Thread: Indiana, Kentucky draw few immigrants

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Indiana, Kentucky draw few immigrants
By MARA LEE
Courier & Press Washington bureau (202) 408-2705 or leem@shns.com
Monday, August 21, 2006

The 2005 Census survey recently released shows immigrants are spreading beyond traditional destinations such as Chicago, California, Texas and New Jersey, but Indiana and Kentucky rank in the bottom third of immigrants.

In Indiana, 4 percent of residents were born outside the U.S.; in Kentucky, it is 2.4 percent, 45th in the nation.

While 4.5 million people moved to the United States in the last five years, the census says Evansville has gained just 700 immigrants, about one-half of 1 percent of the city's population.

Audrey Singer, an immigration fellow at a centrist think tank, The Brookings Institution, said, "Lots of places in theRust Belt have no immigration, really."

That is likely a reflection of the economy, that there are neither large numbers of high-tech jobs to attract Asians with advanced degrees, nor rapid growth in construction, or service jobs such as restaurant dishwashing, traditional draws for Hispanics, Singer said.

She said, "What drives most immigrants is economic opportunity. Immigrants are not very likely to move to places where there are no opportunities."

But Indiana 9th District Rep. Mike Sodrel thinks there may be social factors too, as immigrants prefer to go somewhere where they know someone who can help them get established.

In places such as North Carolina, Georgia and California, there is a critical mass of earlier immigrants who paved the way. "People don't go where there's no support system for them," Sodrel, a Republican, said.

Immigration is divided between high-skill and low-skill groups without much in the middle. Most Asians coming here have college educations or graduate degrees, and are concentrated in computers, universities and medical fields. Singer said the Census shows cities such as San Jose, Washington, D.C., and Boston are magnets for these workers. In the D.C. metro area, 41 percent of immigrants have at least a bachelor's degree.

"Most metropolitan areas are attracting some of each," Singer said.

The same divide is seen in Indiana, where 32 percent of immigrants older than 25 haven't finished high school, much higher than the state as a whole. Fewer than 8 percent of Indiana's adults over 25 have a post-graduate degree - but among immigrants, it is 14 percent.

Indianapolis and its suburbs are attracting the majority of immigration in the state. The Evansville metro area - which includes Vanderburgh, Posey, Warrick and Gibson counties in Indiana and Henderson and Webster counties in Kentucky - has very few immigrants.

Out of about 341,000 people, it has fewer than 7,000 immigrants, which is less than 2 percent. Out of that group, 35 percent have become citizens. The Center on Immigration Studies, a think tank that advocates for less immigration, estimates that 40 percent of foreigners who have not become citizens are illegal immigrants.

Despite the fact that Southern Indiana is missing the national trend of rapid demographic change, the region's congressmen are very concerned about illegal immigration and the failings of the legal immigration system.

Rep. John Hostettler is chairman of the subcommittee on immigration and the border. Sodrel, who represents Dubois, Spencer and Perry Counties in a district that stretches to the Louisville, Ky., suburbs, went on a fact-finding trip to California and Arizona last week.

South of San Diego, Sodrel saw the wall that separates Mexico and the United States, and the high fence 40 yards north of it. Over the 10-mile stretch, there are 208 border patrol agents.

Along the entire 1,952-mile U.S.-Mexico border, there are 75 miles of fencing and more than 10,000 border patrol agents. The immigration bill passed by the House last December called for 700 more miles of fencing.

Sodrel said his visit to California and Arizona showed him first hand "as you harden one part of the border, people move to another part of the border that is softer."

He said the border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers he talked to on his trip say a combination of "boots, barriers and technology" is needed.

"Common sense told me before I went (that) building a wall from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico is not a good use of the taxpayers' money," he said.

He was told by the Arizona agents: "they don't need a barrier, they don't want a barrier;" they want more technology, detention beds and staff.

The Government Accountability Office released a report six months ago that found the system of motion sensors, cameras and computers, which cost $340 million from 1997 to 2005, had to be re-evaluated, and had wasted millions.

Sodrel acknowledged the sensors are often lacking. "They don't know if it's a two-legged coyote, or a four-legged coyote," he said, referring to the Spanish slang for those who guide illegal immigrants across the border.

Because tons of illegal drugs come across the southern border, Sodrel said border enforcement is relevant to every member of Congress, not just those with significant numbers of illegal immigrants.

She said, "What drives most immigrants is economic opportunity. Immigrants are not very likely to move to places where there are no opportunities."

Low risk. No chance of getting caught. All the social service you can exploit. Free for the taking. It's too easy for them and that's why they do it.

Dixie

If the present trend continues Kentucky and Indiana will get illegals too. Look at what has happened to some areas just within the last 5-10 years. If left unchecked it will go everywhere in the nation.

Guess what, I believe these numbers are drastically too low. Lexington Ky is already experiencing the overtaking of green space in order to accomodate the mass in rush of illegals. Too boot, our taxes are on the rise to provide new housing, yet citizens property values are going down. Don't believe the stats you read - the citizens already know the impact of this invasion!

It's all happened in the last 4-5 years in Nashville. My apt. complex went from 0 Hispanics in 2001 to 98% in 2006. I left, after 6 years, that was the ONLY reason I left. I am still mad!

Don't believe everything you read. No one's immune.
Illegals are here. We had a sizeable number in our marches in May. They were proud enough to appear on TV admitting they'll illegality. The census doesn't get delivered to horse barns, shacks and trailers on the back forty, etc. Out in farm country in KY there are Mexican villages with no post office. The cities are not hit so bad yet. However the Catholic church has begun their importation program here in Louisville.
Southern IN farm country is loaded too. Small town courts in IN keep busy with "driving never having had a license."