 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(January 2014) |
There are thought to be over half a million undocumented immigrants residing in New York City. They come from many parts of the world, especially Latin America, Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. About 70% of them have paid work, in catering, construction, retail, driving, cleaning, and many other trades; at least in catering, their wages tend to be lower than those of comparable workers.
According to a study by the Fiscal Policy Institute, about 4.08 million immigrants lived in New York State in 2007, [1] and according to the Migration Policy Institute, about 4.47 million immigrants lived in the state in 2014. [2] Of the immigrants in the state, about three million live in New York City. [1] The number of immigrants living in New York City increased only slightly from 2000 to 2011, with an increase from 2,871,032 to 3,066,599 residents being born outside the United States. [3] : 10
A 2007 report by Fiscal Policy Institute estimated there were 535,000 undocumented immigrants in New York City. [1] In all, undocumented immigrants make up 18 percent of all immigrants living in New York City. [1] Undocumented Immigrants in New York City come from a wide array of countries from all over the globe. According to an estimate by Jeffrey S. Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, 27 percent of undocumented immigrants in New York City come from Mexico and Central America, 23 percent come from South Asia and East Asia, 22 percent come from the Caribbean, 13 percent come from South America, eight percent come from Europe, five percent come from Africa, and two percent come from the Middle East. [4]
Although undocumented immigrants do not have legal permanent status in the country, locally they have a significant presence in the city's economy and job market. As former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg explained, “Although [undocumented aliens] broke the law by illegally crossing our borders or over-staying their visas and our businesses broke the law by employing them, our city’s economy would be a shell of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were deported”. [5] [6] According to a Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of 2000 to 2006 data, there are 374,000 undocumented workers in New York City, which makes up 10 percent of the resident workforce. [1] With 374,000 out of 535,000 undocumented workers working in New York City, undocumented aliens have a labor force participation rate of roughly 70 percent. This percentage is higher than the labor force participation rate for native-born residents, 60 percent, or for overall foreign-born residents, 64 percent, in New York City. [1]
Undocumented workers can be found working in almost every industry in New York City performing a wide variety of tasks. More than half of all dishwashers in the city are undocumented workers, as are a third of all sewing machine operators, painters, cooks, construction laborers, and food preparation workers. Undocumented workers also make up close to 30 percent of the city's automotive service technicians and mechanics, waiters, maids and housekeeping cleaners, and carpenters. The five occupations with the most undocumented workers in New York City are cooks (21,000), janitors and building cleaners (19,000), construction laborers (17,000), maids and housekeeping cleaners (16,000), and waiters (15,000). [1]
| Occupation [1] | Number (estimate) | As proportion of all workers |
|---|---|---|
| Dishwashers | 11,000 | 54% |
| Sewing machine operators | 12,000 | 35% |
| Painters, construction & maintenance | 7,000 | 33% |
| Cooks | 21,000 | 33% |
| Construction laborers | 17,000 | 32% |
| Food preparation workers | 6,000 | 32% |
| Waiters & waitresses | 15,000 | 28% |
| Maids & housekeeping cleaners | 16,000 | 28% |
| Automotive service technicians & mechanics | 5,000 | 26% |
| Carpenters | 20,000 | 50% |
| Taxi drivers & chauffeurs | 11,000 | 20% |
| Stock clerks & order fillers | 7,000 | 19% |
| Janitors & building cleaners | 19,000 | 19% |
| Laborers & freight, stock & material movers | 6,000 | 16% |
| Driver/sales workers & truck drivers | 9,000 | 15% |
| Cashiers | 10,000 | 12% |
| Retail salespersons | 10,000 | 12% |
| Child care workers | 7,000 | 12% |
| Office clerks, general | 5,000 | 12% |
| First-line supervisors of retail sales workers | 8,000 | 10% |
| Other occupations | 163,000 | 6% |
| Total undocumented labor force | 374,000 | 10% |
The restaurant industry may be the industry that employs the most undocumented aliens. In 2007, 36 percent of restaurant workers were undocumented aliens. [1] According to a 2008 estimate from the Pew Hispanic Center, about 20 percent of the nearly 2.6 million chefs, head cooks and cooks in the United States are undocumented aliens. [7] According to a 2005 report by the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York and the New York City Restaurant Industry Coalition, undocumented alien workers in the restaurant industry in New York City receive substantially lower wages than legal workers. According to the report, the median wage of all restaurant workers in the city was $8.00 an hour. However, when undocumented alien workers’ earnings were taken out of the sample, the median wage rose to $9.00 an hour. [8] A Manhattan chef and restaurateur explained, “We always, always hire the undocumented aliens… It’s not just me, it’s everybody in the industry. First, they are willing to do the work. Second, they are willing to learn. Third, they are not paid as well. It’s an economic decision. It’s less expensive to hire an undocumented person”. [7]
According to an analysis of the most recently available census data, Mexican immigrants have the highest rate of employment among the city's 10 largest immigrant groups, and they are more likely to hold jobs than New York City's native-born population. Based on the 2008 census data, about 75 percent of all Mexicans in the city between ages 16 and 65 are in the civilian labor force and only around four percent of them are unemployed, which is well below the nation's current unemployment rate of 9.6%. [9] Experts say the main reason so many of these undocumented aliens are employed is because they are undocumented, and, consequently, they are less likely to report workplace abuses to the authorities for fear of deportation. As a result, many of these workers hold jobs that pay less than the minimum wage and require them to work 100-hour work weeks. [9]
In 1996, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani stated: "The reality is that [undocumented aliens] are here, and they're going to remain here. The choice becomes for a city what do you do? Allow them to stay on the streets or allow them to be educated? The preferred choice from the point of view of New York City is to be educated". [10]
