Posted on 11/29/2007 7:31:54 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
Washington — Most of the 953,000 immigrants living in Georgia are in the country illegally, according to an analysis for the Center for Immigration Studies released Thursday.
Basing its findings on U.S. Census Bureau data, the analysis said Georgia has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations of any state. It calculated that 53 percent of the state's foreign-born population — 504,000 people — are illegal immigrants. Only the estimates for Arizona, at 65 percent, and North Carolina, at 58 percent, were higher.
Overall, one in eight people living in the United States is an immigrant, the analysis found, for a total of 37.9 million people — the highest level since the 1920s. The nation's immigrant population — legal and illegal — reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007, it said.
The analysis was conducted by Steven A. Camarota, director of research at the center, which advocates reduced immigration.
Camarota has been active in the national immigration debate. Independent demographers disputed some of the survey's conclusions, but not Camarota's methods of data analysis.
"The immigrant population in Georgia is there because of the state's severe labor needs, including the poultry, agricultural and carpet industries," said Lisa Navarette, a spokesman for the National Council of La Raza, an advocacy group for Hispanic-Americans.
The analysis said half of the immigrants from Mexico and Central America are in the country illegally and one-third of those from South America are illegal immigrants. It also documented the surge of new arrivals and described its impact.
"The last seven years have been the highest period of immigration in American history," it concluded. "Immigrants and their young children [under 18] now account for one-fifth of the school-age population, one-fourth of those in poverty and nearly one-third of those without health insurance."
Camarota was criticized by some immigration scholars for failing to examine the progress immigrant families make the longer they remain and work in the United States.
"This is a one-eyed portrait," said Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California who has studied immigrants' use of public services. "It is a profile of immigrants' dependency without any profile of their contributions."
Myers said his research shows that within a decade, new immigrants in California moved up quickly to steadier jobs with more benefits, and the rates of uninsured immigrants dropped sharply.
And Wayne Cornelius, a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego, who has studied Mexican immigration for decades, called Camarota's conclusions about immigrants' use of public services "misleading."
The census data, Cornelius said, does not allow concise estimates of use of public services by illegal immigrants.
Cornelius said his field research in San Diego County had shown that illegal immigrants underused the health care system, given their health needs.
The New York Times contributed to this article.
You may consider this a pathetic argument, as that is your right. I take umbrage with being called silly.
I am S. Georgia farm boy. Born and raised on the family farm producing crops, especially watermelons. You are not going to find many folks who want to do that sort of work.
It is hot, humid and back-breaking labor. I remember very well vomiting from the heat and cramping terribly for the same reasons. Produce must be harvested by hand. So yes, I can see people not wanting to be paid 25/hour to do the sort of work that is required, and I did it because I got to slide my feet under the table at night and had a place to lie my head in the evening.
But, I digress. There are more illegals in Georgia, sure, but to play the devil’s advocate, our local economy THRIVES on them. Come check our Walmart on Sunday afternoons. Loaded with hispanic peoples spending CASH, not welfare, cold hard CASH and the last time I checked, cash does not care who you are or if you are legal. You take that very lucrative portion of our economy away, and we are in a world of hurt.
Oh! I also failed to mention, my home county, Colquitt, is the NUMBER ONE agricultural producing county in the STATE. We need workers to pick crops, but again, even if the pay was worth it, the work does not justify the pay unfortunately for some.
Well sorry, but if the shoe fits...
So tell me, how did the crops manage to get harvested in the time between when slavery ended and when illegals started arriving in droves? Or was there just a 100-year gap when no watermelons were grown? Do you really think your economy is THRIVING thanks to a few thousand illegals? Why not bring in a few million then and compete with Atlanta?
ping
In other news, the sun rises in the east, study finds.
Decatur poultry plant awaits TB test results, says workers legal
So move back to NH. I-95 is ready when you are. And I don't know where your kids go to school, but mine got plenty of homework right here in GA.
