US Census Bureau: Immigrant Babies Surpass Whites In US Births

On May 17th 2012, government release data, there are more black, Hispanic and other minority babies are born in the US than white babies. With almost half of young and new born children belong to minority. Is it because of Bad economy?

As of July 1, 2011, 50.4 percent of babies younger than age 1 were minorities or of more than one race, up from 49.5 percent in 2010, the data showed. Among children younger than age 5, 49.7 percent were a minority or mixed race last year, up from 49.0 percent in 2010, according to the agency, which tracks the U.S. population.

Former chief of racial statistics at the Census bureau Roderick Harrision said “This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders. We remain in a dangerous period where those appealing to anti-immigration elements are fueling a divisiveness and hostility that might take decades to overcome.”

The Census Bureau findings also show:

* The largest and fastest-growing minority group in the United States last year remained Hispanics at 52 million, or nearly 17 percent of the nation’s population. The black population was 43.9 million.
* Asians were the second-fastest growing population, rising 3 percent to 18 million.
* There were 6.3 million American Indian and Alaska Native residents and 1.4 million Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders.
* More than half of all residents in Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas and Washington, D.C., were minorities as of last year.

Four Anti-Immigration Protestors Arrested in Chicago

On Tuesday 15th May 2012, about 100 people were opposing US Immigration Policy, War and Economic injustice were 4 protestors were arrested in Chicago.

Demonstrators began their march at Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Church in Little Village and marched downtown to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building where some staged a sit in out front, CBS2 reports. Father Jose Landaverde of Our Lady of Guadalupe and another woman were arrested in front of the ICE building for trespassing and another two protesters were arrested after demonstrators took Canal Street.

On Monday 14th May 2012, eight anti-war protestors were arrested for not leaving the lobby of President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters.

Today, members of Communities United Against Foreclosure and Eviction and Occupy Chicago will rally at Jackson and LaSalle in the morning, march to Citibank, then to Daley Plaza where they will deliver petitions to Tom Dart’s office demanding the Cook County Sheriff stop “profit-oriented evictions and foreclosures.”

For this whole week organizers like CANG8, Occupy Chicago and others organizations have plan to focus on different issues each day throughout the city.

Virginia Morales, a member of the Communities United group whose family is facing forclosure said in a press release “There is no serious action being taken to help keep people in their homes. Modifications always seem to fail. We need this moratorium.”

On Sunday 20th May 2012, organizers expecting thousands will show up for a rally on Chicago Convention Center where two days of NATO summit is being held in discussion of military alliance’s strategy in Afghanistan.

Illegal Immigration from Mexico to US has Dropped Sharply

The number of Mexicans coming to the United States has decreased but increased in the numbers who are entering US in a legal way. This is a huge shift in the good economy in Mexico and bad economy in United States. And also in more of deportation and increased the security border.

At the start of the twenty-first century, less than 10 percent came with papers. A decade later, it is 50 percent.
The vast majority of these came on “family reunification visas”–spouses, parents, children, or siblings of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.

Late Harvard professor Samuel P. Huntington stated Mexican Immigrants “threaten to divide the United States into two people, two cultures and two languages”.

Source:Pew Hispanic Center

Others–some ninety thousand in 2011–came on H-visas to work, their professions ranging from engineers to agricultural workers. Ten thousand more came to study. Some two thousand–more than double 2000 levels–came on E-2 NAFTA visas, reserved for investors and business people from countries that are U.S. trading partners. Mexicans also received their highest ever number of EB-5 visas, which require a $500,000 to $1 million investment in a U.S. business, and the creation of at least ten U.S. jobs.

In the past decade almost 1 million became US Citizens who were Mexican residence; desire of obtaining US Citizenship is still same for any other country residence.

80 Illegal immigrant arrested in “Cross-Check” Operations by ICE

Georgia’s governor on Friday signed a tough new state law cracking down on illegal immigrants that is similar to one enacted in Arizona last year, handing new powers to police in the southern US state.

The law authorises police in Georgia to investigate the immigration status of criminal suspects they think may be in the country illegally.

It also makes transporting and harbouring illegal immigrants a crime and requires many private employers to check the immigration status of newly hired workers on a federal database called E-Verify.

ICE have arrested closer to 80 criminal illegal immigrants in Georgia and the Carolinas, under the operation called “Cross-Check” operation for the whole week.

