Coverage of Importing Poverty:

Immigrants are a large and growing factor in the stubborn level of poverty seen in the United States over the past two decades because newcomers to the country are more likely to be poor and to remain so longer than in the past, according to a new study.

The report, to be released today by the Center for Immigration Studies, says the number of impoverished people in the nation's immigrant-headed households nearly tripled from 2.7 million in 1979 to 7.7 million in 1997.

During that same period, the number of poor households headed by immigrants increased by 123 percent while the number of immigrant households increased by 68 percent, according to the study. The share of immigrants living in poverty rose from 15.5 percent to 21.8 percent, the report notes, a change that some analysts say holds troubling implications for the nation's future. About 12 percent of the nation's native-born population lives in poverty, a figure that has hardly changed in 20 years.

"Each successive wave of immigrants is doing worse and worse," said Steven A. Camarota, the report's author. "Each wave of immigrants has a higher poverty rate, and a much larger share of their children will grow up in poverty."

The report by the center, a Washington-based research group that advocates reduced immigration, uses information compiled in the 1980 and 1990 censuses, as well as information contained in the March 1998 Current

Population Survey, to make its case that poverty in the United States is increasingly being driven by the nation's immigration policy.

The report says immigrants are more likely to be poor because they have higher levels of unemployment, have lower education levels and have larger families than native-born families. And much of their economic slide has come despite the fact that the nation's economy has been in good shape for much of the past 20 years, the report notes.

The report is rekindling the sharp-edged debate over whether high levels of immigration benefit the nation. The number of immigrants living in the United States has almost tripled since 1970, dramatically altering the nation's demographic and social mix because the vast majority of current immigrants are either Hispanic or Asian. Overall, immigrants now account for nearly 10 percent of the nation's residents, the highest level since the 1920s. About one in four Californians and one in three residents of New York are foreign-born.

But while many advocates credit immigrants with filling jobs that few others want, revitalizing previously neglected city neighborhoods from New York to Los Angeles and engendering a level of ambition and enterprise often unmatched by native-born residents, others see high levels of immigration as a burden the country can no longer bear.

If current levels of immigration remain in place, an estimated 10 million new immigrants will settle in the United States within the next decade, the report says. Increasing the number of poor people through immigration complicates current anti-poverty efforts, it adds. Moreover, if immigrant children grow up in poverty, they will be more likely to turn to crime, to have higher teenage pregnancy rates and to do poorly in school, the report says. Thus, the report calls for restrictions on the number of "low-skill" immigrants allowed into the country.

"This report clearly illustrates the foreignization of poverty in the United States," said George J. Borjas, a professor of public policy at Harvard University. "Nowadays, the economic structure is very different. The economy isn't creating many new jobs for unskilled people."

Immigration advocates objected to the report's conclusions, saying they overlook the proliferation of low-wage jobs in the U.S. economy as well as the contributions that immigrants have historically made to the nation, frequently through sheer enterprise and hard work. Studies have found that immigrant families have a higher propensity for home ownership and for starting small businesses.

"What really matters here is the growth in low-wage jobs," said Sonia Perez, a deputy vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic advocacy group. "Many working people are still in poverty."

The report's author, however, pointed to other research that indicates that many immigrants and their descendants are having a difficult time making economic progress. A study released last month by the California Senate found that Hispanic workers in that state lag far behind all other groups in wages and educational attainment, even through the third generation.

"Even if we make the most optimistic assumptions about how the kids of [immigrants] will do, the fact remains that we have grown our poor population and that has implications for societal stability," said Camarota.

"We are potentially creating a new underclass in America."

The dream of a better life is not turning into a reality for millions of immigrants who, despite today's outstanding economic conditions, are experiencing an increase in poverty rates, according to a report to be released today by the Center for Immigration Studies

This was not the case, however, for Washington, D.C., and the Bay Area, where immigrant poverty rates have declined, principally because so many of the immigrants moving to these areas are highly educated.

Immigrant poverty rates in the Bay Area dropped from 12.6 percent in 1989 to 9.3 percent in 1997. The rates fell from 9.6 percent in Washington in 1989 to 6.5 percent in 1997.

Elsewhere, including the rest of California, the situation is quite different.

Today, one-fifth of America's poor -- more than 7 million people -- are immigrants and their children. By comparison, in 1979, only 1 in 10 of the nation's poor were immigrants, according to the report by the Washington, D.C., think tank.