My kids have already moved on to college, not because of Georgia public schools but in spite of them. Don’t blame the messenger, your schools were in a sorry state before I got here, they are in a sorry state now and they’ll probably be worse when I’m long gone.
I can blame the messenger when the message is wrong. Mine has no trouble with college and if fact was able to graduate in 3 years thus saving me about $35,000 because of GA advanced placement.
“Most immigrants in Georgia illegally, study finds”
Now there’s a “press shocker”!
(/SARC!!!!)
How does spending money at Wal-mart translate into a booming economy locally?
So because your one child is doing well in school that means the state gets a pass...LOL!!!! My son goes to Georgia Tech because he's a smart kid, his high school was a joke. If he graduates early does his school get the credit?
Do a simple Google search for "Report Card On American Education" to see how well your "my kid is a genius so his school must be great" theory pans out. Some quick summaries, I have to leave for work:
The top-performing elementary and secondary schools in the nation--as measured by several standardized tests--were in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Montana, Nebraska, and New Hampshire.
The worst-performing schools were found in Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia.
Yeah, I know- and they are living down the street from us, or so it seems...
Thanks for the numbers. Anecdotally, I can tell you that I see (and meet) more legal immigrants in NJ and NY as a share of the total population than I do when I am traveling in the south. The immigrant population in the south seems dominated by poor Mexican/Central American laborers.
The figures seem to bear you out.
Did you misunderstand deliberately or inadvertantly? I said that the GA advanced placement program saved me $35k (at Harvard). BTW my kid is long gone from college and is out making money.
A number of my kid's class mates went to ivy league schools, so it wasn't the school - Here's an idea (ONE THAT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS CONSIDERING THE THREAD WE'RE POSTING IN) Maybe it's the students. When you have a tidal wave of the lowest of the low Mexican immigrants swamping the school system with their ninos who 1. no hable inglés and 2. are the descendents of dumba$$es (after all these people couldn't cut it in Mexico -genetics mean something) The maybe just maybe it isn't necessarily the schools, but what they're given to work with.
My solution (I know you didn't ask) Is to deny government education to the children of illegal immigrants. Schools improve taxes go down a win win for everyone except the criminals.
You are wrong, they are not all in south GA. They in our towns all over the state. I will bet more work in the construction trades then work on farms. Whole sections of towns have vanished and now look like Tijuana. We have schools here in Gwinnett that are over 60% spanish, these schools are title 1 schools which means most of their students are below poverty. They don’t speak english and forget about the middle schools that these elementary schools feed into, they are downright dangerous because of the gangs.
Georgia schools were pathetic long before immigration became the problem here that it is, do a Google search and look at some of the data. Having a few bright kids, early placement or a few good schools doesn't change that fact. My son missed a perfect SAT score by 3 questions. Several kids scored better than he did. Emory, UGA and Tech are full of local students doing just fine. The Ivy League schools come here to recruit. None of that can obscure the fact that year after year Georgia's schools are consistently among the worst in the nation.
“But they all work for the Fanjul family in the sugar cane fields that also pollute Floridas water air and land.”
As for the phosphorus “pollution”, consider that the rain falling on the sugar farm fields often has a higher phosphorus level that the water entering Evergaldes National Park.
The phosphorus possesed might consider prayer instead of legislation and/or regulation. Lately, it appears that the Higher Office isn’t taking calls from enviro-whackos, though.
As a minor item of history, the senior Fanjul never obtained American citizenship. Not an illegal, but not a citizen.
This may have changed since I was involved in the sugar circus.
Measured how? By standardized test scores? Is it the fault of the schools or what they have to work with? I think all government schools are pretty much the same, so what differentiates them - it isn't the money DC schools have the highest per capita spend in the nation and are near the bottom of the list by the standardized test results. It isn't the curriculum - that's standardized too ever since dismal Jimmah made education a federal thing. Could it be the teachers? Possible, but they move all over the place. There are plenty of teachers in GA from all over the rest of the country. So what's left - the students. Their culture and their parents. And btw - illegal immigration was big in GA ten years ago too.
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