ºÙºÙÊÓƵ

EMBARGOED until Thursday, Oct. 5. California policy-makers need to recognize that immigration is here to stay and develop strategies to encourage and hasten the integration of immigrants into the state's economy and society, say the authors of a report to be published Oct. 5 by the University of California's California Policy Research Center. The report, "Immigration and Immigrant Integration in California: Seeking a New Consensus," is written by Philip Martin, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis, and Manuel García y Griego, an associate professor of political science and director of the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas, Arlington. "The state's ability to integrate immigrants and their children will shape the California of 2025 and beyond," said Martin. "Immigrants today are the taxpayers and citizens of tomorrow." Demographic realities, alone, make it clear that immigrant integration is one of the most important policy issues facing California, write the authors. For example, no longer does any one ethnic group or national-origin group comprise a majority of the state's population. Furthermore: o Forty-six percent of Californians are either immigrants or have at least one foreign-born parent. o During the past decade, one-third of the state's annual population growth was due to immigration, and that trend is expected to continue. o One-third of all immigrants in the United States now live in California. "This demographic trend is not exclusive to California," García y Griego said. "We see it in Texas and elsewhere in the country. But in this, as in so many other areas of national life, these trends have appeared first and most pronounced in California. "California should also lead the way in formulating an affirmative response to immigrant integration," he said. California's current booming economy offers the ideal environment for crafting new policies that will ease integration of immigrants, suggest the authors. State legislators then have more room to promote policies that will treat immigrant integration as an investment in and benefit to the state's long-term vitality. "If California waits until the next recession to debate immigrant integration, there may once again be debates over legislation that seems to promise short-term state budget savings but results in inadvertent fiscal costs, and the social costs associated with postponing the adoption of realistic policies," write García y Griego and Martin. During budget crunches, legislation such as federal welfare reform in 1996, which grew out of the approval of California's Proposition 187 in 1994, is enacted to save money, but then soon is modified when the human consequences become clear. Proposition 187 restricted immigrants' access to public health care and education. In reality, write Martin and García y Griego, immigrants did not cause the recession of the early 1990s that contributed to Proposition 187 and federal welfare reforms, nor can they be credited with the current economic boom. Immigrants comprise 25 to 30 percent of California's workforce and a higher percentage of low-wage workers, according to the report. Many immigrants face substandard working conditions and limited work-related benefits. Many immigrant business owners or operators have difficulty obtaining capital and lack knowledge of the state's business regulations. As a group, immigrants may contribute less in tax revenue and require more costly social services, in large part because immigrant families tend to be larger and have more children to be educated. Immigrants also tend to be younger and earn lower wages than native-born residents. To meet the needs of this growing segment of the state population, García y Griego and Martin recommend that California policy-makers develop a "civic consensus" stressing the importance of immigrant integration. In the following areas, they suggest the state should: State policy * focus on long-term, rather than short-term, benefits and costs; * establish an Office of Immigrant Affairs; The economy * better enforce current labor regulations and develop new policies that are sensitive to low-skilled immigrants; * offer incentives to banks to provide capital for immigrant-owned or immigrant-oriented businesses; Health care * expand health-care coverage, especially to the state's working poor; * work with small businesses to provide health insurance to their workers through buyers' co-ops; Education * expand adult education to better meet immigrants' needs; * and provide more effective education for immigrant children by better involving their parents in schools, offering after-school literacy programs, making available special training for teachers of immigrant children and transforming schools into neighborhood training centers in communities with substantial immigrant populations. They also suggest that California pursue a partnership with the federal government that would give states with large immigrant populations a greater say in drafting national immigration policies and provide those states with funding to deal with the impacts of immigration. The California Policy Research Center, which funded and published the immigration report, applies the research expertise of the UC system to the analysis, development and implementation of state policy and federal policy of statewide importance. The center provides technical assistance to policy-makers and commissions on statewide issues, and disseminates research findings and recommendations through publications and special briefings.