Immigration News: July, 2005 - Volume 12

States, Census, Health

California/Los Angeles. California added 539,000 residents in 2004, bringing its population to 36.8 million. Immigration is slowing, and so is internal migration: in 2004, the state gained 227,000 residents via immigration and 55,000 via net domestic migration. In 1990, the state had 29.6 million residents, and is projected to have 46 million in 2030. By 2030, a quarter of Americans are projected to be in California, Texas and Florida.

About 46 percent of California births, and 23 percent of US births, were to foreign-born mothers in 2002. About 40 percent of these immigrant mothers did not complete high school.

In Los Angeles, Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa defeated incumbent Mayor James Hahn to become the city's first Hispanic mayor since 1872, when Los Angeles had 5,000 residents. The 445,000 voters in the city of four million embraced the promise of fixing gridlock and dealing with gangs and failing schools, reversing a 2001 vote that Hahn won. Only 31 percent of the 1.5 million registered voters cast ballots. Latinos, who are almost half of the city's residents, cast an estimated 25 percent of the vote, up sharply from 10 percent in 1993; 84 percent of Latinos who voted voted for Villaraigosa.

Los Angeles approved a living wage ordinance in 1997 that immediately raised wages by $1.50 an hour, 20 percent, for the 8,000 workers employed by private businesses operating on city-owned land, such as at the airport. A June 2005 study concluded that only about 100 jobs were lost as a result of the wage increase, and that most employers dealt with the wage increase by hiring more productive workers. They had less turnover, which saved employers money and kept them competitive. Workers affected by the wage ordinance were mostly adults with a high-school education or less.

The Mennonite Church USA is expanding among Asian and Latino immigrants in southern California and the Central Valley. With one million members globally, 20 percent in the US, the church, which stresses pacifism, social justice and charity, is very small. Its origins can be traced to the Dutch priest Menno Simons and the Anabaptists, Christians who believed in adult rather than infant baptism. The Amish split from the Mennonites in the 1700 because they believed that Mennonites were too involved in the world.

Arizona. Immigration was a major issue in Spring 2005. Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano vetoed a bill in May 2005 that would have prohibited illegal migrants from receiving child-care assistance and paying cheaper in-state tuition status at public universities. She vetoed another bill that would have given police the power to enforce federal immigration laws. Napolitano signed into law a bill that barred local governments from spending taxpayer money for day labor centers.

Census. The US had 294 million residents in July 2004, including 41 million self-designated Hispanics, a third of whom are under 18 and half of whom are under 27; 20 percent of those under 18 in the US are Hispanic. Hispanics accounted for half of US population growth since 2000, largely because of births to Hispanic women in the US. As a result, observers say that issues involving children and schools are likely to be most important to Hispanics.

Immigrants over 40 in the US are mostly white, while those under 40 are mostly Hispanic and Asian.

The Census reported that New York City, with 8.1 million residents, was the largest US city, followed by Los Angeles with 3.8 million. Detroit, the nation's fourth largest city in 1950, slipped to number 11 in 2005, replaced by San Jose, California. However, the Detroit metro area, with 5.5 million residents, remains the eighth largest in the US.

An estimated four million Americans live abroad, including one million in Mexico; 688,000 in Canada; 224,000 in the UK; and 211,000 in Germany.

The US had 50 million K-12 students in 2003, matching the previous peak in 1970. Some 22 percent of 2003 students had a at least one foreign-born parent.

The Center for Immigration Studies estimated that 23 percent of all births in 2002 were to immigrant mothers, including 10 percent to unauthorized mothers. Almost half of the immigrant mothers were born in Mexico.

Health. The Bush administration in May 2005 announced that it would provide $1 billion over the next 2.5 years to reimburse hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants. To get reimbursed, hospitals are supposed to ask patients for certain documents to substantiate claims for payment without directly asking their legal status: "In no circumstances are hospitals required to ask people about their citizenship status."

There were immediate complaints that the federal reimbursement was too little. California, for example, said it spent $500 million a year on emergency health care for illegal migrants, and was slated to receive $71 million.

There are about 45 million US residents without health insurance. A quarter of them are immigrants, and 60 percent of foreign-born Hispanics were uninsured in 2003. California has about 3.2 million uninsured immigrants, and they are about half of the uninsured in California.

Nancy Cleeland, "Study Gauges Effect of Living Wage Law," Los Angeles Times, June 2, 2005. Gordon, Suzanne. 2005. Nursing Against the Odds: How Health Care Cost Cutting, Media Stereotypes and Medical Hubris Undermine Nurses and Patient Care. Cornell University Press.