Voting and Demographics
The growth in the immigrant population has helped to strengthen and remake America over the last two decades. Today, as thousands of baby boomers retire each day, working-age immigrants are filling gaps in the labor market, paying billions of dollars in taxes that help our entitlement programs survive, and buying homes in communities that would otherwise be in decline. Millions of immigrants have also earned U.S. citizenship and the right to vote while millions more are estimated to be eligible to naturalize.
Times of San Diego Opinion: Trump’s Border Wall Fixation Drives Voters Away from GOP
Growing up in Los Angeles as the son of a Mexican immigrant father who worked as a union meatpacker and a Nicaraguan mother who worked as a beautician, elections were special events for my family. My dad loved volunteering to work the polls, and never missed an election. He’d sit… Read More
Two years after the travel ban, a new study on the contributions made by Middle Eastern and North African Immigrants
Two years ago, on January 27, 2017, the Trump administration enacted a travel ban, which attempted to prevent visitors and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries from coming to the United States. After the ban was challenged in court, the ban was revised and today’s iteration prevents new visitors and… Read More
Texas Tribune Opinion: Proposed federal rule could penalize legal immigrants, like my parents
When my parents took my brothers and me to visit my grandparents in Mexico last summer, it was meant to be a relaxing family reunion. But I spent the week feeling terrified. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen when we crossed the border and returned to Texas. In… Read More
Steve Rao’s December 2018 Interview with NAE Executive Director Jeremy Robbins for “Leaders and Legends”
Listen to the interview below from Saturday, December 1. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/01122018.mp3… Read More
Houston Chronicle Opinion: Why my immigrant clients are avoiding doctors
An immigrant client recently told me her newborn received Medicaid, and she asked me if this could harm her chances of getting a green card. I hated the answer I had to give her: Yes, it might. A new Trump administration regulation could penalize immigrants, like my client, from obtaining… Read More
Ballot Measure 105 Could Cost Oregon More than $329 Million in GDP
PORTLAND, OR – As Oregon voters consider Ballot Measure 105 ahead of the November 6 election, new research from New American Economy (NAE) highlights the negative economic impact the state could face if Oregonians vote “yes” to repeal Oregon Revised Statute 181A.820, the state’s 31-year-old anti-racial profiling law. Measure 105… Read More
New Analysis Shows Proposed Public Charge Rule Could Affect Up To 7 Million Immigrants
NEW YORK, N.Y.—Today, following the Trump Administration’s move to open public comment on a proposed rule change regarding the inadmissibility of immigrants on public charge grounds, New American Economy released a new analysis of the potential economic impact of this proposed rule. The Trump Administration has proposed a new… Read More
Salvadorian Immigrant Gives Back through Community Leadership
For Josefina Cruz-Molina, who was 14 when her family fled increasing violence in El Salvador, moving to a new country was especially difficult. The daughter of an engineer, she had a comfortable life in San Salvador and a close-knit group of friends. But when a classmate of her younger brother… Read More
Argentinian Immigrant Provides Legal Advocacy to Families Across Nebraska and Southwest Iowa
As executive director of Immigrant Legal Center, Argentinian immigrant Emiliano Lerda provides legal advocacy to families across Nebraska and southwest Iowa. Recently his organization, which works primarily with new immigrants and low-income families, received a $4.5 million multi-year grant and an additional $3.1 million thanks to a capital campaign. When… Read More
New York State Assemblyman Reflects on Immigrant Legacy in New York City
When Ron Kim’s family immigrated to the United States from South Korea in 1987, his parents chose to settle in New York City because they knew it had a strong immigrant community. Kim, who was seven years old at the time, explains that this community provided the family with… Read More
Immigrant Population Growth
Both the number and the share of immigrants in America are increasing, with the U.S. Census Bureau projecting that between 2027 and 2038 international migration will be the primary driver of U.S. population growth for the first time in two centuries.1 The trend is already underway. Between 1990 and 2014, the number of immigrants living in America more than doubled. By 2014, more than one in eight Americans were foreign-born. Immigrants play a particularly important role in California, where they make up more than one out of every four residents.
