U.S. Immigrant Level at Highest Peak Since '30s

By HEATHER KNIGHT

April 9, 1997 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

WASHINGTON —

Nearly one in 10 people living in the United States are foreign-born, the country’s highest percentage of immigrants since the 1930s, according to a new Census Bureau report.

California--by far the state with the largest immigrant population--contains 8 million foreign-born, one-quarter of its population, the bureau said. That represents the highest figure for this century, as well as an almost threefold increase from the percentage in 1970.

The census report, which makes no distinction between legal and illegal immigrants, confirms the long-held image of newcomers pulling themselves up from economic hardship over time. Though large numbers of immigrants initially suffer from poverty and unemployment, those who arrived in the 1970s are now as financially stable as natives, the study found.

Nor is the unemployment rate inordinately high among immigrants. Just under 5% of the foreign-born were out of work when the census survey was conducted in March 1996, compared to slightly under 4% among the native-born population.

The report offers vivid evidence of the changing origins of the nation’s latest immigration wave. More than one-quarter were born in Mexico (27%), 12% came from other parts of Central America or South America, and 27% came from Asia. By contrast, as recently as the 1950s three-quarters of U.S. immigrants came from either Europe or Canada.

California remains the pacesetter for this trend. Among its total immigrant population, 42% come from Mexico and 9% from other Central American countries (with more than half of these coming from El Salvador). Asian countries account for 33% of the state’s immigrants (of these, 25% come from the Philippines, 13% from Vietnam and 9% from Korea).

The new report comes at a time when large-scale immigration has raised concerns among many native-born Americans. Proposals surfaced in Congress last year to limit legal immigration, although those efforts eventually were defeated. Also, the new welfare reform legislation signed by President Clinton last year severely restricted the public benefits available to noncitizens. As the debate continues over such issues, the Census Bureau has begun more frequent data collection about the immigrant population.

“There’s a lot of interest in immigration at the current time,” said Kristin A. Hansen, a census researcher who authored the new report. “We needed to have some data so people can make decisions based on fact rather than anecdotal evidence.”

According to the report:

* The foreign-born make up 9.3% of the U.S. population, a dramatic increase from the 4.8% figure in 1970 but still below the peak of about 15% during the great migrations early this century. In raw numbers, 24,557,000 U.S. residents are foreign-born.

* Overall, 32.2% of the foreign-born have become citizens. That percentage rises with length of stay, in part because immigrants must be residents for at least five years to apply for citizenship.

* Latinos, who can be of any race, accounted for 40% of the nation’s immigrant population. By race, 68% of the immigrants were white, 24% were Asian and Pacific Islander, 8% were black.

* Foreign-born people are just as likely as those born in this country to obtain college degrees--the figure for both groups among those at least 25 years old is about 24%.

* But immigrants also are much less likely to have high school diplomas--among the native-born population, 84% of those over 25 have diplomas; among immigrants, the figure drops to 64.4%.

* Of the immigrant population, 5.8% receive cash income from welfare programs, compared with 4.5% of those born in this country.

* Immigrants who arrived here in the 1970s have a 1995 median annual income of $17,403; the figure for those born here is $17,835. The median annual income for immigrants who came to the United States since 1990 is $10,875.

* The poverty rate for immigrants was 22.2%, compared with 12.9% for the American-born. Not surprisingly, pro- and anti-immigration advocacy groups focused on different findings in the report.

For Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the relatively high level of poverty among immigrants causes concern. He said immigrants are admitted to the United States largely based on familial ties to a U.S. citizen, regardless of their job skills, leading, therefore, to the high levels of poverty among newcomers.

Mehlman’s group supports much stricter limits on who is permitted into the country, arguing that the emphasis should be on those who can bring needed skills. “Any immigration policy that is not designed to serve the interests of the nation is going to have consequences for the nation,” Mehlman said. “We are going to see increases in poverty, crime, social divisions and schools that can’t keep up with the burden.”

Frank Sharry, executive director for the National Immigration Forum, said that looking at the poverty among new immigrants, rather than how they improve their economic conditions over time, is unfair.

“The weaknesses of many studies that look at immigration earnings is that they are snapshots,” Sharry said. “When you take a moving picture of how people move up the ladder, then you really capture the immigrant experience. It’s a phenomenal situation that should make America proud of the contributions immigrants make.”

Throughout the country’s history, immigration has ebbed and flowed. During the last part of the 19th century and into the 20th century, the immigrant portion of the population ranged from 13% to 15%. Laws enacted in the 1920s severely reduced immigration by installing a quota system, favoring groups that already were well-represented. Immigration levels shrank steadily, reaching a low point for the century in 1970.

A 1965 law loosened immigration policies, allowing those with close relatives in the United States or with job skills to enter. That law, and significant increases in the numbers of illegal immigrants, have sparked the ongoing immigration surge of recent decades.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Destination: California

Immigration to California has surpassed the levels of the early part of the 20th century, and now one in four residents is foreign born.

Percent of California population that is foreign born.

1915: 22.9%

1996: 25.1%

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Comparing states

Percent of the U.S. population who were foreign born, by state, 1996

California: 25.1%

New York: 17.7%

Hawaii: 16.6%