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Immigration 2009 There are few topics in the United States which are as contentious as immigration and few that are as poorly understood by the general population. The United States is currently experiencing an immigrant wave that rivals those of the 19th and 20th Centuries in size and duration. Unfortunately, as in the past, immigrants experience many barriers to adapting to American society including language and cultural differences. We are beginning to hear talk of comprehensive immigration reform in the press and while many of us fully support immigration reform that deals humanely with the 11 million undocumented workers who are here and are actively advocating for it, many others will not be satisfied with anything short of mass deportation of all the undocumented. This latter group were able to derail the 2007 attempts at reform . Even as the Obama Administration brings hope of reform of our very broken system of immigration, civil rights and community groups across the country denounce Obama’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano’s plans to expand the highly criticized 287(g) program to eleven new jurisdictions around the country. The program, authorized in 1996 and widely implemented under the Bush Administration, relinquishes, with no meaningful oversight, immigration enforcement power to local law enforcement and corrections agencies. Since its inception the program has drawn sharp criticism from federal officials, law enforcement, advocates and local community groups. A February 2009 report by Justice Strategies, a nonpartisan research firm, found widespread use of pretextual traffic stops, racially motivated questioning, and unconstitutional searches and seizures by local law enforcement agencies granted 287(g) powers. This is happening here in Philadelphia even as the Police Department insists that no such orders have been given. Who is coming to Philadelphia? In the years after World War 11, two groups moved to the city and suburbs in increasing numbers: African Americans and Puerto Ricans arriving from the island. The Hart-Cellar Act of 1965 sparked an increase in “new immigrants” to the United States but Philadelphia and its surrounding suburbs was rarely their destination. The result of this pattern of immigration was that Philadelphia and Detroit were the only cities in the ”population top 10” cities to lose population in the 1990’s. This had a very negative economic impact on our city. Other cities like Boston, Chicago and New York experienced the same out migration of their U.S. born residents as Philadelphia did, but because they were attracting immigrants they were able to gain population, maintain their tax base and allocation of Federal dollars while Philadelphia did not. Since 2000, things have changed and we have begun to draw immigrants to the city and region. As detailed in the 2008 Brookings Institution report Recent Immigration to Philadelphia: Regional Change in a Re-Emerging Gateway, the Philadelphia region has become an immigrant gateway again. In fact, between 2000 and 2006, Greater Philadelphia’s immigrant population grew by 113,000, nearly as many as had arrived throughout the decade of the 1990s. These newcomers have already had a powerful influence on our city: Immigrants made up nearly 75% of the increase in the region’s workforce since 2000, and were it not for immigration, our population would have shrunk.
The demographics of immigration to Philadelphia have changed dramatically in the last 30-40 years (see graph above). Today, metropolitan Philadelphia has a diverse mix of immigrants and refugees from Asia (39 %), Latin America and the Caribbean (28 %), Europe (23 %) and Africa (8 %). Unlike other regions who receive large numbers of immigrants from one ethnicity or language group, our region mirrors the extraordinary diversity of the nation’s immigrant population, in terms of country of origin, socioeconomic class and job-skill level, and number of years in the U.S., all of which render sweeping generalizations about “immigrants” largely inaccurate. In fact, immigrants in our region possess many qualities of productive members of society. For example, immigrants in our region: ►
Are highly educated. In Metropolitan
Philadelphia, 37% have bachelors or graduate-level degrees, compared with 28%
of native-born Americans. ►
Are predominately working-age. The percentage of
native-born Pennsylvanians who are of working age is 56% while the percentage
of immigrants in Pennsylvania of working age 74%. ►
Speak English. Over three quarters (76%) of the immigrants
in our region have English language skills. This includes 22% who are native
English speakers, and an additional 54% who speak English “well” or “very
well.” ►
Are more entrepreneurial. In the U.S.,
immigrants are nearly 30% more likely to start a business than non-immigrants, and they represent over 16% of all new
business owners. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants enter the U.S. legally every year, and although many of them are skilled, they are frequently under employed, a situation that is doubly concerning: Immigrants who take jobs below their skill level earn less than they could, and businesses seeking skilled labor are not availing of a large and growing segment of their potential labor pool. Unfortunately, legal immigrants often find themselves facing unwelcoming attitudes based on persistent misconceptions about taking jobs and social services from native-born Americans. But in fact, far from being a strain on society, immigrants are positive contributors to a healthy regional economy. In a post-September 11th environment and a tight economic climate, it is not always easy for native born Americans to understand the importance of integrating immigrants into the labor force. There are several reasons that it is to native-born Americans’ benefit to do so:
When the economy struggles and jobs become more difficult to come by, the arguments against immigration become louder – particularly in regard to undocumented immigration. People will often tell how their grandparents came here, saying that they did it the “right way” and waited their turn. In fact prior to 1968, there were relatively few undocumented immigrants in the United States because our immigration laws were among the most liberal in the world. In 1968, Congress placed a ceiling on immigration from the Western hemisphere for the first time in United States history. They added a labor certification requirement to independent migration which would have kept out most of our grandparents had it been in effect when they came in. When people say that the undocumented should get in line to come here legally, they do not realize that for the unskilled or low-skilled worker without close family in the States, the current immigration laws effectively ensure that there is no line to get into at all. Current immigration quotas do not meet our market needs. The reality is that the Philadelphia region needs immigration. Our workforce is aging and our population is dwindling. Cities and states that have been strategic and welcoming in their approach to immigrants have enjoyed population growth, while those who do not have policies to attract and retain immigrants have bled people and jobs as the population has aged out, retired, or moved. We need to do a better job of integrating immigrants into our region and providing an atmosphere and opportunity for success. Our companies, our schools, our neighborhoods, our street corners, and our City stand to benefit from welcoming immigrants into our midst. It is our responsibility to make sure that our laws ensure the human rights of these newcomers. Anne O’Callaghan For information on immigration reform: www.immigrationforum.org For more detail of the demographics of the region: www.welcomingcenter.org |
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