Immigration in Champaign County

UPDATE: There was a panel discussion on this report and analysis recently as well. From the News-Gazette a couple days ago:

Immigration panelists: Integration requires bridging culture-shock gap
In front of a packed room Wednesday, a panel discussed what Champaign County can do with newly-published data on its immigrant population, as well as which efforts are already underway.

The Gateways for Growth Community Data Report, compiled by the University YMCA's New American Welcome center and the New American Economy advocacy group, breaks down contributions made by the county's 24,000-strong immigrant population during 2016 — noting that those residents contributed $1.4 billion to the local economy and $57.2 million to the tax base.

A crowd of about 160 — including employees of state and federal representatives — gathered at the I Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign to discuss the report, which uses information from the Census Bureau, federal agencies and public economic data. Immigrant was defined in the study as naturalized citizens, green card holders, temporary visa holders, refugees, asylum-seekers and undocumented people born outside the U.S. to noncitizen parents...

General members of the public were encouraged Wednesday to share and discuss the report as much as possible, while local lawmakers were asked to continuously refer to it while creating legislation and strategic plans.

While Champaign and Urbana already mainly lean toward inclusivity, panelist Joseph Wiemelt, director of Equity and Secondary Bilingual Programs for the Urbana School District, said there's still a lot more that can be done.

"We have to unlearn the biases, stereotypes and misinformation we've been taught," he said.

More at the full article here.]

The University YMCA's New American Welcome Center and others have issued a report and analysis of local immigration data according to the News-Gazette (more from the article below). The full report is available here. A quick snippet from the overview:

Champaign County is home to one of the largest immigrant populations in Illinois outside of Chicagoland. In 2016, 1 in 10 county residents, 1 in 8 Champaign residents, and 1 in 5 Urbana residents were immigrants—joining our community from over 76 countries around the world. Our neighbors are from China and Mexico, Germany and India, Pakistan and the Philippines, Colombia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Champaign County was 1 of only 13 counties in Illinois with a growing population in 2016, in no small part thanks to immigrants.

And the overview numbers (click to enlarge):

Today's News-Gazette had an article today which went through the data and methodology and work behind it. It included some common myths that the study debunked:

Debunking myths

Andre said the findings challenge the narrative that immigrants aren't educated enough to contribute to the community, including:

— Education: Among non-college students, immigrants were 50 percent more likely to hold a bachelor's degree or higher than their U.S.-born counterparts. More than 21 percent had a doctoral degree, compared to about 4 percent of their U.S. counterparts.

— Health care: Fewer immigrants received government-subsidized health benefits, with 8.6 percent on Medicaid or Medicare, compared with 26.2 percent of U.S.-born residents. More than 84 percent of immigrants had private health care coverage.

— Marriage: Non-student immigrants were also more likely to be married — 74.1 percent, compared to 53.9 percent for U.S.-born residents not in college.

— Home ownership: Immigrants owned $746.7 million in property, though a smaller percentage (31.2 percent) owned homes compared to U.S.-born residents (48.1 percent).

— Labor force: Immigrants made up 12.3 percent of the labor force and 25.1 percent of STEM workers in 2016. They tended to concentrate in certain jobs: teachers, scientists, software developers, cooks and scientific technicians.

The report estimated that immigrants helped preserve 1,104 manufacturing jobs "that would have otherwise vanished or moved elsewhere."

Andrew Lim, director of quantitative research at New American Economy, said that number is derived in part from a detailed study by a University of Washington professor of how undocumented immigrants affect counties across the United States. It concluded that immigrants fill critical niches in manufacturing industries, from highly skilled engineers and researchers to manual labor, keeping companies competitive and operating costs low and allowing them to stay in the United States rather than move overseas, he said.

Full article here.

[Originally posted 5/23/2018 at 6:25pm]