This focus on the firm is both rare and important, since economists typically study immigration through the conceptual framework of shifts in the supply of workers to a labor market; yet substantial portions of the US immigration framework have been designed to allow American firms to choose the immigrants that they want to hire. Young workers account for a large portion of such skilled immigrants; for example, 90 percent of H-1B workers are under the age of 40. Given this context, the authors look specifically at the role of young skilled immigrants within more than 300 large employers and major patenting firms over the 1995-2008 period.

Source: Harvard Business School Working Papers  [via SSRN]

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On Immigration Policy, Deportation Relief Seen As More Important Than Citizenship

A Survey of Hispanics and Asian Americans

From the Overview:

While lopsided majorities of Hispanics and Asian Americans support creating a pathway to citizenship for unauthorized immigrants, two new surveys from the Pew Research Center also show that these groups believe it is more important for unauthorized immigrants to get relief from the threat of deportation.

By 55% to 35%, Hispanics say that they think being able to live and work in the United States legally without the threat of deportation is more important for unauthorized immigrants than a pathway to citizenship. Asian Americans hold a similar view, albeit by a smaller margin—49% to 44%.

Together Hispanics and Asian Americans account for two-thirds of the 28 million immigrants who are in the U.S. legally,¹ and Hispanics alone account for about three-quarters of the additional 11.7 million immigrants who, according to Pew Research Center estimates, are in the country illegally.

Source: Pew Research Center

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Skilled Immigrants in the Global Economy: Prospects for International Cooperation on Recognition of Foreign Qualifications

Abstract:

Skilled migration is an important resource for governments seeking to build their country’s human-capital base and make the most of global trade and investment opportunities. In many cases, however, migrant professionals face barriers transferring their skills and experiences across borders — with professional regulation one such barrier. Mutual recognition agreements that set out clear rules for licensing practitioners who move between signatory countries represents one solution. But reaching agreement on mutual recognition is no easy feat. Overall, as this report explores, the challenge for policymakers is to determine how governments can get more out of MRAs than they have done to date.

Source: Migration Policy Institute

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Intergenerational Mobility among Immigrants and their Descendents

From the abstract:

...provides an overview of the intergenerational progress of several major immigrant groups in the United States. Drawing on the most recent issues of the CPS, we provide estimates of poverty rates, educational attainment, and occupational attainment among the native born children of immigrants and compare these outcomes to similar estimates of the foreign born with the 1980 Census, allowing for a comparison across generations. We find improvement from the first to second generation for nearly every origin group. To more directly explore the transmission of socioeconomic status among immigrants, we directly link the parental and child outcomes of immigrants in Los Angeles, estimating the relationship between parents’ and children’s educational and occupational outcomes. We find considerable variation in the relationship between parent and child outcomes by origin group, although all immigrants show higher rates of intergenerational mobility than the children of the native born. Traditional assimilation models, as well as the alternative working class and selectivity hypotheses we pose here, do not fully explain these inter-ethnic differences.

Source: Program on International Migration, UCLA International Institute, UCLA

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Pew Report: Latinos’ Views of Illegal Immigration’s Impact on Their Community Improve

Overview:

Hispanics’ views of the impact of unauthorized immigration on the U.S. Hispanic community have grown more positive since 2010, according to a new nationwide survey of 5,103 Hispanic adults by the Pew Research Center.

Today, 45% of Hispanic adults say the impact of unauthorized immigration on Hispanics already living in the U.S. is positive, up 16 percentage points from 2010 when 29% said the same.

Views of unauthorized immigration’s impact have improved more among foreign-born Hispanics than native-born Hispanics. According to the new survey, half (53%) of Hispanic immigrants say the impact of unauthorized immigration on the U.S. Hispanic community is positive, up 19 percentage points from 2010 when 34% said the same. This compares with a 12 percentage point increase in the share of native-born Hispanics who say the same—from 24% in 2010 to 35% in 2013.

Source: Pew Research Center
Download full pdf report:  Pew Report: Latinos’ Views of Illegal Immigration’s Impact on Their Community Improve

Population Decline of Unauthorized Immigrants Stalls, May Have Reversed

From the overview:

The sharp decline in the U.S. population of unauthorized immigrants that accompanied the 2007-2009 recession has bottomed out, and the number may be rising again. As of March 2012, 11.7 million unauthorized immigrants were living in the United States, according to a new preliminary Pew Research Center estimate based on U.S. government data.

Source: Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project

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Immigration of Temporary Lower-Skilled Workers: Current Policy and Related Issues

U.S. employers in various industries argue that they need to hire foreign workers to perform lower-skilled jobs, while others maintain that many of these positions could be filled by U.S. workers. Under current law, certain lower-skilled foreign workers, sometimes referred to as guest workers, may be admitted to the United States to perform temporary service or labor under two temporary worker visas: the H-2A visa for agricultural workers and the H-2B visa for nonagricultural workers. Both programs are administered by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (DHS/USCIS) and the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (DOL/ETA).

Source: Congressional Research Service (via Federation of American Scientists)
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Making Legal: The Dream Act, Birthright Citizenship, and Broad-Scale Legalization.

Abstract: 

Some of the most controversial topics in immigration and citizenship law involve granting lawful immigration status—or citizenship itself—to persons who might otherwise be in the United States unlawfully. In this Article, I examine arguments for and against three ways to confer lawful status: (1) the DREAM Act, which would grant status to many unauthorized migrants who were brought to the United States as children; (2) the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, under which almost all children born on U.S. soil are U.S. citizens; and (3) broad-scale proposals to grant lawful immigration status to a substantial percentage of the current unauthorized population. I first explain how arguments both for and against the DREAM Act reflect some mix of fairness and pragmatism. Though birthright citizenship seems different from the DREAM Act, the arguments are similar. I next show that although children figure much more prominently in the DREAM Act and birthright citizenship, similar patterns of argument apply to broad–scale legalization, and the arguments in favor are just as strong. Finally, I explain that the “rule of law” is a highly malleable concept that provides no persuasive case against any of these ways to confer lawful immigration or citizenship status. Rule of law arguments in favor of conferring status are stronger than rule of law arguments against doing so.

Source: (2013). UC Los Angeles: UCLA School of Law. Author: Motomura, Hiroshi. Retrieved from: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7wv3v5z5

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“Open For Business: How Immigrants Are Driving Small Business Creation In The United States”

The Partnership for a New American Economy has released the following report.

“Open For Business: How Immigrants Are Driving Small Business Creation In The United States” analyzes the increasing importance of foreign-born entrepreneurs on U.S. economic growth and job creation. Picking up and moving to another country is brave and risky, so perhaps it is not surprising that immigrants are venturing out and starting new businesses at a rate that far outpaces their share of the population. From local neighborhood shops to America’s largest companies, immigrant business owners contribute more than $775 billion dollars in revenue to our annual Gross Domestic Product and employ one out of every ten American workers at privately-owned companies across the country.

The report is available for download in pdf format “Open For Business: How Immigrants Are Driving Small Business Creation In The United States”