View Research by Author - Jeffrey S. Passel

Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/JeffreySPassel

This report provides estimates on federal, state and local taxes paid by immigrant households in the Washington DC metropolitan region in 1999-2000. The region’s almost 1 million immigrant households comprised 21 percent of all households and had $29.5 billion in income, or 19 percent of the income of all households. Immigrant households paid $9.8 billion or 18 percent of the region’s total taxes, even though they had lower incomes on average than non-immigrant households ($78,000 versus $88,000). They contributed almost a quarter of the local taxes collected in the region’s two largest jurisdictions: Montgomery County, MD, and Fairfax County, VA.

U.S. schools are experiencing rapid demographic change due to high levels of immigration, while they at the same time they are implementing the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act. NCLB holds schools accountable for the performance of limited English proficient (LEP) children and other groups that include many children of immigrants. This report describes the demographics of children of immigrants, and the considerable overlap among NCLB's protected groups: LEPs, low-income students, blacks, Hispanics and Asians. The report describes variations in characteristics among children with parents born in different countries, and discusses implications for NCLB implementation in high-LEP schools and districts. [View the corresponding press release]

There are 5.1 million young children of immigrants, representing 22 percent of all U.S. children under age 6. While 93 percent of these children are U.S.-born citizens, 29 percent have undocumented parents. Young children of immigrants with two parents are three times as likely to be poor as children of natives, and so marriage is not an antidote to poverty for these children. Despite higher economic hardship, young children of immigrants are less likely than native counterparts to receive TANF, food stamps, or housing assistance. They are also less likely to be in center-based child care, potentially limiting their preparation for schooling. [View the corresponding press release]

This brief summarizes the findings of the report, "The Health and Well-Being of Young Children of Immigrants", which focuses on the 5.1 million children of immigrants under age 6 in the United States. Young children of immigrants with two parents are three times as likely to be poor as children of natives, and so marriage is not an antidote to poverty for these children. Despite higher economic hardship, young children of immigrants are less likely than native counterparts to receive TANF, food stamps, or housing assistance. They are also less likely to be in center-based child care, potentially limiting their preparation for schooling.

This report describes the weighting procedures used in the 2002 NSAF, and aims to explain the weighting in heuristic steps that will make technical matter accessible. As one of the goals of NSAF is to produce estimates of change, Round 3 estimation is compared to estimation procedures in Rounds 1 and 2. Chapter 1 of this report is written for the general reader and describes the weighting and estimation process in broad stokes, including a general overview of the survey, the goals of weighting and some specifics about how it is carried out, a discussion of how the weights are best used and details on estimates of change. Subsequent chapters address base weights and nonresponse adjustments, national adjustments to control totals, and study area adjustments to control totals.

As election 2004 approaches, impact at the voting booth of the nation's two largest immigrant-dominated populations—Latinos and Asians—is increasing. This fact sheet uses data from the Current Population Survey to detail the demographics of these two populations. Political factors and future trends are also considered. Urban Institute analysis underscores the fact that voting levels among Latinos and Asians lag well behind the groups' population growth, largely because many new immigrants are not yet citizens and their children are still too young to vote. As a result, the full political force of on?going demographic change will be felt over decades, not years.

This chapter takes a look at the demographic characteristics of urban America and how they are changing. More specifically, it is concerned with the changing dynamics of the student population in urban schools and the implications of these changes for teaching and learning. Three general observations shape the chapter. First, immigration is the driving force behind much of the demographic shift in urban areas in the United States. Second, defining "urban" is not as straightforward as it once was. Indeed, inner suburbs often look more like core cities than traditional suburbs. And third, generalizing at the national level can be misleading. Variation by region within the country is large and important. These changes and the ways in which they vary present new demands and challenges that are strongly felt, especially in literacy areas and especially in urban schools. (In Teaching All the Children: Strategies for Developing Literacy in an Urban Setting, edited by Cathy Collins Block, Diane Lapp, and Eric J. Cooper (3-11). New York: Guilford Press.)

The Bush administration and members of Congress have proposed granting temporary legal status to undocumented immigrant workers currently residing in the United States. Our best estimate is that there are 9.3 million undocumented immigrants in the country, of whom about 6 million are working. There are 4.5 million undocumented men, 3.2 million women, and 1.6 million children. Another 3 million children with undocumented parents are U.S.-born citizens. Almost two-thirds of undocumented immigrants live in six states: California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, and New Jersey. But the undocumented population is growing fastest in other Southeastern, Midwestern and Mountain states.

Immigrants make up one in nine U.S. residents, one in seven U.S. workers, and one in five low-wage workers. Immigrants are overrepresented among both low-wage and less educated U.S. workers. Since so many immigrants work and so many hold low-wage jobs, they could potentially benefit from post- as well as pre-employment services. Unfortunately, most publicly funded training programs assume that participants have 9th grade levels of literacy, numeracy, and basic English skills. This brief recommends revamping the Workforce Investment Act and tailoring job-training programs to serve limited English proficient populations, build language assessment capacity, and combine job training with English language, basic education, and literacy instruction.

This brief, based on data from the Current Population Survey, examines changes in the number of naturalized citizens and rates of naturalization. It also explores the number and characteristics of immigrants in the U.S. who are now or will soon be eligible to naturalize, comparing them to recently naturalized immigrants. In addition to national estimates, the brief provides estimates of the recently naturalized and eligible populations for the 50 states and District of Columbia. [View the corresponding press release]

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