Posted on 11/28/2004 5:49:24 PM PST by Constitution Day
Report: Immigrant population in N.C. nearly doubled in four years
The Associated Press
November 26, 2004 12:20 am
RALEIGH, N.C. -- North Carolina's foreign-born population has nearly doubled in the past four years, with immigrants undeterred by the struggling economy, according to a report based on a U.S. Census Bureau survey.
The report by the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tougher restrictions on immigration, found that the state's foreign-born population jumped from 373,000 in 2000 to 641,000 in March.
"Immigration is a complex process that's driven by a lot of different things," said study author Steven A. Camarota, research director at the Washington-based center. "The argument that it's driven by the economy is weak."
The report was based on the census bureau's March Current Population Survey, which is taken every year to gauge the country's unemployment rate.
The census bureau does not use that survey to estimate annual changes in immigrant population. It relies on the much larger, annual American Community Survey, which showed that North Carolina's foreign-born population grew to 502,000 from 2000 to 2003, the most recent year for which figures are available.
Kevin Deardorff, chief of the bureau's immigration statistics staff, warned against viewing the numbers reported by the Center for Immigration Studies as proven.
"To take them as absolute estimates is probably something that one should do with caution," he said. "But it wouldn't surprise me if you saw continued growth."
The report doesn't show where immigrants came from, but the 2000 census found that 40 percent of North Carolina's immigrants came from Mexico. The next-largest groups were from India, Germany and Canada.
Mexico remained the top country of origin for North Carolina immigrants after 2000, according to experts who attributed the continued growth to word-of-mouth.
"Part of what's going on is the cumulative effect of immigration in the 1990s," said Roland Stephen, an associate professor of political science at N.C. State University. "Friends and relatives heard from others who came before them that life is pretty good here."
Signs of the immigrant boom can be seen across the state. The number of students taking English as a Second Language classes at the state's 58 community colleges rose from 29,000 in the 2002-03 academic year to 37,000 the following year. The ranks of Hispanic soccer leagues are swelling, and cricket -- once nearly unheard of in North Carolina -- is being played on recreational fields throughout the state by Indians and Pakistanis.
Veerapandian Kalimuthu, owner of Tower Indian Restaurant, said he has had to expand his staff of waiters and cooks from three to seven since opening in Morrisville in April 2002. Roughly two-thirds of his customers are, like Kalimuthu, from India.
"On Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, we're packed," he said.
But more often, it appears that immigrants are struggling in North Carolina, Camarota said.
The center's study found that 42 percent of North Carolina's immigrant population lacks a high school diploma, compared with 17 percent of the native population. Also, 59 percent of immigrants and their children live in or near poverty, the study found.
los parientes muy stupido
Small business owners are not dependent upon illegal aliens to run a profitable business, but to make out like bandits and to hell with everyone else.
I'm not defending corrupt China over corrupt Mexico. It's just that Mexico's corruption is presently the biggest pain in the @$$ for the USA. Our small business people (or big ones) who exploit the situation for personal gain, are not one iota better, than slave owners of yore.
How about English-speaking immigrants from India or France?
the guest worker program won't work. where is the dis-incentive for employers, currently paying their illegal workers off the books, to fire them, and hire the guest workers? why wouldn't they just continue with business as usual?
what I fear from this guest worker program, is that US businesses who currently do not hire undocumented workers - places like Walmart and Lowes and Home Depot - will now be allowed to do so. so the current illegals will remain employed in the "off the books" jobs, while establihsed business will have a new pool of people to hire - the guest workers - which will further depress US wages in that sector.
President Bush isn't granting amnesty to anyone nor rewarding anyone for anything.
He is proposing a guest worker program under which foreign workers can apply for permits to work in the U.S.
No one gets to go to the front of the line. No one gets preferential treatment. No one is exempt from meeting the requirements.
Don't believe everything you read on the white supremacists websites.
Well, well, if it isn't bayourod, La Raza's representative to Free Republic. Nice of you to drop by. I see that you didn't waste any time before you began spewing out your recycled La Raza talking points. And you even remembered to bring along your Race Card to wave around in FReeper's faces. How very predictable of you.
That may work for some home owner who picks up a day laborer on the corner to help him paint his house, but regular employees must be on the books in order for their salaries to be deducted from gross income. A labor intensive business (the type that use laborers)couldn't stay in business without deducting labor costs.
The IRS does conduct audits, and fines are very severe for employers who cheat the government out of their witholding taxes.
Have you tried to work for unreported wages?
are you kidding me? its not homeowners picking up these day laborers standing on the corners or near the dunkin donuts - its the contractors. $50 a day for sheetrock and painting is the going rate here on long island. the cost for these workers is so low, its like petty cash for the contractors in comparison to what they charge for the job. the IRS can't audit them all.
companies also subvert this by using third party firms, who hire the illegals, and then bill the service back to the companies as "legit". similar to the walmart incidents, where they contracted for cleaning services to agencies that hired illegals.
several people I know, who aren't illegals, have second jobs where they are paid off the books. its quite trivial actually. it can't be that hard for the illegals, since there are millions of them doing it.
How about English-speaking immigrants from India or France?
English speaking non-muslims sure.. although i would run checks on the french
That is a lie perpetrated by the non-conservative "what-big-business-wants-big-biziness-gets-because-they-are-gods" part of the RepublicRat party...and the bots...which is the same view as the Rats have in reality. Allowing illegal immigration, amnesty..uncontrolled borders [as our POTUS allows] is NOT a conservative ideal and it is getting tiresome. It WILL destroy our nation-state eventually from within, financially and culturally...not to mention the ME terrorists who have been coming across.
English-speaking non-Muslims?
How about Satanists who speak fluent English? :-D
You my friend have a better chance of winning the PowerBall two weeks in a row then finding the correct answer on that one.
That's fine and good! BUT the problem is...THAT ISN'T HAPPENING IN MOST CASES!!
What about the cost of ESL (English as a Second Language) programs in the public schools...for illegals? Most taxpayers are paying for this without their knowing it.
Sounds a little bit like the H1B scams.
>>Also, 59 percent of immigrants and their children live in or near poverty, the study found.<<
The American standard of poverty is considered middle class in Mexico.
>>Low-intelliegence/caring on behalf of the author, or an intentional agenda?<<
All three and it will get worse.
>>- what is the breakdown between legal and illegal immigration?<<
1st. These are constantly changing figures. If the survey is done during the school year we have the millions of legal and illegals who come just for the education we offer.
2nd. The illegals are constantly going home for three months and then returning, in order to keep on the active end of receivership from the public benefits and services we offer.
3rd. What country can absorb the migration of a million people without a cost in jobs to the native citizens? None
4th. We citizens lose jobs and the illegals gain the position we once held at a lower wage and lower tax payments to the system which keeps the wheels in America
turning.
5th. We are going backwards because of the high wage position unemployment and lower taxes being sent to the Treasury.
To believe anything else means you haven't sat down with a pencil and calculated the figures for yourself, even estimated figures with a -10% to be sure you aren't over reaching.
Ummm...the Mexicans here in my part of NC voted for Bush.
That's a good question, and I don't know why I hadn't thought of it.
How about where those ESL teachers are from?
My father-in-law's girlfriend teaches ESL.
She's from Mexico City and here on a green card.
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