Thread: OH - 40,000 foreigners in 8 years fairly new in town

CENSUS SURVEY
40,000 foreigners fairly new in town
Friday, February 20, 2009 3:20 AM
By Bill Bush

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Click here for a larger version of this graphicAlmost 40,000 foreign-born residents of Franklin County arrived in the United States within the past eight years, according to newly released census information.

But if you think that they are, as former President George W. Bush said, "coming here to do work Americans are not doing," the reality contradicts the image of foreign-born workers coming to the country to take low-paying jobs.

As a group, Ohio's foreign-born residents were much more likely to hold higher-education degrees than the general population, had a higher average income and had a lower unemployment rate between 2005 and 2007.

The category of foreign-born residents covers "quite a wide range of people," from desperate refugees to highly educated people working here on special visas, said Angie Plummer of Community Refugee and Immigration Services, which resettles refugees in central Ohio.

The new numbers come from the Census' American Community Survey for 2005 through 2007. Unlike in the 10-year census, the numbers are estimates.

The survey said Ohio had 412,301 foreign-born residents, 3.6 percent of the state population. Those residents hold bachelor's or higher degrees at almost twice the rate of the state's general population -- 40 percent versus 23 percent, according to the census.

Franklin County has 92,435 immigrants, or 8.3 percent of the population. Almost 45 percent hold a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with 35 percent of the county's general population.

Many of the immigrants are students or professors at area colleges and universities, said Lee Williams, director of the International Institute of Akron Inc., which helps immigrants settle in northeastern Ohio.

"We've got some great universities in the state," Williams said. "Some of these people may have come as students and then had the opportunity to stay."

At the other end of the spectrum are foreign-born residents living in poverty, the data show. The data include foreign-born residents working here illegally, said Shelly Lowe, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Census Bureau.

Although the average income of Ohio's foreign-born residents is higher than the general population's ($70,101 versus $61,852), the median household income -- the income level right in the middle -- is lower ($45,277 versus $46,296).

The regions providing the most foreign-born residents in Franklin County were: Asia (38.6 percent), Latin America (23.3 percent) and Africa (21.2 percent), which includes Columbus' large population of Somali refugees. Columbus is home to about 45,000 Somalis, many of whom fled their homeland after civil war erupted in 1991.

Ohio resettles between 1,300 and 1,500 refugees annually, said Paul Fraunholtz, who runs the refugee services program for the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. Franklin County is one of five urban counties that act as settlement centers.

At least before the economic downturn, only 3.5 percent of Ohio's foreign-born residents were unemployed for the three years including 2007, compared with 4.7 percent of the general population.

That could be because foreign-born residents own or start businesses at a much higher rate than the general public, Williams said.

The tendency among immigrants is that they have a "wonderful work ethic, they love overtime and they are very loyal," Williams said.

And if they can't find work, Plummer said, "Generally speaking, they're eager to work and willing to take jobs below their educational attainment level."

bbush@dispatch.com

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The only way our country's govt can make any money now is with forced population increase, since our manufacturing has been moved to countries with cheap labor.