Latinos in Massachusetts: Legal Immigration to New England During the 1990s

This fact sheet summarizes information about legal immigration flows to the New England Region during the 1990s employing Immigration and Naturalization Service data. Although the annual number of legal permanent residents (e.g., green card holders) from Latin America and the Caribbean fell during the decade, as a percent of all legal immigrants who settled in New England their representation rose. Among all Latin American and Caribbean immigrants who settled in the region, more than half chose Massachusetts or Connecticut. And although most reported working in lower-skilled occupations, from 10 percent to 30 percent of immigrants from each c o u n t ry were working in professional, administrative, or technical support positions. Finally, at least 80 percent of all new legal permanent residents from each nation except Haiti relied on family-based entry categories to obtain their new status

The Changing Profile of Mexican Migrants to the United States: New Evidence from California and Mexico

Using recent data from southern California and Mexico we challenge the notion that the demographic profile of post-1970 Mexican migrants to the United States has remained constant. We find that more recent cohorts of migrants: (1) are more likely to settle permanently in the United States, (2) have higher proportions of females, (3) are younger, (4) have higher educational attainment, (5) are increasingly likely to originate in southern Mexico and the Mexico City Metropolitan area, and (6) are increasingly likely to depart from urban areas within Mexico. Although we find no direct evidence that the legalization programs mandated by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 led to a stronger propensity to settle permanently in the United States, logistic regression analyses demonstrate the importance of the other three principal explanatory factors suggested by Cornelius (1992), namely, economic crisis in Mexico, the changing character of U.S. demand for labor, and social networks

What's at Stake for the State: Undocumented Californians, Immigration Reform, and Our Future Together

Building off a methodology originally pioneered by co-author Enrico A.Marcelli (Demographer, Department ofSociology, San Diego State University) to estimate the unauthorized, this is the first report to estimate undocumented Californians at this breadth and level of detail. One in six California children has at least one undocumented parent and 81% of those children are citizens. Nearly half (49%) of undocumented Californians have lived here more than 10 years. Undocumented Californians comprise nearly 7% of the state's total population, 8% of all adults and 9% of the state's workforce.However, achievement of these gains will require a clear and quick roadmap to citizenship. To succeed, federal immigration reform needs to take immigrant integration seriously, and the state and local governments will need to invest in programs to raise education levels, increase English fluency and improve job skills as a way to maximize the potential of undocumented Californians and build a stronger state

The Unauthorized Residency Status Myth: Health Insurance Coverage and Medical Care Use among Mexican Immigrants in California

Informed by recent developments in the behavioral model of medical care use and social epidemiology, this article employs survey data to estimate whether unauthorized residency status among non elderly Mexican and other-Latino immigrant adultsin California influenced the probability of having had health insurance and havingreceived medical care. Unauthorized residency status is estimated to have decreased the probability of having been insured, and augmented the probability of havingrelied on public health insurance. However, after controlling for other individual characteristics, neighborhood context, and social capital, neither insurance nor residency status appears to have influenced whether a person obtained needed medicalcare. Rather, neighborhood context, difficulty locating a medical care facility, andcivic engagement appear to be more important for understanding use of medical services

Self-Selection Patterns in Mexico-U.S. Migration: The Role of Migration Networks

This paper examines the role of migration networks in determining self-selection patterns of Mexico-U.S. migration. A simple theoretical framework shows the impact of networks on migration incentives at different education levels and how this affects the composition of migrant skills. Empirically, we find positive or education-neutral selection in communities with weak migrant networks but negative self-selection in communities with stronger networks. This is consistent with high migration costs driving positive or intermediate self-selection, as advocated by Chiquiar and Hanson (2005), and with negative self-selection being driven by lower returns to education in the United States than in Mexico, as advocated by Borjas (1987). (c) 2010 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.