Importing Poverty
Immigration's Impact on the Size and Growth of the Poor Population in the United States

By Steven A. Camarota
 

Policy Implications

Knowing that our immigration policy is causing poverty to grow significantly in the United States does not, of course, tell us exactly what we should do about this problem. Assuming that we are concerned about this situation, two sets of policy options would seem to make sense. The first and most obvious change is that a new immigration policy should be adopted that reduces the flow of immigrants likely to end up in poverty. It makes little sense to have an immigration policy that dramatically grows the poor population. This is especially true when one considers that with the exception of refugees, immigration is supposed to benefit the United States. As has already been pointed out, an estimated 10 million immigrants will arrive in just the next decade without a change in immigration policy. If the same selection criteria continue to be used, a large percentage of these immigrants along with their U.S.-born children will very likely end up in poverty. Therefore, to ensure that this problem does not continue into the indefinite future, changes in immigration policy are clearly warranted. The second set of policy options to deal with this problem would involve the development and implementation of policies that address the needs of low-income immigrant households already here. This would have to be done in the context of existing anti-poverty programs and it would have to be designed to meet the specific needs of immigrant households in poverty. It would also have to take into account a political environment that at present is very skeptical of costly new programs designed to uplift the poor.

Changing Immigration Policy. Because the research presented here indicates that low levels of educational attainment are one of the primary reasons for the very high poverty rates associated with immigrants, selecting more immigrants based on their skills would reduce poverty among immigrants who arrive in the future. This would require changes in both the selection criteria for legal immigrants and significantly stepped-up efforts to reduce illegal immigration. Let us consider changes to legal immigration first. In most years, 65 to 70 percent of visas are allotted to the family members of U.S. citizens and Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs). Family relationships could continue to be a central part of immigration policy; however, by limiting which relatives are eligible for admission we could reduce the number of immigrants admitted without regard to their skills or ability to compete in the modern American economy. The Commission on Immigration Reform chaired by the late Barbra Jordan suggested limiting family immigration to the spouses, minor children, and parents of citizens and the spouses and minor children of LPRs. This would eliminate the preferences now in the law for the siblings and adult children (more than 21 years of age) of citizens and LPRs, thereby significantly reducing the number of immigrants selected without regard to their skills. The preference for the spouses and children of non-citizens should also probably be eliminated, since these provisions apply to family members acquired after the alien has received a green card, but before he has become a citizen.²³ If the parents of citizens were also eliminated as a category, family immigration would be lowered to roughly 300,000 per year, and the number would likely fall to 200,000 in a few years.

Humanitarian immigration should also undergo some changes. A greater effort should be made to limit asylum and refugee status to those who are genuinely in need of permanent resettlement because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution. The expansion of asylum grounds to groups not originally intended is likely to undermine public support for this small but needed category of admission. Abuse of the asylum law also encourages illegal immigration by allowing those who make it into the United States to claim asylum on specious grounds in an effort to forestall deportation. As for refugees, the system must continue to remain flexible and in some years it may need to expand beyond the 50,000 originally intended by the Refugee Act of 1980. Limiting resettlement to 50,000 would still allow the United States to take in all of the persons identified by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees as needing permanent resettlement. At present, refugee policy is highly politicized and relatively few of the refugees admitted to the United States meet the internationally accepted definition of a refugee.

For employment-based immigration, the most important change would be to drop the 10,000 visas for unskilled workers²⁴. In addition to allowing in unskilled immigrants, this category also encourages illegal immigration because it offers the hope to unskilled illegal aliens that they will find an employer who will eventually petition to bring them in legally. While the number of illegal aliens that actually are able to take advantage of this provision is small, it does offer the hope of legal status to illegal aliens. The Jordan Commission has also suggested eliminating the visa lottery. While the lottery represents 6 to 8 percent of the legal immigrant flow, it makes little sense to admit immigrants based on luck. It also stimulates further family immigration because the winners can then petition to bring in brothers and sisters, adult children, and parents. Restricting family immigration to only the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens, rationalizing humanitarian immigration and ending the lottery would significantly reduce the number of legal immigrants admitted each year without regard to their ability to compete in the U.S. economy. This would ensure that immigration does not continue to cause a substantial increase in poverty into the indefinite future.

Reducing Illegal Immigration. As we have seen, most of the people living in immigrant households in poverty are legal immigrants or the U.S.-born children of immigrants; however, reducing illegal immigration would still be helpful in reducing immigrant-related poverty. Illegal immigration is undoubtedly the lowest-skilled immigration, with an estimated poverty rate of 37 percent. Among those who study the issue, there is broad agreement that cutting illegal immigrants off from jobs offers the best hope to reducing illegal immigration. Since 1986 it has been unlawful to employ illegal aliens. However, to date, worksite enforcement efforts have been ineffective. There are three steps that are needed to make worksite enforcement more effective. First, a national computerized system that allows employers to verify that persons are legally entitled to work in the United States needs to be implemented. Tests of such systems have generally been well received by employers (Bolton, 1999). Second, the INS must significantly increase worksite enforcement efforts. Congress has repeatedly failed to increase funding for worksite enforcement, even though the INS continues to ask for more agents. Third, more could also be done at the border. Despite increases in funding over the last few years, efforts along the southern border remain grossly inadequate. The INS estimates that 60 percent of the illegal aliens in the United States have crossed the border illegally — the other 40 percent are visa over-stayers (Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1997). A real effort to control the border with Mexico would require perhaps 20,000 agents and the development of a system of formidable fences and other barriers along those parts of the border used for illegal crossings.

