Immigration to the Sunflower State
Chicago Immigration Protest, May 1, 2006 (Source: Jvoves, flickr.com)
The Immigration Policy Center put out a report today, highlighting some of the economic benefits of immigration to our sunflower state: Kansas. The most surprising thing I learned is that nearly 1 in 9 Kansans are Asian or Latino, and their purchasing power and contributions to the state’s tax base are tremendous! Here are some more highlights:
• The 2009 purchasing power of Latinos totaled $5.2 billion — an increase of 488% since 1990. Asian buying power in Kansas totaled $2.1 billion — an increase of 419% since 1990, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia.
• In Kansas, 30% of foreign-born persons who were naturalized U.S. citizens in 2007 had a bachelor’s or higher degree, compared to 21% of noncitizens. At the same time, only 25% of naturalized citizens lacked a high-school diploma, compared to 45% of non-citizens.
• Kansas’ 3,547 Asian-owned businesses had sales and receipts of $895.6 million and employed 8,535 people in 2002, the last year for which data is available. The state’s 4,176 Latino-owned businesses had sales and receipts of $659.6 million and employed 7,493 people in 2002, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Survey of Business Owners.
Subscribe to the comments for this postFinney County: Half the population is “hard to count”
Following a Tuesday story I wrote about the special challenges facing the U.S. Census Bureau in Finney County (and all across the southwest Kansas and the High Plains for that matter!), I was contacted by researchers at the CUNY Mapping Service at the Center for Urban Research about an interactive map they’ve put out that pinpoints areas across America where communities are considered “difficult to enumerate.”
You can zoom in near Garden City on the map and see that in Finney, Seward and Ford counties almost half the population is considered “hard to count,” based on demographic and housing characteristics that create challenges to achieving an accurate count, Steven Romalewski, director of the CUNY mapping service, told me.
If you decide to check it out, there is a list of FAQ here to help you navigate the site. The map is prety cool, outlining statistics such as educational and poverty levels by county that make communities especially hard to reach — do check it out!
A majority of the crowd tries to stay in the shade of an awning outside El Remido Market as Ritmo Latino entertains them with music during a Cinco de Mayo celebration. Brad Nading/Telegram
Board formed to help organize, empower minority groups
via Board formed to help organize, empower minority groups | Garden City Telegram Online.
Board members of the Coalition of Ethnic Minority Leaders met Friday at the Garden City Administrative Center. The board includes Garden City Mayor Nancy Harness, left, and SRS representative Lee Ann Shrader. The recently formed group hopes the coalition will bridge communication between various ethnic communities and civic organizations. Shajia Ahmad/Telegram
State of the Union 2010
President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010. Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applaud at rear. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
In tonight’s State of the Union address, Obama said … “we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system – to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nation.”
At first glance, it makes sense that fixing the suffering economy would take precedence over all other domestic matters this year …we’re fighting two wars and struggling with job losses and severely cash-strapped families across the middle and lower socioeconomic classes. But why can’t we use immigration reform to work to our economy’s benefit and solve a serious humanitarian problem in our country simultaneously? We can.
Immigration reform will generate needed economic growth, create jobs and increase tax contributions by ensuring that everyone working here s is doing so legally. Here are some points the American Immigration Council stressed again this evening following Obama’s speech:
Immigration Yields Tremendous Economic Benefits to America
- A 2007 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers concluded that immigration as a whole increases the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by roughly $37 billion each year because immigrants increase the size of the total labor force, complement the native-born workforce in terms of skills and education, and stimulate capital investment by adding workers to the labor pool.
- Immigrants do not compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs because they tend to have different levels of education and to work in different occupations. In fact, The roughly 90% of native-born workers with at least a high-school diploma experienced wage gains because of immigration between 1990 and 2004, ranging from 0.7% to 3.4% depending on their level of education, according to a 2006 study by Giovanni Peri, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California-Davis.
- Immigrant entrepreneurs are twice as likely as Americans to start business and immigrant inventors account for more than one quarter of all U.S. patents according the Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity, 2008..
If Comprehensive Immigration Reform is Enacted the Benefits Will Be Even Greater
- According to a 2010 study by UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa, comprehensive immigration reform that includes a legalization plan for the unauthorized would contribute a cumulative $1.5 trillion to the Gross Domestic Product over ten years, as more tax revenues are collected, wages increase for U.S.-born and legalized workers, and immigrant workers spend more in our economy. The report also finds that wages for immigrant and native-born workers would rise in part because workers will have more bargaining power in the workplace.
- The libertarian Cato Institute also reported that “legalization of low-skilled immigrant workers would yield significant income gains for American workers and households.”
What’s the Matter with Kansans?!
I’ve brought up the DREAM Act — Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act — in previous posts and am saddened to see today that Kansas Secretary of State candidate Kris Kobach is suing Nebraska over allowing alien minors in-state tuition eligibility, the Kansas City Star is reporting:
Kobach, a Piper resident who is a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, filed the lawsuit Monday in Jefferson County District Court on behalf of several Nebraska residents. The lawsuit names the members of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents as defendants.
There are more more worthy and pressing causes to fight, Mr. Kris Kobach, than spending time trying to keep as many as 65,000 high school graduates from pursuing degrees in higher education. What point are you trying to prove?
There are currently nine states (including Kansas) that have taken the initiative to pass legislation to provide in-state tuition to undocumented students, and the DREAM Act is a bill that would address this need and keep states out of legal limbo on this issue. The federal bill, introduced once in 2007 and 2009 but never having gained enough traction, would allow children whose parents brought them to the U.S. before they turned 16 a pathway to permanent residency, either through a college education or military enlistment and commitment (read more about the act).
Paying out-of-state tuition is hard enough for the average American family, and families who do decide to send their kids out of state for a four-year education do so because they have the financial means to do so or have other forms of financial support. But many undocumented students come from families for whom getting a college degree at the in-state rate may be hard enough as it is — why spend your time trying to keep bright students out of the classroom completely!?