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Politics : ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION THE FIGHT TO KEEP OUR DEMOCRACY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (69)	11/27/2002 10:49:25 AM
From: Tadsamillionaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3197

2 out of 3 new Ariz. residents are immigrants, their families Robert Gehrke Associated Press Nov. 26, 2002 11:05 AM An estimated 130,000 immigrants settled in Arizona since 2000, accounting for two-thirds of the state's growth, but the new residents are likely to live in poverty and lack adequate education and health insurance, a new study says. Fifty-eight percent of Arizona's immigrants and their U.S.-born children live in or near poverty, compared to 28 percent of the state's native population and are nearly four times as likely not to have a high school diploma. They are two-and-a-half times as likely to lack health insurance and 22 percent benefit from some sort of government welfare program, compared to 13 percent of native households, according to the analysis of unpublished Census data by the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit group that supports some limits on foreign immigration. "It just pops off the charts for you," said Steven Camarota, who wrote the study. "There's a big gap nationally, don't get me wrong, and that's a reason for concern, but the stakes for Colorado and Arizona are especially high." Colorado's economic disparities were similar to those in Arizona. The study looked at immigration between January 2000 and March 2002 and found an estimated 130,000 new immigrants, and a total of 180,000 when births to immigrant mothers were factored in. That brings the state's total legal and illegal immigrant population to 850,000 out of roughly 5.3 million people. Tom Rex, research manager for the Center for Business Research at Arizona State University, said immigrants move to Arizona to take low-wage jobs that otherwise would go unfilled or filled by migrants from other states, but the wages would be low regardless of who fills the job. "The immigration itself is not the problem," he said. "If your economy is creating a bunch of low-end jobs that aren't providing health insurance you've got a problem, but the problem isn't the immigrants. The problem is those are the jobs the economy is creating." Rex also cautioned that the center's report was drawn from census data that can distort the truth because of the small sample of people on which it is based. Camarota said it is inadequate education and not the immigrants' legal status or unwillingness to work that results in low wages, reliance on welfare and lack of health insurance. "Although the vast majority of these immigrants do in fact work, the modern American economy offers very limited opportunities for those with little education," he said. "As a result, they often pay very little in taxes but impose significant costs on public services." Local officials and Arizona's congressional delegation have complained the federal government is not doing enough to help pay for services for immigrants. Arizona's border counties have to absorb $31 million annually in uncompensated emergency medical care, according to a recent report by the U.S.-Mexico Border Counties Coalition. Another national study by the Urban Institute released Tuesday found that children of immigrants are more likely to live in two-parent families and in poverty than children of parents born in this country. The Center for Immigration Studies report also indicated that the immigrant influx remained steady since 2000, despite a weak economy. Rex said it takes a surprisingly long time for a recession to register in migration statistics, although he anticipates that immigration to Arizona will slow. --- azcentral.com Center for Immigration Studies: cis.org