Sources:
1 U.S. Census Bureau, “International Migration is Projected to Become Primary Driver of U.S. Population Growth for First Time in Nearly Two Centuries,” press release (2013), accessed July 30, 2014. Available online.
Share of Population, Foreign-Born
Mitigating Baby Boomer Retirement
The ratio of seniors to working-age adults in America has remained relatively constant since 1980, at about 240 seniors for every 1,000 workers. With the Baby Boomers’ retirement, however, the ratio is poised to jump a stunning 67 percent in the next two decades, to 411 seniors for every 1,000 workers.2 Already, less than half the U.S.-born population is working-age, or between the ages of 25 and 64. Meanwhile, almost three-quarters of the foreign-born population fall into that age bracket, allowing them to make important contributions to both the labor force and U.S. tax coffers.
Sources:
2 Dowell Myers, “Immigrants’ Contributions in an Aging America,” Community Banking, no. Sum (2008): 3–5.
Age Breakdown of Select Populations, 2014
States with the Largest Gap Between Share of Native-Born and Foreign-Born Populations that are Working-Aged, 2014
Housing and Entitlement Contributions
Because immigrants are far more likely to be working-age, they play an important role contributing to the entitlement programs that help seniors as they age. One NAE study found that between 1996 and 2011 immigrants contributed $182.4 billion more to Medicare’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund—the core trust fund in the program—than was expended on their care. Immigrants also have made up roughly one in seven homebuyers in recent years, often purchasing the homes of Baby Boomers as they retire.
Amount Immigrants Contributed to Entitlement Programs, 2014
States where Immigrants Made up the Largest Share of Homebuyers, 2010-2014
Fueling Growth in New Destination States
Before 1990, nearly three-quarters of immigrants lived in one of six gateway states: California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas.3 By 2010, those states’ share had started to drop significantly, to 65 percent, as immigrants increasingly began settling in new-destination states, such as Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina, and Washington. As immigrants move into new states, they help offset brain drain and population decline, often filling positions that would have remained vacant otherwise. The more than 10,000 immigrants that moved to North Dakota between 2010 and 2014, for instance, helped fill labor gaps created when locals took well-paid jobs during the shale oil boom.4
Sources:
3 The Pew Charitable Trusts, “U.S. Immigration: National and State Trends and Actions” (November 2013). Available online.
4 Jack Nicas, “North Dakota City Draws Foreign Workers,” Wall Street Journal, 2012, sec. Business. Available online.
States with Largest Percent Increase in Number of Immigrants, 2010-2014
Voting Power and Citizenship
As more immigrants naturalize and become eligible to vote, they will continue to gain power at the voting booth. Nationally, almost 20 million foreign-born citizens were eligible to vote in the 2016 election. By 2020, that figure is projected to rise to 21.2 million. In some states, foreign-born voters are already capable of deciding elections. In Nevada, for instance, almost 256,000 immigrants were eligible to vote in 2016, a number more than nine times higher than Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in the state that year.
Eligible Immigrant Voters Versus Number of Votes that Decided Presidential Result in Key States, 2016
Immigrants Eligible to Naturalize in Selected States and the United States, 2017
Diversifying the Electorate
Although the white working class played a significant role in the 2016 election, demographic trends mean they will see their influence decline in future electoral contests. While only 11.2 percent of the current U.S. senior population identifies as Hispanic or Asian-American, 27.8 percent of those graduating from high school in the next decade do.5 This means that between 2015 and 2024, the share of the electorate that is white is projected to decline by 4.4 percent. The share that will be both white and working class will see even steeper declines, falling by 5.5 percent. Given this reality, politicians hoping to remain competitive in key states in the future will need to ensure that they do not ignore the needs of Hispanic and Asian voters, many of whom are immigrants.
Sources:
5 2013 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates.
Projected Decline in the Share of Electorate that is White Working Class in Key States, 2015-2024
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