S.D. COUNTY ESTIMATED TO HAVE 181,000 UNAUTHORIZED IMMIGRANTS

By Edward Sifuentes5:08 A.M.JAN. 15, 2015

New information on the unauthorized immigrant population in San Diego County paints a picture of an established community of 181,000 people, half of whom would qualify for President Barack Obama’s protection from deportation programs.

The report, being released today by the Migration Policy Institute, says about 80 percent of them have lived in the United States five years or more. And about a quarter of them, 45,000, own a home, according to the immigration research organization in Washington.


Not surprisingly, Mexicans made up the largest portion, 77 percent. People from Asian countries made up the next largest group, 13 percent. About half don’t speak English or don’t speak it very well.


The report uses U.S. Census information to provide estimates on the population in the 94 most populated counties in the country. San Diego County’s unauthorized immigrant population is the third-largest in California and the eighth-largest in the nation, according to the figures.


In California, Los Angeles and Orange counties have higher concentrations, with 979,000 and 313,000 undocumented immigrants, respectively.


Randy Capps, director of research at the institute, said the data were produced to help inform policymakers about immigrants, including efforts by local governments to help people apply for the president’s protection programs.


In 2012, the president implemented a program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects young people brought into the country illegally by their parents from being deported.


Late last year, Obama announced a similar program, known as Deferred Action for Parental Accountability, that protects the parents of U.S.-born children and legal permanent resident children from deportation.


The programs don’t provide immigrants with legal status or guarantee a path to citizenship, but they give families an opportunity to stay together temporarily while Congress works out a more permanent solution, the president has said.


Those programs are likely to be the subject of much debate this year as Republicans, who now control both houses of Congress, have vowed to dismantle them.


On Wednesday, the House voted to overturn the programs as part of a bill that would provide nearly $40 billion in funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Obama has threatened to veto the bill.


San Diego County ranks seventh in the nation among counties with the largest number of people eligible for the president’s deferred action programs. Los Angeles County has the most with 466,000; followed by Harris County,

Texas, which includes Houston, with 172,000; and Orange County, 157,000.


According to the Migration Policy Institute, 29,000 unauthorized immigrant children in San Diego County would qualify for DACA and 62,000 parents would qualify for DAPA.


Given those figures, Everard Meade, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, said it makes little sense to implement harsh deportation policies. Instead, the government should focus on bringing the population out of the shadows, he said.


“It’s a fairly well-settled population,” Meade said. “And it means that our policies should be targeted at how to incorporate them more effectively.”


Peter Nuñez, a former U.S. attorney in San Diego, said he disagrees. Allowing unauthorized immigrants to stay would only encourage more people to come, he said.

“I oppose anything that encourages future illegal immigration,” Nuñez said. “If we didn’t have future illegal immigration, there are various options we could consider about what to do with them, but either our laws mean something or they don’t.”

Capps said there are benefits to encouraging people to sign up for the president’s protection programs, which include work permits and require criminal background checks.


People who have proper work documents tend to have better jobs, which means they can contribute more to the local economy and generate more tax revenue, he said.

The Migration Policy Institute’s statistics give some of the most detailed information about the unauthorized immigrant population at the county level, including country of origin, education, employment, marital status and income information.

Most of the unauthorized population in San Diego County, 138,000, are 25 years old or older and more than half of the adults had a high school diploma or higher.


Unemployment among the unauthorized was 7 percent, with 61 percent of them working and 32 percent listed as not in the labor force.


The top industries hiring these workers were the service and hospitality industries, 21 percent, and construction, 12 percent. Retail and manufacturing each employed about 10 percent.


Of the 167,000 people who were 15 years or older, 42 percent, or 69,000, were married, including 15,000 married to a U.S. citizen. An additional 34,000 were divorced, separated or widowed.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/...o-have-181000/