In 1979, the poverty rate for all U.S. immigrants, regardless of when they entered the country, was 15.5 percent. The rate for natives was 12.1 percent. By 1997, the rate for all immigrants was 21.8 percent, while the rate for natives was nearly the same as it was 20 years before: 12 percent.

Given the hurdles immigrants must surmount to get established in this country, higher rates may be understandable. But worsening rates indicate that something else is going on, said Steven A. Camarota, author of the report and an analyst at the center.

Camarota said, "What we are probably seeing is the long-term consequence of high levels of immigration, particularly family-based immigration, and a new economy that doesn't provide well-paying jobs for those without much education."

Yet despite those obstacles, the United States remains a popular destination for immigrants.

"You have to look at the situation they are coming from. Poverty to us is still a lot of money to them," said Randall Caudle, spokesman for the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Northern California.

Caudle also cautioned against using the data to come to the conclusion that immigrants are poor because they are not motivated.

"The reality is that these people work, but they work at jobs that pay below poverty wages," he said.

Two themes emerged from the study: The poverty rate for all immigrants keeps getting worse relative to that of the rest of the country, and today's new immigrants are much more likely to be poor than immigrants in the past.

Here are some of the findings:

-- Progress is being made out of poverty, but slowly: Those who immigrated in the '80s had a poverty rate of 28.3 percent by 1989. These same immigrants had a 25 percent poverty rate by 1997.

-- Poverty rates for both native Californians and immigrants rose in the 1990s because of the mid-decade recession. By 1997, however, the immigrant poverty rate was at 24.4 percent, while the native rate was 12.6 percent.

CHART:
POORER AND POORER . The poverty rate for people in immigrant households has risen dramatically since 1979.

             1979 1989 1997
Native 12.1% 12.4% 12.0%
Immigrants 15.5% 18.8% 21.8% .

Sources: Center for Immigration Studies, U.S. Census Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The economic gap between American-born residents and immigrants has widened in the past 20 years, with low-skilled and uneducated newcomers increasingly becoming a significant factor in the nation's poverty rate, researchers said yesterday.

Nationwide, the number of immigrant households living in poverty more than tripled from 2.7 million in 1979 to 7.7 million in 1997, according to the study by the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit research group that tends to lean toward limiting immigration.

The study, based on Census Bureau information, shows that while the overall number of immigrant households increased by 68 percent, the number of poor households leaped by 123 percent.

In California, where one of four residents is foreign-born, immigrants also are falling increasingly behind, making up half the Golden State's households living in poverty, the study shows.

"Clearly, as the level of immigration to the United States has increased in the last two decades, the poverty rate associated with immigrants has grown dramatically," said Stephen A. Camarota, author of the study. "A significant proportion of immigrants are unable to succeed in the modern American economy. "

But some immigration advocates reacted harshly to the center's findings, saying the study clashes with other findings that revealed how immigrants have contributed to the country's economic expansion.

"Immigrants are a bargain for the American economy," said Judy Golub, advocacy director for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "I think this was a snapshot, but they snapped at the wrong thing."

Stephen Moore, an economist at the libertarian and pro-immigration Cato Institute, described the study as "highly misleading because it took a static picture of immigration, not an evolving one."

Over time, Moore said, increasing numbers of immigrants eventually shed poverty and "very rapidly climb the great American ladder of success. Right now, we have a lot of recent immigrants starting at the bottom rung, and that's misleading."

But researchers at the Center For Immigration Studies said the findings were based on Census data over two decades and clearly showed that poverty among immigrants was increasing rather than decreasing.

The point of the study, they said, wasn't whether immigrants are an overall plus or minus for the American economy, but whether most newcomers generally are succeeding or becoming mired in intergenerational poverty.

Policy debates, said Camarota, the study's author, too often have focused on immigration and not on the immigrants themselves -- ignoring the consequences of poverty faced by people after they have arrived in this country.

To offset the spiral of poverty, Camarota said, the country's policy makers should focus their attention on limiting immigration, especially among those who are low-skilled and poorly educated. The country's inability to control illegal immigration is also a factor in the unfolding poverty dilemma, Camarota said.

The center's study released yesterday showed that the poverty rate for people living in immigrant households across the country grew dramatically over the past two decades, from 15.5 percent in 1979 to 18.8 percent in 1989, and 21.8 percent in 1997.

During the same period, the poverty rate for persons in native-born American households stayed relatively constant at about 12 percent, the study showed.

As of 1997, more than one in five persons in this country living in poverty -- 21.6 percent -- resided in an immigrant household, according to the report.

"If one is concerned about the poor already here, increasing the number of people in or near poverty through immigration is clearly counter-productive," Camarota said.

