Is taking a look at how immigrants are being integrated into our communities.
Immigration rates into the U.S. are actually going down. In the 100 largest metro areas, between 2000 to 2010, immigration is actually down.
What most people know about immigration is wrong. When you talk about immigration reform, people tend to think legal or illegal. When you talk about human rights, you assume we have a human rights tradition in the U.S. We have a civil rights tradition in the U.S. We are talking about immigration integration.
Immigration integration, it’s the right time. While there is some growth in immigration in rest of the U.S., growth is actually slowing down in California. We are becoming a more homegrown native population. We do not have to worry about immigrant flow, but how to deal with immigrants who are here. For California, more than 70 percent of the immigration population has been here more than 10 years. The only state with more settled immigrant population is Vermont. Immigrants are a very settle population. They are not going any where.
It’s the right thing: There’s a lot of discussion that immigration is bad for the economy. That is very much wrong, economics from right and left agree that immigrants in general help the economy grow. High rates of entrepreneurship, self employment, and higher rates of labor force attachment.
Are some negative impacts, competitive effects, butt most if it seems to complementary.
It’s the right thing because our economic future depends on it. About one quarter of California are immigrants. At least 50 percent of children in California have at least of one immigrant parents. Our future depends on immigrants and their children.
While many in the political sphere are worried about browning of America, demographers are much more more about graying of America, an aging population.
Their income tends to go up overtime.
Defining and measuring immigrant integration: Improved economic mobility, enhanced civic participation and receiving society openness.
Immigrants come in poor, at bottom of economics ladder, but they expect they will move up.
When there’s more of one population, it’s more racial. Where there’s are more recent arrivals, that’s where the politics are hotter.
The scorecard tracked six cohorts and their economic trajectory. He and his fellow researchers are measuring communities’ warmth. Among the least hospitable found by the scorecard are Fresno and California’s central valley.
Ranked by the scorecard from top to bottom:
1. Santa Clara
2. East bay
3. San Diego
4. Sacramento
5. Orange
6. San Francisco
7. Inland Empire
8. Los Angeles
9. San Joaquin Valley
10. Fresno.
Santa Clara County, immigrants are diverse and attached to Silicon Valley high-tech industry. But it’s not just the immigrants, it’s the region. Labor, business and other groups used tobacco money to help every undocumented child. They created an office of immigrant services, and are working with labor groups to report on immigrants in the Valley. It’s not the immigrants, it’s the infrastructure.
Every region has best practices.
There should be a statewide agenda targeting education, English-language learning, credentialing, health care access and targeted investments in the community.
When you give poor people money, they do well.
If we want to see improvement in immigrant integration, we need to define it and measure it. We need to set a tone, a table we can invite folks to and then we need to set a template for moving forward. We need to do this to reflect our best values as a nation.