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Immigrants: Then and Now

Prior to the economic crash almost two years ago, immigrants made up
nearly 16 percent of the US civilian workforce. That’s one of the facts
reported in an electronic portal sponsored by the Migration Policy
Institute (MPI). A tool for digging up statistics, the MPI site could be a
very useful resource in helping gauge the impact of the economic disaster
on immigrant workers once final 2010 Census numbers are released and
analyzed.

A non-profit, Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the MPI provides news and
analysis on migration trends, policies and developments in the United
States and other parts of the world.

According to the MPI, the overall US immigrant population registered
impressive growth between 2000 and 2008, increasing from 31,107,889 people
at the beginning of the decade to 37,960,935 eight years later.

More than half of the immigrant population came from Latin America (53
percent), with nearly two-thirds of all immigrants, or 30.1 percent,
tracing their origins to Mexico.

A new study released by another Washington, D.C. based think tank, the
Center for American Progress, reported that 14 states now have
foreign-born populations higher than the national average share of 12.5
percent. The study was authored by Dowell Myers and John Pitkin of the
University of Southern California’s Population Dynamics Group.

The percentage of the US workforce consisting of immigrants rose sharply
during the last 40 years, leaping from 5.3 percent of the total in 1970 to
15.8 percent in 2008.  A tad higher than their representation as a share
of the total immigrant population, Latin America-born workers accounted
for 55.2 percent of all immigrant workers in the US two years ago.

According to the Center for American Progress, the American Dream of home
ownership is readily visible among the new immigrant population, with 58
percent of Latino immigrants owning a home after 18 years of residence in
this country.

The geographic presence of immigrant workers remained much greater in some
areas than others. In 2008, more than one-third of California’s labor
force, or 34.6 percent of the total, was made up of immigrants. On the
other hand, non-native workers accounted for just 1.6 percent of West
Virginia’s workers.

New Mexico was about in the middle of the national graph. In 2008,
immigrant workers made up 12.2 percent of the workforce, with almost half
of the workers (48.3 percent) not holding a high school degree. The total
number of immigrant workers in the Land of Enchantment rose from 66,549 in
2000 to 110,293 in 2008. Most were employed in the construction and
service industries.

Since New Mexico is a border state, it’s not surprising that 78.7 percent
of immigrant workers were born in Latin America- the vast majority of them
in Mexico. However, noticeable  numbers of immigrant workers also came
from Asia (10.9 percent) and Europe (6.8 percent), while smaller numbers
were from Africa (1.1 percent) and Oceania (0.5 percent).

Readers interested in the immigrant presence in other states can check the
MPI’s website for snapshots.

Sources: Migrationpolicy.org.  Center for American Progress, September 1,
2010. Press release. El Diario de Juarez, August 30, 2010.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico

For a free electronic subscription email: fnsnews@nmsu.edu

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