Poverty rates among California's immigrants rank among the highest in the nation at 24.4 percent, third to Texas (28.7 percent), and Arizona (36.4 percent).

California and other western states reflected the biggest increase in poverty among immigrants during the 1990s, the research showed.

Under the federal government's standards, an income below $16,400 for a family of four in 1997 is considered the poverty level.

The study concluded that government assistance programs are undermined by its policies that effectively "import poverty."

Despite the center's arguments that immigration should be reduced, Lawrence Mishel of the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said the study "does not make a strong case for limiting immigration." He said the problem often rests with wages and other labor conditions that affect low-skilled immigrants.

Moore of the Cato Institute said "it would be very foolish economically" to reduce the levels of immigration.

"There has been this incredible economic expansion, now in its 18th year," he said. "A high level of immigration and a very prosperous economy have coincided -- because immigrants have made important contributions."

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, acknowledged that "Americans may disagree over the best way to address poverty."

But, he said, "there can be no doubt that ongoing immigration is diverting scarce public and private resources that are needed to help the poor already here -- native born and immigrant -- improve their circumstances."

Camarota said the country could face dire consequences if the poverty issue involving immigrants is not resolved.

"If current trends continue, by the end of the next decade, 11 million people residing in immigrant households will live in poverty, accounting for 30 percent of poverty in the nation," he said.

George J. Borjas, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, said the findings reflect the " 'foreignization' of poverty in the United States."

WASHINGTON, DC -- The number of poor immigrant households has nearly tripled in the past two decades. And that's to blame for a continued high poverty rate in this booming economy, according to a study by an anti-immigration group.

The report, released Thursday by the Center For Immigration Studies, says the number of people in immigrant households living in poverty went from 2.76 million in 1979 to 7.7 million in 1997.

And, it says, 75 percent of the increase in the poor population between 1989 and 1997 was immigrant-related.

"This will make it more difficult for us to do anything about the poor already here," said Steven Camarota, author of the report.

The more poor, the higher the cost of anti-poverty programs, he said.

In 1997, the poverty rate for immigrants was 21.8 percent, while for native Americans it was 12 percent.

The gap is even wider in Orange County, where the 1997 poverty rate for immigrants was 20 percent compared with a 4 percent rate for natives.

Camarota and others who believe the level of immigration has become too high in recent years say one way to combat this poverty phenomenon is to begin admitting immigrants based on their education and skills and scaling back family-based immigration.

Immigration advocates say the report doesn't look at the whole picture.

"They are not looking at the fact that even while we're importing some degree of poverty, we're also importing a high degree of technical expertise and talent," said Steven Moore, an economist at the CATO Institute, which favors immigration.

Moore said while it's often true that when immigrants are poor when they come here, that's because they tend to be young and have a language problem. Once they master the language, get educated and get older, he said, they fall off the poverty rolls.

Patricia Mariscal, a recent immigrant from Mexico City, says reports like this unfairly stereotype immigrants.

"If you don't speak English, it's harder in the beginning," said Mariscal, who lives in Laguna Niguel. "You also have to learn the rules. But the first thing people find when they come here is a job. "

Camarota said that while many immigrants do work their way out of poverty, his data shows that climbing out of poverty is taking immigrants longer and longer. Combined with the increase in immigration, the long-term prospects are for increased immigrant poverty.

WASHINGTON -- Immigrants in Missouri are almost three times more likely than American-born residents to live in poverty, says a research group that studies immigration.

That's among the highest discrepancies between foreign-born and U.S.-born residents in any state.

About 29 percent of Missouri's immigrants and refugees live below the poverty line, compared to 11 percent for the rest of the state's population, according to the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. The center estimated that some 34,000 immigrants live in poverty in Missouri.

"The gap between immigrants and natives in Missouri appears to be quite large," said Steven A. Camarota, who conducted the study. "And poverty among immigrants is extremely prevalent in the St. Louis area."

By contrast, Illinois had a poverty rate among immigrants of 16 percent. Among people born in the United States now living there, it was 10 percent.

Gary Stangler, director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, said his department is trying to figure out how to respond.

"Certainly it's something that's new to this state, the growing in-migration. South and south central Missouri are full of poor immigrants, with the meat-packing plants, the poultry industry. Ten years ago, they never heard of us," Stangler said Thursday from Jefferson City.

"I think when we see the 2000 census, we're going to be shocked by the changes that have taken place in this state since 1990 and the growth of the Hispanic population."