Although the New York City Police Department (NYPD) does not check immigration status of people seeking medical attention or education services, it does check the immigration status of anyone who commits a crime. [5]
In October 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which authorized legalization for undocumented immigrants who could prove they had resided in the U.S. continually, although without appropriate documentation, since January 1, 1982. [11]
Mayor Bloomberg explained, “Our general policy in this area protects the confidentiality of law-abiding immigrants, regardless of their status, when they report a crime or visit a hospital or send their children to school”. [5] In New York State, resident undocumented immigrants can get a driver's license. They also pay the same tuition rates as other residents to attend a New York state university or other public university. [12] New York state supports the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive actions taken by Barack Obama, which allowed about four million undocumented immigrants to receive work permits and be protected from deportation. [12] [13]
On September 17, 2003, Bloomberg issued Executive Order 41 to protect the privacy of undocumented immigrants and to grant them access to City services that they need and are entitled to receive. According to Executive Order 41, if an undocumented immigrant goes to a City agency to request certain services or benefits, City employees will not ask about his immigration status unless it is required by law or necessary to determine whether he is eligible to receive those services or benefits. Furthermore, if an undocumented immigrant is the victim or witness of a crime, or if he calls or approaches the police seeking assistance, police officers will not inquire about his immigration status. [1] [9] [14] [15]
In January 2017, President Donald Trump enacted a new executive order that would allow undocumented immigrants nationwide to be deported on lesser charges than previously. Over the week of February 6, 2017, six hundred people in 11 states, including 41 people in the New York City area, were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The ICE stated that of those arrested in the New York City area, 95% of those arrested were criminal aliens. [16] Specifically, of the 41 arrested, 38 had at least one criminal conviction. [17] The New York City raids had been planned since January and focused mainly on people who immigrated from Central American countries. [18] The ICE had arrested more undocumented immigrants in the New York metropolitan area in previous raids, including 58 in an August 2016 raid. [19] However, the new ICE raids under Trump's presidency represented an increased enforcement of immigration policy, including detaining and potentially deporting 8 million of the country's estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants. [20] As a result, after the February raids, there were reports of increases in people looking for free legal help from immigrant-rights law firms. The NYPD said that it was not involved in the raids. [16] ICE arrested a further 104 people in the New York area in July 2017. [21]
Operation Wetback was an immigration law enforcement initiative created by Joseph Swing, the Director of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), in cooperation with the Mexican government. The program was implemented in June 1954 by U.S. Attorney General Herbert Brownell. The implementation of Operation Wetback was a result of Attorney General Henry Brownell's touring of Southern California in August 1953. It was here that he made note of the "shocking and unsettling" issue that was illegal immigration. The short-lived operation used military-style tactics to remove Mexican immigrants—some of them American citizens—from the United States. Though millions of Mexicans had legally entered the country through joint immigration programs in the first half of the 20th century, Operation Wetback was designed to send them back to Mexico.
Reforming the current immigration policy of the United States is a subject of political discourse. Immigration has played an essential part in American history. Some feel that the United States maintains the world's most liberal immigration policy. Others feel that areas like the European Union with its open border policies amongst the several countries points to the absurdity of such a claim. Several pieces of amnesty legislation aimed at preserving DACA were introduced in Congress in 2018. A package proposed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that would have granted DACA beneficiaries a path to citizenship in return for a border wall and major cutbacks in family-based chain migration failed in the House with 193 votes, with 41 Republicans and all 190 Democrats voting no. A week later, an even greater amnesty package sponsored by Paul Ryan and the party leadership died in the House with only 121 votes. That law would have granted amnesty to almost two million illegal immigrants while maintaining the most important chain migration categories.DACA's future is currently unknown.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank and a SPLC designated hate group. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham and eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton. The organization was founded in 1985 as a spin-off from the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA.
Illegal immigration to the United States is the process of migrating into the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. This can include foreign nationals (aliens) who have entered the United States unlawfully, as well as those who lawfully entered but then remained after the expiration of their visas, parole, TPS, etc. Illegal immigration has been a matter of intense debate in the United States since the 1980s.
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, from poorer to richer countries. Illegal residence in another country creates the risk of detention, deportation, and/or other sanctions.
The actual size and the origin of the undocumented immigrant population in the United States is uncertain and is difficult to ascertain because of difficulty in accurately counting individuals in this population. Figures from national surveys, administrative data and other sources of information vary widely. By all measures, the population of undocumented immigrants in the USA has declined substantially since 2007. The number of border apprehensions has substantially declined since 2000, the peak year, but more than doubled in the most recent fiscal year to approach 2007 levels.
