The New Neighbors: A User's Guide to Data on Immigrants in U.S. Communities

THE NEW NEIGHBORS:A User’s Guide to Data on Immigrants in U.S. CommunitiesPrepared by the Urban Institute for the Annie E. Casey Foundation The Urban Institute, a nonprofit nonpartisan policy research and educational organization, examinesAmerica’s social, economic, and governance problems. It provides information, analyses, and perspec-tives to public and private decision-makers to help them address these problems and strives to deepencitizens’ understanding of the issues and trade-offs that policymakers face. The Institute disseminatesits research findings through publications, its website, the media, seminars, and forums. For moreinformation, visit the Institute’s website at www.urban.org.©2003, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Baltimore, MarylandThe Annie E. Casey Foundationis a private charitable organization dedicated to helping build betterfutures for disadvantaged children in the United States. It was established in 1948 by Jim Casey, oneof the founders of United Parcel Service, and his siblings, who named the Foundation in honor oftheir mother. The primary mission of the Foundation is to foster public policies, human-servicereforms, and community supports that more effectively meet the needs of today’s vulnerable childrenand families. In pursuit of this goal, the Foundation makes grants that help states, cities, and neigh-borhoods fashion more innovative, cost-effective responses to these needs. For more information, visitthe Foundation’s website at www.aecf.org. The New Neighbors: A Users’ Guide to Data on Immigrants in U.S. Communities Randy Capps Jeffrey S. Passel Daniel Perez-Lopez Michael Fix The Urban Institute Washington, DC The authors would like to thank Irene Lee, Megan Reynolds, and William O’Hare of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Garrett Harper of the Heartland Alliance for their help and insight in the development of this guide; Brenan Stearns of The Atlanta Project and Jim Vandermillen of The Providence Plan for advice and examples of data applications; and Felicity Skidmore for her expert editing. Prepared by The Urban Institute with the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The guidebook is available for all users but is designed specifically for Casey Foundation Making Connections partners, Casey Civic Sites partners, and Kids Count grantees. The New Neighbors: A Users’ Guide to Data on Immigrants in U.S. Communities Table of Contents I. Introduction..........................................................................................1 Major Data Sources on Immigrants........................................................................1 Organization of the Guidebook...............................................................................2 II. National Trends in Immigration...........................................................4 Immigrant Dispersal................................................................................................4 Location of the Most Recent Arrivals.....................................................................6 Legal Status.............................................................................................................8 Diverse Countries of Origin..................................................................................12 Language Diversity and Limited English Proficiency..........................................14 Immigrant Families and Children.........................................................................15 III. Addressing Public Policy Questions with Data on Immigrants.........20 Uses for the Data...................................................................................................20 Key Planning and Impact Questions.....................................................................21 Place-Based versus Population-Based Comparisons............................................22 IV. Obtaining and Analyzing the Data.....................................................27 Census 2000 Data Sets..........................................................................................30 Census 2000, 2001 and 2002 Supplementary Survey (C2SS) and American Community Survey (ACS)........................................................................32 Current Population Survey (CPS).........................................................................33 Immigration and Naturalization Service Public Use Legal Admissions Data......34 Title III of The No Child Left Behind Act and Other School-Based Data...........36 State Health Department Vital Records................................................................37 Social Services Caseload Data..............................................................................37 National Survey of America’s Families, Other Data on Children and Families.. 38 Caveats for the Data User.....................................................................................39 Hardware and Software Requirements........