Thread: NJ -Minorities now nearly half of Bergen County children, an

The Dems are desparate to build their voting base. JMO

This is Menendez' district.

Minorities now nearly half of Bergen County children, and just over half in the state.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Last updated: Wednesday September 15, 2010, 11:23 AM
BY ELIZABET LLORENTE AND DAVE SHEINGOLD
The Record
STAFF WRITER

At the Sunday school in Palisades Park, about a dozen children between the ages of 3 and 5 watched an animated movie in Korean about Moses. Then they sat at long tables, said grace before eating their doughnut holes, and chatted with each other in effortless Korean and English.

These children, some of whom were born in the United States and others in South Korea, reflect the rising diversity of Bergen County's youngest residents. Nearly half of Bergen County's children age 5 and younger were minorities in 2009, an analysis by The Record of Census Bureau estimates shows. And, if the historical trends held true, they are a majority this year.

Because so many of these children are born, or reared from such a young age, in the United States, they largely blend into their surroundings, linguistically and culturally.

"A good number of them are very Americanized," said Henry Bischoff, professor emeritus at Ramapo College and author of a new book, "A New Wave of Immigration in New Jersey: Diversity and Vitality 1940-2009." "In fact, many come from families that push them to do well. They're an academic asset."

'Minority' obsolete
The 2009 estimates show that 49 percent of the county's youngest children are either Hispanic, of Asian descent, black or another non-white race. Statewide, the data show, minority children are 53 percent of the population 5 years and younger and slightly over 50 percent of those 10 and younger. In both Bergen County and the state, Hispanics account for the largest share of minority children, followed by Asians and then black and "others" of non-white races.

"The term 'minority' is really becoming obsolete," said Guillermo Beytagh-Maldonado, executive director of the Hispanic Directors Association, based in New Brunswick.

The milestones, demographers say, have been in the making since 1965, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Immigration and Naturalization Act in a ceremony at the foot of the Statue of Liberty.

"It increased immigration from nations that had been excluded before," said James Hughes, dean of Rutgers University's Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. Immigration from Europe decreased, but the numbers from Asia and Latin America rose.

That shift reverberated strongly in New Jersey, Hughes said, long "an immigrant gateway."

"There have been, before the recession, great jobs and many other opportunities," he added. "In 2008, one of every five residents of New Jersey was foreign-born."

The influx of Latino and Asian immigrants, including the relatives who followed the pioneers to the United States in what is known as "chain migration," as well as their higher birthrates, led to today's diversity among New Jersey's youngest residents.

And the diversity in once overwhelmingly white, non-Hispanic areas such as Bergen County, Hughes said, points to the suburbanization of immigrants, once found mainly in urban areas.

Like many parents of these children, Jennifer Kim of Ridgefield Park sees Bergen County as a good choice for raising her 10-month-old son, Jeremy, who is in Sunday school at the Somahng Presbyterian Church in Palisades Park.

"It's got good schools, and that's very important to Koreans, a good education," said Kim, who used to live in Queens. "It's safe."

For young children who speak another language at home, learning English and cultural customs moves at breakneck speed once they start school, say community leaders and language experts. In fact, in as little as a year of near-daily exposure, most children speak English without a trace of a foreign accent, and soon become more proficient in English and less so in their ancestral language, said Jason Kim (no relation to Jennifer Kim), a Palisades Park councilman and former borough Board of Education president.

"Korean kids lose more than 50 percent of their Korean language skill, especially speaking skills," said Kim, who runs college exam tutoring programs.

"They can understand a lot, but they get to the point where they don't want to talk in Korean because they feel more comfortable in English."

Passaic tops 65%
Minority children already have reached the halfway point in about half of the state's 21 counties. (In Passaic County, roughly 66 percent of children 10 and under, and 68 percent of those 5 and under, are minorities.)

Bergen County's diversity is obvious in places such as Palisades Park, where most of the nearly 200 businesses are Korean-owned, and in Hackensack, with its abundance of Latino businesses, including agencies that specialize in travel to Latin America, Dominican-owned hair salons and Cuban, Colombian and Mexican restaurants.

And while just as real, diversity is less obvious in other places, particularly bedroom communities.

Priti Bhargava, an immigrant from India, moved to Bergen County from Central Jersey 10 years ago because of the schools and quality of life.

"A lot of Indian families, especially young couples, have moved to Bergen County," said Bhargava, a mother of three who lives in Oakland and whose youngest child is 10.

Even while immigrants such as Bhargava settle in towns that still are largely white non-Hispanic, they don't have to go far to connect with their native culture.

She and hundreds of other compatriots worship and socialize at the Hindu Samaj Mandir & Community Center, a 32,600-square-foot complex in Mahwah that was completed in 2008 and serves the area's growing Asian-Indian population.

In Montvale, Dominican native Laureana Organ, who is chairwoman of the town's Democratic committee, has seen the shift in Bergen County over the years.

