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20 percent of schoolchildren are in immigrant families

Sep. 5, 2000 | 3:52 p.m.

Scripps Howard News Service

Editors: ProjectUSA in graf 9 is cq

With photo/graphic: SH00I037IMMIGRANTSTUDENTS

By JOAN LOWY

Scripps Howard News Service

Roughly one out of every five students entering classrooms this fall is either foreign-born or the child of an immigrant, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute.

The institute, a nonpartisan think tank specializing in economic and social policy, estimates that about 20 percent of the children under 18 in the United States are either foreign-born, first-generation immigrants or children who were born in this country to at least one immigrant parent.

In some states, the percentage of foreign-born children and children of immigrants is much greater. In California, nearly half -- 49 percent -- of children under 18 are foreign-born or have an immigrant parent. In Arizona and New York, it's 31 percent.

Since nearly all children attend school, the percentage of children of immigrants in the general population is mirrored in the student population, said Michael Fix, director of immigration studies at the institute.

``The way we think about kids in school is the old black-white paradigm,'' Fix said. ``That doesn't work anymore. You can't think about education policy today without thinking about its implication for the immigrant population.''

The share of students who are foreign-born or who have immigrant parents has tripled in the past 30 years, according to the institute. In 1970, they made up only 6.5 percent of students.

The mix of the immigrant student population also has changed, Fix said. In 1970, 60 percent of immigrant children were of European descent, 26 percent Latin American descent and 10 percent of Asian descent.

By 1995, the share of immigrant children of European descent had shrunk to 13 percent, while the share of children of Latin American descent grew to 56 percent and children of Asian descent to 23 percent.

Growth in immigration and its implications for U.S. population trends have triggered a backlash. For example, ProjectUSA, a group advocating a moratorium on immigration, has been erecting billboards around the country featuring the face of a child and the message: ``Immigration is doubling U.S. population in my lifetime.''

The Census Bureau estimates the U.S. population at 275 million today and forecasts it will grow to 335 million by 2025.

Two-thirds of U.S. growth is attributable to immigration and children born to recent immigrants, while the other third is due to lower mortality rates, according to demographers. Life expectancy in the United States has risen from 47 years in 1900 to 77 years today.

While world population continues to grow -- it surpassed 6 billion people last year and is forecast to reach between 8 billion and 11 billion by 2050 -- nearly all the growth is in Third World countries. The population of industrialized nations, with the exception of the United States, is stagnant or declining.

The ``replacement rate'' at which population neither increases nor decreases is generally considered 2.1 children per woman. The fertility rates have fallen well below replacement throughout the industrialized world. The average fertility rate for European countries, for example, is 1.4. In Japan, it's also 1.4. Even in some developing nations -- South Korea and Taiwan, for example -- the rate is 1.6 or below.

The United States, however, has the highest fertility rate in the industrialized world -- 2.03 children per woman -- thanks in part to higher births to immigrants.

On the Net: the Urban Institute site is http://www.urban.org

(Joan Lowy is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service. E-mail LowyJ(at)shns.com)

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), September 07, 2000

Answers

Thanks to the Mormons and the Mexicans that import there disgusting birth rate with them.

I'm going to insult the morons that will automatically respond with the kneejerk statement about how that's such a racist statement. THOSE ARE THE FACTS. Racism doesn't have anything to do with it. If you can't figure those facts out for yourself then you've got your head up your a@@. If you can't see the silent invasion taking place then where the hell do you live and breathe? We are becoming the United States of Mexico and until you get out from under your righteous liberal bullsh*t stance about freedom for all, ad nauseum then we are going to become overrun and look how EASY it was for Mexico to accomplish this without any army. They did what Russia couldn't do after spending trillions on defense. They did it by overbreeding and simply walking across the border and dropping more kids along the way. I'm more upset with the moron Americans that accept this as human rights for all crap than I am with the Mexicans that don't know what birth control means. There is no better example of the word insidious than this stealthy invasion of America by our neighbors south of the border. Speak the words and see how they feel to you - UNITED STATES OF MEXICO!!! Look at asshole Bush, speaking in Spanish to pander to the growing Hispanic population. That's one trend I'd like to ram up the liberals #sses but I totally powerless to do anything except watch the problem get worse. Thanks America

-- Guy Daley (guydaley@bwn.net), September 08, 2000.