The 57-page report, "Importing Poverty: Immigration's Impact on the Size and Growth of the Poor Population in the United States," was released Thursday and was the topic of a panel discussion on Capitol Hill. George Borjas, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, cited the "foreignization of poverty in the United States."

The center, a nonprofit research group concerned about rising immigration, examined the Census Bureau's current population estimates. The numbers showed a dramatic change in Missouri.

Ten years ago, poverty among immigrants in the state was 18 percent, compared to 13 percent for American-born residents.

At that time, immigration to St. Louis was heavy among Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos and Latin Americans drawn by the area's scientific, medical or educational institutions.

The past decade has seen two major shifts.

The flow of refugees to St. Louis - Bosnians, Albanians, Romanians, Ethiopians, Iraqis, Vietnamese - has risen, and constitutes as much as one-third of the total flow of immigrants into the area. Nationally, refugees are one-tenth of immigrants admitted. Because many refugees fled for their lives, often traumatized and with only the clothes on their back, they often struggle economically.

And Mexicans are leading a growing immigrant stream to St. Louis. Many are secondary migrants, leaving California or other states because of hostility and drawn by the quiet of St. Louis, its good job market and low cost of living. Some are undocumented and have problems finding good jobs.

Both trends help explain the mounting poverty found among Missouri's foreign-born population, Camarota said.

Stangler said that in a sign of burgeoning state interest, earlier this week a new legislative committee on immigration held its first hearing, in Sedalia. And a few days ago, he met with demographers at the University of Missouri to commission a study about the needs of immigrants.

"There is very little movement of the Hispanic immigrants to take advantage of any social services," Stangler said. "I can only speculate that has something to do with their documentation status or fear for family members.

"I want to find out how big this issue is getting to be out there, especially as concerns schools and social services, because I don't think it's going to go away. This is an issue that's going to grow, and we need to be finding out what it is that we should be planning for."

While Missouri stands out, the sustained U.S. immigration flow over the past couple of decades has increased the number of Americans living in poverty, the center said.

Since 1979, the number of impoverished immigrants has nearly tripled, to 7.7 million from 2.7 million, accounting for three-quarters of the entire increase in the number of poor people. While the poverty rate for native households has remained steady at 12 percent, it grew for immigrants from 16 percent in 1979 to 19 percent in 1989 to 22 percent now.

This complicates the war on poverty while adding to the tax burden, said center director Mark Krikorian. If current immigration levels continue, 10 million will arrive over the next decade, adding to problems related to poverty such as teen pregnancy, school dropouts and crime, he said.

Limiting immigration and letting in those with job skills as opposed to family reunification would make the war on poverty more manageable, he said.

Stephen Moore, chief economist at the Cato Institute, challenged the findings in part.

"I'm not saying everything's rosy about immigration. I'm disturbed by these poverty rates among immigrants, but it would not be in our national interest or our economic interest to close the door to legal immigrants," Moore said.

He said the study may not have "picked up the very rapid economic assimilation of immigrants." Poverty rates among immigrants tend to be higher for 15 years, then catch up to the native-born, and after 20 years actually be lower, Moore said.

"Because of the rising wave of immigration in recent years, for every new immigrant getting off poverty, there are two new ones coming in who are in poverty," he said. "And refugees tend to be the biggest group in poverty. That's the reason you have such a high level of immigrants in poverty in Missouri."

Anna Crosslin, president of the International Institute, St. Louis' largest refugee resettlement agency, said it is tricky to measure the economic status of refugees.

"You're taking a snapshot of a person at a certain stage of their development. . . . If you go back to that family later, they're out of poverty because they've got a job."

Ahmed Bashir Hassen arrived in St. Louis in 1992. Fluent in five languages, he was a professor of agronomy in Somalia, where he also helped nomads grow rice. In St. Louis, the father of seven first worked as a security guard for MetroLink and as a social worker at the Islamic Center. Then he was a public school teaching assistant and a valet parking attendant. Now he drives a cab and is a substitute teacher.

"I've always had two jobs at a time," Hassen said, admitting that things can be tough in St. Louis, which lacks large ethnic communities to help newcomers.

"For those people who can communicate, the study is not accurate. On South Grand, most of the restaurants, most of the stores, are owned by immigrants. But for 40 percent, it's true. It's not because they are lazy, not because they don't know how to work. It's because they don't know the system and the language."

Immigrants and their families living in the Washington-Baltimore area appear better off than those in the rest of the country and are slightly less likely to be poor than their American-born neighbors here are, according to a new study of U.S. census data.

