Importing Poverty
Immigration's Impact on the Size and Growth of the Poor Population in the United States

By Steven A. Camarota
 

Conclusion

What's Different About Immigrant-related Poverty?

When discussing the growth in poverty caused by immigration, it is important to keep in mind that it is different in one important respect from poverty caused by other societal trends such as changes in the economy or family structures. While the state can certainly do things to mitigate their impact, the move to an information-based economy, rising divorce rates, and out-of-wedlock births are complex social phenomena and are not the direct result of a specific government policy. In contrast, immigration is a discretionary policy of the federal government. By setting the level of legal immigration and the amount of resources it devotes to controlling illegal immigration, the federal government determines the size, growth, and characteristics of the foreign-born population. Thus, the poverty that results from immigration is preventable in a way that is not the case for poverty caused by domestic conditions. It seems reasonable therefore to argue that because the federal government created the problem in the first place, it has a much greater responsibility to address the problem than it has to address poverty caused by other factors. At the very least, Washington should provide much greater assistance to state and local governments, which now have to cope with a much larger poor population than would otherwise have been the case.

Why Has the Problem Been Ignored?

Part of the reason immigrant-related poverty has not attracted the attention of policymakers is that immigrant households did not represent a large proportion of the poor until about 20 years ago. Policy makers and researchers interested in poverty have generally focused on other issues, such as wages for low-skilled workers, changing family structure, discrimination, and the level of government benefits. And until recently, it was difficult to estimate the impact of immigration on poverty in United States. Only in 1994 did the Census Bureau began to ask a nativity question on regular basis as part of the CPS. Moreover, immigrants are not politically powerful. Many are not citizens and therefore cannot vote and most cannot afford to make campaign contributions. Thus, politicians could ignore immigrants in or near poverty without paying much of a political price. Also, as has already been pointed out, immigration is a discretionary policy of federal government. Elected officials in Washington are reluctant to deal with immigrant-related poverty because to do so would call attention to the fact that a conscious policy that they have either supported or at least not tried to modify has led to an enormous growth in the poor population. It is far easier for law makers to emphasize the positive aspects of current immigration policy and offer platitudes about “a nation of immigrants” than to deal with the problems they have created.

Another important reason the dramatic growth in immigrant-related poverty has not received the attention it should have stems from the nature of the immigration debate. Most of the advocates for immigrants are also advocates for the current high level of immigration. These advocacy groups cannot call attention to immigrant-related poverty because to do so would highlight a fundamental problem with the very policy of high immigration they work so hard to defend. Thus, those who might be expected to push for greater efforts to help immigrants in or near poverty remain mostly silent. Costly new income support programs and efforts to increase the skills of immigrants so they can better compete in the labor market would undermine one of the arguments most often made by the advocates of high immigration, namely that it is an economic and fiscal benefit to the country. It would be much harder to make this argument if large sums of money are spent on welfare and other programs designed to increase the skills of immigrants. Therefore, in a very real sense, there is a conflict of interest between being an advocate for immigrants and an advocate for mass immigration. Advocates of immigration are trapped by their own rhetoric. As a result, little attention is paid to the millions of immigrants and their children who languish in poverty.

A Problem That Cannot be Ignored.

While some may be tempted to ignore immigrant-related poverty at a time of relative prosperity, this seems very unwise. In just the last eight years, the size of the poor population increased by three million as a result of the growth in poverty among persons in immigrant households. If current trends continue, by the end of the next decade at least 10 million people residing in immigrant households will live in poverty, accounting for perhaps 30 percent of the nation’s total poor. Moreover, another six million persons in immigrant households will be near poor. The implications of this situation for the immigrants themselves, their children, and our society as a whole are such that we simply must confront this problem head on. It is my hope that this study will help policymakers, researchers, and all those concerned about poverty better understand the central role that immigration policy now plays in the perpetuation and growth of poverty in America. If we wish to continue to have an immigration policy that admits large numbers of unskilled persons, a large share of whom are likely to end up poor, then new programs must be developed with the intent of reducing poverty for immigrants and their children.