Dr. Jeffrey Passel, Senior Research Associate with the Pew Hispanic Center was recently interviewed on CSPAN's Washington Journal about the centers newest report on undocumented migrants; " Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S."
During the course of the over forty minute interview, Dr. Passel dispels many of the popular misconceptions about undocumented migrants:
(more from Dr Passel below the fold)
tag: immigration
- That 5.7 mil of the 11.1 mil undocumented migrants are women and children, disproving the popular belief that most migrants are single young men coming here to earn money to send home.
- That young working families make up the bulk of that population, including 3mil American born children who are citizens.
- That 6.7 mil have been here more than five years, and out of those, 3.8 mil have been here more than ten.
- That some 94% of adult men are working, the majority of them paying Social Security and income taxes.
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- That a large number of migrants have high school education and ten percent are college graduates. Their children tend to do better, and most go on to attend college.
- When US unemployment is high, immigration goes down…it only increases when unemployment is low.
- That immigrants represent only 5% of work force and have very little impact on wages.
- NAFTA has been a major contributor to increased migration from Mexico.
- Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for any government medical assistance such as medicare or medicaid. They generally don't receive any medical insurance through their jobs which does cause some strain on the system equal to that of other uninsured populations.
- Without family members already legally in the country it is nearly impossible to enter the country legally
- Undoucumented immigrants cannot qualify for social services such as food stamps or any other government assistance
- Immigrants learn English today at the same pace as other immigrants groups in the past
To view the entire interview: Here
To read report: Here (PDF)
catagories:
immigration,
policy,
studies
2 comments:
Frankly, due to this site and due to the supposed source, I tend to doubt what you say.
You also don't seem to understand what those numbers mean.
We already knew that a large number of the illegal aliens here weren't workers but were children and the elderly, all of whom take money from our system and don't contribute.
Regarding "legally", perhaps you could coin a cute term for "legal" in the sense of actually illegal, but kinda legal. Kinda like "truthy".
Whose SSN numbers are they using by the way? Hey, reader! Have you checked your credit report lately? Perhaps a good-hearted worker is using your SSN.
Lastly, the only people hurt by illegal aliens are our own low-wage workers, most of whom are black and Hispanic. But, who really cares about them anyway?
Frankly due to the anonymous nature of your comment and the fact that you spent less the 1 min on the site I seriously doubt you watched the video or read the report.
Your comment only further proves the point that many people get their information about immigration from FOX news, Lou Dobbs or even more likely they make it up.
Perhaps next time you come by to troll... take a momment to read something....you might learn something.... oh wait I forgot, you already know what you know and don't need to know any more.
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