Michael Fix

A Profile of Limited English Proficient Adult Immigrants

This article examines the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL) to develop a profile of immigrant adults with varying levels of oral English proficiency. The NAAL data on adult limited English proficient (LEP) immigrants are used here to examine their education levels, workforce involvement, incomes, use of public benefits, participation in English as a Second Language instruction, and English literacy levels. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the body of research and policy literature on importance of English skills and literacy for adults’ education and workforce development. The authors conclude that adults with low and medium oral English proficiency differ significantly along a number of dimensions that should be considered by policymakers and educators as instructional services are developed and program funds allocated for LEP adults.

Immigration Reform: A Long Road To Citizenship And Insurance Coverage

The 2012 elections reinvigorated the drive for overhauling US immigration laws, but citizenship and health coverage for millions of unauthorized immigrants could still be a decade or more away.

Integrating refugees in the United States: The successes and challenges of resettlement in a Global Context

In 2014 there were more than 14 million refugees worldwide and almost a million places for permanent resettlement were needed. This article reviews administrative and survey data on the characteristics and integration outcomes of refugees resettled in the United States, Canada and Scandinavia. Refugees to these destinations are increasingly diverse in their origins and languages-posing challenges for host communities. Refugees in the United States tend to be employed due to an early focus on self-sufficiency there, but those in Sweden and Norway have low employment rates, with Canada representing a middle ground. While limited English skills slow integration in the United States and Canada, acquiring Norwegian and Swedish is tougher because refugees are seldom exposed to these languages before resettlement. In the United States, older refugee cohorts have reached income parity with the U.S.-born population, but those resettled since the 2008-09 recession have started at a greater employment and income disadvantage. This article describes the administrative and survey data on U.S. refugees in rich detail, but the available administrative data for refugees in Canada, Norway and Sweden have yet to be fully mined.

Commentary on “The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States: Estimates based on demographic modeling with data from 1990-2016”

“The number of undocumented immigrants in the United States: Estimates based on demographic modeling with data from 1990–2016” by Fazel-Zarandi, Feinstein and Kaplan presents strikingly higher estimates of the unauthorized immigrant population than established estimates using the residual method. Fazel-Zarandi et. al.’s estimates range from a low or “conservative” number of 16.7 million unauthorized immigrants, to an “average” of 22.1 million, and to a high of 27.5 million. The Pew Hispanic Center estimated the population at 11.3 million in 2016, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) estimated it at 12.3 million. The new method shows much more rapid growth in unauthorized immigration during the 1990s and a substantially higher population in 2000 (13.3 million according to their “conservative” model) than Pew (8.6 million) and DHS (8.5 million). In this commentary, we explain that such an estimate for 2000 is implausible, as it suggests that the 2000 Census undercounted the unauthorized immigrant population by at least 42% in the 2000 Census, and it is misaligned with other demographic data. Fazel-Zarandi, Feinstein and Kaplan’s model produces estimates that have a 10 million-person range in 2016, far too wide to be useful for public policy purposes; their estimates are not benchmarked against any external data sources; and their model appears to be driven by assumptions about return migration of unauthorized immigrants during the 1990s. Using emigration rates from the binational Mexican Migration Project survey for the illegal border-crosser portion of the unauthorized population, we generate a 2000 unauthorized population estimate of 8.2 million—slightly below Pew and DHS’s estimates—without changing other assumptions in the model. We conclude that this new model’s estimates are highly sensitive to assumptions about emigration, and moreover, that the knowledge base about emigration in the unauthorized population during the 1990s is not well enough developed to support the model underlying their estimates.