by Kevin F. McCarthy
In 1990, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law legislation that substantially increased legal immigration to the United States. Yet today, barely four years later, politicians of all stripes are vying to propose policies that will substantially reduce immigration into the country. Although Americans have always been ambivalent about immigration, the conventional wisdom in California has held that immigrants and the state have traditionally served each other well. What then explains this sea change in public policy?
At its root seems to be the growing perception that the number of immigrants, if not out of control, is certainly too high. This is especially true with regard to undocumented or illegal immigration. The major public concerns focus on three areas: immigrants' use of public services, their effects on the state's economy and their impact on social cohesion in an increasingly diverse population.
RAND's Center for Research on Immigration Policy has recently begun a major study to address these and related issues. The goal of this study is to provide solid empirical information about California's recent immigrants and their effects on the state, and to identify for decisionmakers at all levels of government the relevant policy options. Although the study will not be completed for another 15 months, our analysis already indicates some of the reasons why public perceptions have changed and suggests some general principles for setting policy.
The simple answer to this question is that over the past two decades, changes in California's demographic and economic situation have highlighted the public's awareness of immigrants and called into question the traditional wisdom about immigrants' positive economic effects on the state.
Immigrants have always been an important part of California's population, but the surge of immigrants into the state since 1970 has been unprecedented. Between 1970 and 1980, California's foreign-born population climbed from 1.7 million to 3.6 million; during the 1980s, it nearly doubled again, reaching 6.5 million.
The demographic impact of this surge on the state's populations was compounded by a decline in the attraction of California to residents of other states--traditionally the source of at least half of the state's growth. Between 1970 and 1990, more Californians left the state than were replaced by migrants from the rest of the country. As a result, immigrants and their native-born children accounted for nearly 70 percent of the state's total growth. Naturally, immigrants' fraction of the total population also increased--from one in eleven to one in five. In Los Angeles, where the surge was most pronounced, one in every three residents is now foreign-born.
This arithmetic helps explain why immigrants are now more visible to other Californians. The change in perception is compounded by the fact that today's newcomers are often very different not only from natives but, increasingly, from earlier immigrants. Most obviously, today's immigrants are more ethnically diverse than in the past. Although we continue to draw immigrants from around the world, most of the increase is from Mexico, Central America, and Asia.
In themselves, these ethnic differences are not particularly significant. But immigrants' characteristics typically reflect the social and economic conditions of their origins--which are often very different from those in the United States. Close to 50 percent of the recent immigrants, for example, lack a high school diploma (versus 15 percent of natives) and less than one-third speak English well. Moreover, many of these new immigrants have entered the state as refugees or undocumented immigrants with the special problems that this entails.
Since most immigrants come here to work, their relative youth (over one-third are in their early working years versus less than 20 percent of natives) and high rates of labor-force participation (over 80 percent of the men and almost 60 percent of the women are in the labor market) suggest that they will play an important role in shaping the state's economic future.
Indeed, immigrants now make up one-fourth of the state's labor force and almost one-third of new labor force entrants. (In Los Angeles County these proportions are even greater--almost 40 percent of all workers and 45 to 50 percent of new workers.) Reflecting their widespread economic role, immigrants make up no fewer than 15 percent of the workforce in any major industrial or occupational sector. In manufacturing, agriculture and personal services, they make up 50 percent of all workers.
At the same time that immigrants have been playing a more visible role in the state and its economy, California's economic situation has been changing. Economic growth, long considered Californians' birthright, has chugged to a stop. Traditionally the "last in, first out" of national recessions, California is now mired in the third year of a recession that has slowed income growth and increased competition for a declining number of new jobs, particularly in Southern California.
Also, post-cold war defense cutbacks and increasing global competition are forcing a restructuring of the California economy. Manufacturing, a traditional employer of immigrants, has been laying off employees for the past decade, and many of the state's largest firms have sought to reduce costs by cutting employees and reorganizing their operations. Indeed, some analysts maintain that even were the recession to end today, the state would not complete this restructuring for another five or six years. Finally, the state and its local governments find themselves in a profound revenue squeeze that has led them to cut services.
Although immigrants have not been the driving force behind these economic changes, their increased visibility together with an atmosphere of economic anxiety have heightened concerns about the pace of immigration and its effects on the state. In particular, the conventional wisdom about the benefits of immigration has been called into question. The public and policymakers alike wonder whether recession and restructuring have reduced the contribution of immigrants to the economy and made displacement a larger problem. The state faces very basic questions:
While our study is just beginning to address these questions, our preliminary work together with a historical perspective on immigration policy issues suggest some general guidelines that should be kept in mind when considering immigration policy issues.
First, it is important to distinguish the policies regarding immigrants who are already in the country from the policies that determine how many and which immigrants will be admitted in the future. After all, very few of today's recent immigrants would be affected if future immigration levels were substantially reduced. Moreover, immigation policy is exclusively a federal prerogative. But policies that influence the behavior and effects of current immigrants are often more appropriately dealt with at the state and local level.
Second, we need to recognize the connections among immigration and immigrant policies and a variety of other policy areas. As the most recent Cuban refugee flotilla should remind us, immigration issues can interact with foreign and domestic policy interests in complex ways. Similarly, when considering changes in policies relating to current immigrants, such as the upcoming "Save Our State" initiative, we need to be aware of the potential long- and short-term economic effects. Limiting education for children of undocumented immigrants, for example, may realize considerable short-term savings or reduce future immigration. But are these effects outweighed by the long-term effects of a less well educated labor force?
Finally, the debate is often driven by a sense of crisis. Yet immigration and immigrant issues are not likely to disappear, regardless of what policies are adopted. We clearly need policies that are flexible enough to be modified as circumstances warrant. And we may need a change in mind-set, as well: Perhaps we should approach immigration policy as we do foreign and economic policy, as issues to be managed, not problems to be solved.