Immigration Laws: January, 2004 - Number #07

The US had 291 million residents on July 1, 2003, and is projected to have 300 million by 2007. Nevada was the fastest-growing state in 2002-03, adding 74,000 people or 3.4 percent to its population. California had 35.5 million people in 2003; Texas, 22.1 million; and New York, 19.2 million.

The US had 33 million foreign-born residents in 2002; the foreign-born were 27 percent of California residents; 21 percent of New York residents; 19 percent of New Jersey residents; and 18 percent of residents in Florida and Hawaii. Miami-Dade county had the highest percentage of foreign-born residents, 51 percent. Large US cities with the highest shares of foreign-born residents include Hialeah, Florida and Miami, with an estimated 72 percent and 60 percent of residents born abroad, followed by Glendale, California, 54 percent and Santa Ana, 53 percent. The US Hispanic population is expected to reach 60 million by 2020, largely because of immigration, which would bring the Hispanic labor force to 29 million.

Miami is the US city that has probably been most changed by immigration in the past 40 years. Immigrant integration in Miami was different because Cubans were able to gain economic and political power relatively quickly without "becoming Americans," according to a new book, "This Land is Our Land: Immigrants and Power" by Alex Stepick.

Licenses. California repealed its law granting driver's licenses to unauthorized foreigners in December 2003, heading off a referendum that, polls suggested, would also have resulted in voters repealing SB 60, which ex-Democratic Gov. Gray Davis signed into law in September 2003, after vetoing similar legislation in the two preceding years. Davis was recalled, but newly elected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger promised to reconsider the bill in 2004 if it has safeguards to prevent criminal foreigners from receiving licenses.

Advocacy groups urged unauthorized foreigners and their supporters not to work or spend money on Friday, December 12, 2003 to demonstrate their economic importance to California. There was little impact in the workplace or economy, but some schools in heavily Latino districts reported that many students cut classes. There are an estimated 400,000 unauthorized K-12 pupils in California in 2003-04, and their education costs about $7,000 each. There are also 84,000 US citizen child-only welfare cases in the state, so that US-born children receive cash benefits although their unauthorized parents do not.

In California, some 477,500 families received cash welfare checks in September 2003, down slightly from 2002. About 15,800 welfare recipients reached their five-year lifetime benefit limit in January 2003, and about 3,000 a month have been dropped from the rolls. In California, cash aid for poor children continues until they reach 18; only the adult share of cash aid, which is typically $704 a month for a mother with two children, stops when time limits are reached. Some of those losing the adult share of cash assistance are large Vietnamese families with one minimum wage earner.

California faces a budget deficit of $20 billion in a $100 billion budget, prompting more proposed cuts in health and human services, whose $23 billion accounts for a third of the state's $71 billion in general fund spending. California funds items that the federal government considers optional under Medicaid (Medi-Cal), such as drugs for the mentally ill, and there is pressure to reduce state costs and federal reimbursement by limiting coverage.

Poverty. In his first State of the Union address in 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared "unconditional war on poverty in America." The War on Poverty included expansions of cash payments under Social Security and Aid to Families With Dependent Children, as well as new programs such as Medicare and Medicaid as well as Head Start.

In 1963, about 20 percent of Americans were poor; by 1973, only 11 percent were poor, and the poverty rate has remained in the 11-12 percent range since then, with differences between age groups. For example, the poverty rate among those 65 and older fell from 30 percent in 1963 to 16 percent in 1973 to 10 percent in 2002, while the poverty rate for children under 18 was 23 percent in 1963, 14 percent in 1973, but then hovered around 20 percent during the 1980s and 1990s. [The poverty line of $14,348 for a family of three in 2003 excludes the payments under the earned-income tax credit and the value of Medicaid health benefits for poor residents.]

One reason for rising child poverty is immigration--immigrants have a higher poverty rate. The percentage of all those in poverty who are immigrants increased from 10 percent in 1979 to 20 percent in 1998.

Beginning on October 1, 2003, legal immigrant children, regardless of when they arrived in the US, will be eligible for food stamps, making an estimated 60,000 US children eligible for federal government coupons that can be used to purchase food if they live in families with incomes under $2,000 a month for a family of four.