The cuts in legal immigration proposed earlier would also go a long way toward reducing illegal immigration in the long run, because the current system of legal immigration creates a strong incentive to come illegally. There are approximately 4 million people qualified for immigration to the United States but who are waiting their turn to receive the limited number of visas available each year in the various family categories. Such a system encourages those who have been selected, but have to wait, to simply come to the United States and settle illegally in anticipation of the day they are granted visas. Eliminating the sibling and adult children categories would alleviate this situation by doing away with the huge waiting lists. In addition to reducing the incentive to come before a green card is issued, cuts in legal immigration would also be very helpful in controlling illegal immigration because communities of recent immigrants serve as magnets for illegal immigration, providing housing, jobs, and entree to America for illegals from the same country. It is no coincidence that the top immigrant-sending countries are also the top countries sending illegal immigrants to the United States. Sociological research shows that one of the primary factors influencing a person's decision to emigrate is whether a family member or member of their community has already come to United States (Massey and Espinosa 1997; Palloni, Spittel and Ceballos 1999). Thus, allowing in large numbers of legal immigrants is one of the causes of large scale illegal immigration.

The changes in legal and illegal immigration policy outlined above would restore immigration levels to their historical average of about 300,000 to 400,000 annually in a few years. Even with these changes, the United States would continue to accept two or three times more immigrants than any other country.

Reducing Poverty Among Immigrants Already in the Country. While lowering the number of less-skilled legal and illegal immigrants entering each year would ensure that fewer new immigrants end up in poverty, it would not lift immigrants and their children currently residing in the United States out of poverty. The most direct and simplest way to reduce poverty for persons in immigrant households would be to increase the dollar value of means-tested cash programs designed to assistant persons in or near poverty. If the increase was large enough, it could dramatically reduce the number of people living below the poverty line. The primary disadvantage of programs of this kind is the cost. An increase in income transfer programs of sufficient size to have an appreciable effect on the number of people in poverty would cost tens of billions of dollars. For example, in 1996, federal expenditures on means tested cash assistance programs cost $86 billion.²⁵ According to estimates done by the Census Bureau, these programs reduce the number of people in poverty by only 2.6 million in 1997 (Dalaker and Naifeh 1998).

The fiscal costs associated with a dramatic increase in spending on cash assistance program creates a political obstacle that at the present time seem insurmountable. Such proposals are seen as only "throwing money" at the poor. Reflecting this political reality, after touring poverty-stricken areas of the country in July of this year, President Clinton did not even mention cash assistance programs as a way of reducing poverty. Instead, he made a few modest proposals designed to increase private investment in these areas and called on business leaders to voluntarily locate in low-income parts of the country. While dramatic increases in income transfer programs are off the table politically for the time being, it may be possible to restore immigrant eligibility beyond what has already been done. However, restoring benefits to immigrants that were cut as part of welfare reform in 1996 should be seen as a matter of fairness and not as an effective anti-poverty measure because, as we have seen, welfare reform did not increase immigrant-related poverty. Therefore, restoring benefits is unlikely to significantly reduce poverty for persons in immigrant households.

Because one has to work to receive benefits, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one means-tested income transfer program that has considerable political support. Increasing the value of this program would certainly be helpful to the nearly 5 million persons living in an immigrant household where at least one person works. Of course, this program is also costly. In 1996, expenditures on the EITC were $22 billion (Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1998). Moreover, the EITC only helps persons in the labor force, so it would have no effect on the 2.7 million persons living in an immigrant household in which no one works. Another area where new initiatives may be possible is job retraining. Since the low skill levels associated with immigrants is one of the primary reasons so many are in poverty, increasing the ability of immigrants to compete in the labor market by improving their job skills would certainly be helpful in reducing their poverty rates. Subsidized child care may also assist immigrant parents in joining the work force. The statistical model showed that the more persons employed in the household, the lower the risk of poverty. Therefore, increased subsidies for child care may be helpful in increasing the number of adults in immigrant households who work. In addition, since immigrants tend to have more children than natives and the logistic regression model showed that larger family size creates a greater risk of poverty for immigrant households than native households, perhaps greater access to family planning may be helpful in lowering the poverty rate for immigrants and their children. Finally, specific programs designed to increase immigrant familiarity with their new country may reduce poverty among immigrants. This may include adult education programs designed to increase knowledge of English, the U.S. job market, and services available from government and private sources.