Sanctuary city refers to municipal jurisdictions, typically in North America, that limit their cooperation with the national government's effort to enforce immigration law. Leaders of sanctuary cities say they want to reduce fear of deportation and possible family break-up among people who are in the country illegally, so that such people will be more willing to report crimes, use health and social services, and enroll their children in school. In the United States, municipal policies include prohibiting police or city employees from questioning people about their immigration status and refusing requests by national immigration authorities to detain people beyond their release date, if they were jailed for breaking local law. Such policies can be set expressly in law or observed in practice, but the designation "sanctuary city" does not have a precise legal definition. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated in 2018 that 564 U.S. jurisdictions, including states and municipalities, had adopted sanctuary policies.
Immigration to Greece percentage of foreign populations in Greece is 7.1% in proportion to the total population of the country. Moreover, between 9 and 11% of the registered Greek labor force of 4.4 million are foreigners. Migrants additionally make up 25% of wage and salary earners.
Agriprocessors was the corporate identity of a slaughterhouse and meat-packaging factory based in Postville, Iowa, best known as a facility for the glatt kosher processing of cattle, as well as chicken, turkey, duck, and lamb. Agriprocessors' meat and poultry products were marketed under the brand Iowa Best Beef. Its kosher products were marketed under various labels, including Aaron’s Best, Shor Habor, Supreme Kosher, and Rubashkins.
The Postville raid was a raid at the Agriprocessors, Inc. kosher slaughterhouse and meat packing plant in Postville, Iowa, on May 12, 2008, executed by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division of the Department of Homeland Security together with other agencies.
The United States government holds tens of thousands of immigrants in detention under the control of Customs and Border Protection and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Immigrants are detained for unlawful entry to the United States, when their claims for asylum are received, and in the process of deportation and removal from the country. During Fiscal Year 2018, 396,448 people were booked into ICE custody: 242,778 of whom were detained by CBP and 153,670 by ICE's own enforcement operations. A daily average of 42,188 immigrants were held by ICE in that year. In addition, over twelve thousand immigrant children are housed by facilities under the supervision of the Office of Refugee Resettlement's program for Unaccompanied Alien Children. Prior to referral to these other agencies, the CBP holds immigrants at processing centers; between mid-May and mid-June 2019, it held between 14,000 and 18,000 immigrants.
The economic impact of undocumented immigrants in the United States is challenging to measure, and politically contentious. Research shows that undocumented immigrants increase the size of the U.S. economy/contribute to economic growth, enhance the welfare of natives, contribute more in tax revenue than they collect, reduce American firms' incentives to offshore jobs and import foreign-produced goods, and benefit consumers by reducing the prices of goods and services. Economists estimate that legalization of the undocumented immigrant population would increase the immigrants' earnings and consumption considerably, and increase U.S. gross domestic product.
The Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) is in charge of the removal and deportation of illegal immigrants in Ghana.
The 2006 Swift raids were a coordinated effort by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain and deport people who are undocumented.
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, colloquially referred to as DACA, is a United States immigration policy that allows some individuals with unlawful presence in the United States after being brought to the country as children to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and become eligible for an employment authorization document in the U.S. To be eligible for the program, recipients cannot have felonies or serious misdemeanors on their records. Unlike the proposed DREAM Act, DACA does not provide a path to citizenship for recipients. The policy, an executive branch memorandum, was announced by President Barack Obama on June 15, 2012. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began accepting applications for the program on August 15, 2012.
Undocumented youth in the United States are young people living in the United States without U.S. citizenship or other legal immigration status. An estimated 1.1 million undocumented minors resided in the U.S. as of 2010, making up 16% of the undocumented population of 11 million. Undocumented students face unique legal uncertainties and limitations within the United States educational system. They are sometimes called the 1.5 generation, as they have spent a majority of their lives in the United States.
Deportation and removal from the United States occurs when the U.S. government orders a person to leave the country. In fiscal year 2014, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted 315,943 removals. Criteria for deportations are set out in 8 U.S.C. § 1227.
A sanctuary campus is any college or university, typically in North America and Western Europe, that adopts policies to protect members of the campus community who are undocumented immigrants. The term is modeled after "sanctuary city", a status that has been adopted by over 30 municipalities. Proposed policies on sanctuary campuses include:
Immigration policy, including illegal immigration to the United States, was a signature issue of former U.S. president Donald Trump's presidential campaign, and his proposed reforms and remarks about this issue generated much publicity. Trump has repeatedly said that illegal immigrants are criminals. Despite Trump never explicitly mentioning correlation, critics have argued that there is an increasing amount of evidence that immigration does not correlate with higher crime rates. Entering the US illegally is a federal crime, making the person who does that a criminal(8 U.S. Code § 1325).
The issue of crimes committed by illegal immigrants to the United States is a topic that is often asserted and debated in politics and the media when discussing Immigration policy in the United States.