"There's much more diversity than when I got to Montvale in 1992" she said. "You could count the Hispanic families here back then. It was my family and another Hispanic family — they were Puerto Rican. Whenever a minority moved in, the reaction was 'Wow!' "

But towns have come a long way since then, offering bilingual and bicultural services and programs.

The Cliffside Park library's website, for instance, announces that it offers tutoring in English and Spanish.

Ridgewood's library schedule of activities this fall includes "Storytime" for children ages 4 to 7 in Korean, Chinese, Spanish and Arabic.

If the trend continues, how will this generation of children view diversity as adults?

"The significance of differences will fade," Hughes believes. "They'll be more comfortable with diversity. Kids adapt very quickly."

Staff Writer Dave Sheingold contributed to this article. E-mail: llorente@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/news/state/1 ... l?page=all


Costs of Illegal Immigration to New Jerseyites
Executive Summary

The illegal alien population residing in New Jersey is costing the state’s taxpayers nearly $2.1 billion per year for education, medical care and incarceration. This estimate is derived from analysis of public expenditures on just three of several areas of expenditures for about 372,000 illegal alien residents. That annual tax burden amounts to about $800 per New Jersey household headed by a native-born resident. Even if sales, income and property taxes that may be collected from illegal immigrants — estimated at $488 million — are subtracted from the fiscal outlays, the net costs to New Jersey’s taxpayers still amount to nearly $1.6 billion per year.

The three cost areas discussed in this analysis (education, health care and incarceration resulting from illegal immigration) are the major cost areas. They are also the same three program areas analyzed in a 1994 study conducted by the Urban Institute, and that earlier study provides a useful baseline for comparison. Other studies of the costs of immigration — both at the state and national level — that have been conducted in the interim, support the conclusions of this report.

Even without accounting for all of the numerous other areas in which costs associated with illegal immigration are being incurred by New Jersey taxpayers, the program areas analyzed in this study indicate that the burden is substantial and that the costs are rapidly increasing.

The nearly $2.1 billion in costs incurred by New Jersey taxpayers annually result from outlays in the following areas:

Education. Based on estimates of the illegal immigrant population in New Jersey and documented costs of K-12 schooling, New Jerseyites spend more than $1.85 billion annually on education for the children of illegal immigrants. This estimate does not include programs for limited English students, remedial educational programs or breakfast and lunch programs available to students from low-income families. An estimated 11.7 percent of the K-12 public school students in New Jersey are children of illegal aliens.


Health care. Taxpayer-funded, unreimbursed medical outlays for health care provided to the state’s illegal alien population amount to an estimated $200 million a year.


Incarceration. The uncompensated cost of incarcerating deportable illegal aliens in New Jersey’s state and local prisons amounts to about $50 million a year. This estimate includes only prison personnel costs and not short-term or other detention costs, related law enforcement and judicial expenditures, or the monetary costs of the crimes that led to incarceration.
The fiscal costs of illegal immigration borne by state taxpayers do not end with these three major cost areas. The total local cost of illegal immigration would be considerably higher if other cost areas were also calculated, such as preventive health programs, special English instruction, interpretation services in courts and hospitals, welfare programs used by the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, or welfare benefits for American workers displaced by illegal alien workers.

If illegal immigrants obtained legal work status, and eventual permanent residence and possible citizenship, as currently advocated by the Bush administration and passed in the U.S. Senate in 2006, state income tax collections might increase, but this likely would be outweighed by increased eligibility for public services available to low-income families. In addition, the possibility for family members of the current illegal alien population to come to the United States to reunite families would increase the size of the poverty and near-poverty population likely to use public services.

Federal law has provided avenues for the state and local governments to act to lessen the fiscal burden of illegal immigration, but state and local governments in New Jersey are not using those resources.



http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?p ... ch_njcosts

Since when is hispanic a "non-white race"? Hispanics aren't even a race they are an ethnic group based on geographic origin and culture. There are hispanics of every race under the sun.

Of course they out number us...They breed like crazy that's the plan..They Take over town by town city by city state by state..I must say they are doing a fantastic job of it.

All of this with the blessings of our so called law makers..

Bergen County's diversity is obvious in places such as Palisades Park, where most of the nearly 200 businesses are Korean-owned, and in Hackensack, with its abundance of Latino businesses, including agencies that specialize in travel to Latin America, Dominican-owned hair salons and Cuban, Colombian and Mexican restaurants.

Sounds wonderful...

As a former Bergen County resident all I can say is "How sad." Endless millions of over-breeding, perpetually impoverished Third World hordes. How wonderful. In fact, they're bankrupting our country. Dragging us down to their level. And the idiot economists with their lame-brained theories will be the last to figure it out.

But thank God for the clear-minded people at AIPAC and elsewhere who have figured it out and are fighting to save what's left of our country.