Only 7 percent of those in immigrant-headed households locally live below the poverty line, compared with nearly 22 percent nationally, the study says. The poverty rate for the region's non-immigrant residents is 11 percent, according to the study, compared with 12 percent nationally.

The figures, included in a national report by the Center for Immigration Studies, highlight the unusual nature of the region's fast-growing immigrant population -- which is more educated, more diverse and, apparently, less poor than in other cities.

Of the 11 metropolitan areas in the country with the largest immigrant populations, the Washington-Baltimore region ranked last in immigrant poverty. It was the only one in which immigrants appeared less likely to be poor than natives, though the difference was small enough to be explained by statistical error.

"Washington certainly stands out," said Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the center, which advocates new limits on immigration. He said the findings do not undermine the study's argument that immigration is a major factor in the growth of poverty in the United States.

"If immigrants had the same education levels nationally as they do in the D.C. area, then there would be no problem," he said. "Unfortunately, D.C. is far and away the exception, not the rule."

Camarota defined immigrant households as those in which the head is foreign-born, but he also counted people not related to the household head as being on their own. He said immigrants may appear poorer than his figures indicate because many also support relatives in their homelands who are not considered household members.

Still, some advocates in Washington's immigrant communities were surprised by the findings.

"I just don't see immigrant families doing much better here than other areas," said Arli Eicher, coordinator of the D.C. Immigrant Coalition.

Others criticized the study for not considering the region's high cost of living. It used the federal government's definition of poverty, which for a typical family of four is an income of about $ 16,400.

"You couldn't survive in the Washington area if you were making that," said John Liss, director of the immigrant-dominant Tenants' and Workers' Support Committee in Alexandria. "A family of four could be making $ 20,000 in Kansas and might be doing pretty good, but here they'd be eating dirt."

Camarota said regional differences in living expenses would not explain why the poverty rate among immigrants here was lower than in San Francisco, New York and other cities with high costs of living. Instead, he said, the lower poverty rate might be explained by Washington's booming economy, the inclusion of foreign-born diplomats as immigrants and the fact that immigrants here appear better educated.

Analysis of data from 1996 and 1997, he said, showed that more than half of all adults living in immigrant households in the area had completed college -- compared with 35 percent of other adult residents here and 24 percent of adult immigrants nationally.

Local immigrants, he said, are more likely than other area residents to be high school dropouts -- but their dropout rate is half the national rate for immigrants.

"Education is the single most important predictor of poverty status," he said. "The real question then is, 'Why are D.C. immigrants more educated?' It probably has to do with the local economy and the kind of immigrants who would be drawn to work in it."

The area's immigrant work force is polarized, with unusually high levels of employment both in high-income technical and low-income service jobs. Large differences also exist by country of origin, with many immigrants from Central America arriving with little schooling and many from Asia bringing college degrees.

But Robert Manning, a Georgetown sociologist who studies the local immigrant population, said those on both ends of the educational spectrum are faring well because of the region's labor shortage. "The economy is sucking them into jobs as fast as they come," he said.

Saul Solorzano, director of the Central American Resource Center, said even those employed as low-wage restaurant workers or janitors here are more likely to live above the poverty line than in other cities -- in part because so many are working multiple jobs.

"I've lived in California, and the competition for jobs, the types of jobs available, the salaries -- I can tell you from experience that things are better here," he said. "The economy is great right now for immigrants . . . and immigration has been good for the economy."

Immigrants and Poverty

Seven percent of local people in immigrant-headed households live below the poverty line, as compared with the national rate of 22 percent. How Washington measures up to other metropolitan areas:

Poverty rates for people residing in immigrant and native households:

Metropolitan areas   Immigrant (percent)   Native (percent)

Phoenix 37.8% 11.2%
Houston/Galveston/Brazoria 34.0 12.0
Los Angeles/RiversideOrange County 26.3 12.5
Nationally* 21.8 12.0
Miami/Fort Lauderdale 20.8 9.3
New York/N.J./Long Island 20.2 12.3
Philadelphia/Wilmington, Del./Atlantic City 18.2 12.0
Boston/Worcester/Lawrence 17.4 8.7
Chicago/Kenosha, Wis. 16.7 9.6
Dallas/Fort Worth 16.6 9.5
San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose 10.1 6.0
Washington/Baltimore 7.2 11.3

* Based on 1997 census data only.
SOURCE: Center for Immigration Studies' analysis of census data for 1996-97
 

Below the Poverty Line (In percent)

Immigrant households
Nationally*: 21.8
Washington: 7.2

Native households
Nationally*: 12.0
Washington: 11.3

*Based on 1997 census data only.