All of them had criminal convictions, including violent offenses such as aggravated assault, family violence and sexual battery of a minor, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE declined to identify them but said most were arrested in the Atlanta area.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested 33 from Georgia, 32 in North Carolina and 15 from South Carolina. Most of these illegal immigrants came from Mexico, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Last month with the similar kind of “Cross-Check” operations nationwide, almost 3,100 people were arrested from federal immigration authorities in Norcross after being convicted of sexual battery.

Last year, ICE removed almost 396,906 illegal immigrants out which 55% were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors.

The figure includes 44,653 convicted of drug related crimes; 35,927 aliens convicted of driving under the influence; 5,848 convicted of sexual offenses; 1,119 convicted of homicide.

Foreign-Born Population Reaches Record High

United States of America has reached 40 million foreign-born people, as reported by US Census Bureau which is record high since 1910. Foreign born are those who born outside of their country of residence. In US and Canada the law for foreign born are considered as citizens are in the process of obtaining US Citizenship. In Germany and Japan if very difficult to become citizens for foreign born.

That figure—from the 2010 American Community Survey—comprises about 13 percent of the total population in the U.S., which is roughly 312 million people. That represents the largest share of the population since 1910, when foreign-born residents comprised 14.7 percent of the overall population.

According to the Census bureau of Chief Elizabeth M.Grieco, Latin America is the biggest source of foreign-born residence. More than 50% of the total population and more than half were born in Mexico (Immigrants from Mexico to US has reduced, can say come to standstill since last 5 years).

About half of all foreign-born residents either spoke only English at home or spoke a language other than English at home and spoke English “very well,” according to the report, but there was considerable variation between the regions of origin. For those from Africa, for example, 71 percent either spoke only English at home or spoke another language at home in addition to speaking English “very well.” For those from Latin America, however, that share was much lower at 37 percent. Drilling down even more, the foreign-born residents from the Caribbean were more likely to speak only English at home at 32 percent, compared to 15 percent from South America, 7 percent from “other” Central America, and 3 percent from Mexico.

Very interesting fact about the employment figures:

Sixty-eight percent of the foreign-born populations age 16 or older were working in 2010, compared with 64% of those born in the U.S. And 79% of foreign-born men were in the labor force, compared to 68% of native-born men; in contrast, 60% of U.S.-born women were employed, compared with 57% of foreign-born women.

Immigrants prefer “gateway” states such as California, New York and Texas, although recently immigrants are looking out for smaller foreign-born population such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming and Dakotas.

US Immigration Update on Secure Communities

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) quietly announced last week that it is changing its Secure Communities program to better meet the Administration’s enforcement priorities. The announcement came in the form of a 19-page report ICE released to address a series of recommendations made by the Department of Homeland Security’s Secure Communities “Task Force.”

‘Secure communities’ is a program to deport illegal aliens partnering with Federal, State and local Law enforcement. Within Department of Homeland Security, Immigration Custom and Enforcement is the program manager.

Under the administration of George W. Bush, ‘Secure communities’ was first piloted in 2008 with 14 jurisdictions. In year 2011 the program was expanded to 1,210 jurisdictions. When I say jurisdiction it include state, country and local prisons, these things to increase to 3,141 by 2013, as mentioned by ICE. In this year, almost 70K deportation took place out of 140K criminal aliens.

While ICE’s responses to the recommendations varied, the agency made a significant policy shift by agreeing with the Task Force recommendation that it should refrain from enforcing the law against illegal aliens apprehended for “minor traffic offenses.”

Which mean ICE have all the rights to deport illegal aliens if they find any pursuant in any law, ICE can directly start the deportation process rather than waiting for local police or any other department to arrest and put him/her to jail.

ICE characterized its policy shift as follows: “For individuals arrested solely for minor traffic offenses, who have not previously been convicted of other crimes and do not fall within any other ICE priority category, ICE will only consider making a detainer operative upon conviction of the minor criminal traffic offense.”

ICE even announced, if the jurisdiction arrest rates of agency deems too high, it will take action against the agency, reason being the “Civil Rights” and “Civil Liberties” of ICE and DHS division, they analyze the data for any Racial Profiling indication. Racial profiling is a form of discrimination by which law enforcement uses a person’s race or cultural background as the primary reason to suspect that the individual has broken the law. Secure Communities is the only enforcement program in protecting the Immigration Law in Obama Administration.