The undocumented population is still growing — it’s up by 40 percent since 2000. But new estimates put the yearly influx at about 500,000 a year, as opposed to 800,000 a year during the early part of the decade. The arrivals of legal permanent residents, or green-card holders, has held steady. (These figures reflect a net gain new arrivals only, because people can move in and out of legal status. Those with pending asylum claims or temporary protected status are counted as undocumented.)

You can link to the Pew report here. It puts the “unauthorized” population in the United States at 11.9 million, down from 12.4 million in 2007. The economic slowdown, increased immigration enforcement and stable growth in Mexico could be factors, according to the report.

Other findings:

• Undocumented immigrants are 30 percent of the United States’ foreign-born population. They make up 4 percent of the entire U.S. population.


• Most of the undocumented are from Mexico — 58 percent — and another 22 percent come from other Latin American countries. Twelve percent come from Asia, and the remaining 8 percent are from Europe, Canada, Africa and elsewhere.

The median U.S. household income inched up just 1.3 percent between 2006 and 2007, but for non-citizen households, incomes fell 7.3 percent.

“Less-skilled workers in blue-collar occupations can benefit tremendously from tight labor markets but are also the most susceptible to economic downturns,” the report says.

Other findings:

• The worst income drops seen among non-citizens in 2006-07 were among Hispanics, construction workers and those with less education and fewer years in the United States.


• The main cause of the drop seems to be the decline in construction. The industry lost more than 700,000 jobs in 2007.


• Nearly half of non-citizen immigrant households are headed by an undocumented immigrant.

OCA says: “The “Meet the Candidates” forum is a presentation of candidates for elective offices and an opportunity for all Asian Americans and all individuals interested in politics to meet the candidates in person to have a meaningful dialogue. We will invite all the candidates running for office this Fall, and listen to them address issues affecting our community.”

The event runs from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at the Kessell Campus Center, Butcher Suites, at the Pleasantville Campus.

Mexicans abroad (mostly in the United States) sent back $2.2 billion in August 2007. Last month that figure was down 12 percent, to $1.9 billion.

Economic turmoil in the United States, increased deportations are among the factors.

In New York, the advocacy group Asociación Tepeyac is calling for support programs in Mexico that would help returning migrants re-establish themselves. “Given the difficult economic conditions in which many immigrants are living in the US, during this time of economic recession, thousands of Mexican immigrants will be returning to their home towns,” the organization said in a release today.

It will touch on the modern illegal immigration issue but won’t dwell too closely on it, according to the New York Times. New exhibits will allow you to view the successive waves of immigrants in individual American towns, and see the movements of people around the globe over time.

An announcement of the expansion was celebrated last week during a naturalization ceremony. Among those who took the oath of citizenship was U.S. Army Specialist Franck Dorval, a New Rochelle resident originally from Haiti.

(Photo: Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation)

The  biggest change to the test is the civics portion that will include new questions focusing on geography, Native Americans and women. Applicants, like before, must correctly answer six out of ten questions taken from a list of 100. The test has not undergone any substantive changes since 1986.

The Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, examined the revamped test in a report that can be viewed here.

To view the types of questions that are asked in the current test, go here. To view the questions—and answers—of the new test, check them out here.

... and hopes to finish his documentary, “Delta Boys,” for broadcast next spring. As he told the Committee to Protect Journalists,

“I want Americans to see in places like the Niger Delta what’s the real cost of the oil that we want to get cheaply. And not just the cost in money but the cost in human suffering.”

I spoke to another filmmaker, Sandy Cioffi, about her detention and the story that both she and Berends are trying to get out. Below are that story and another by my colleague Barbara Livingston Nackman about Berends’ detention.

(Photo: Seth Harrison/The Journal News) (more…)

“The measure is designed to protect our consumers, specifically our poorest ones, who are most often targets of this type of fraud,” Engel said. His district covers parts of the Bronx, Westchester and Rockland counties.

Among the problem practices: Companies deduct minutes even if the call is not connected; cut off calls in order to trigger another connection charge, and round up the minutes used in 4-minute increments, his office said. Engel pointed to Hispanic Institute study that found callers received only 60 percent of the minutes they were promised, on average.

“An egregious example shows one company advertising in Spanish but keeping the fine print in English,” he said, citing a BusinessWeek article. “Their ‘but we’re in America’ excuse doesn’t forgive them for targeting immigrants to make an easy buck.”

The bill is known as the Calling Card Consumer Protection Act, H.R.-3402. The companion bill being considered in the Senate is S-2998.

The site calls out Obama for likening John McCain to Rush Limbaugh. Here’s the Spanish-language ad in question. It says McCain and his Republican friends have two faces on immigration.

McCain has already earned the “pants on fire” prize for his claims on pigs with lipstick and sex ed for kindergartners. You can hear more in a recording of today’s Brian Lehrer Show.

Judge Stephen Robinson has found that Latinos are at a big disadvantage in a system where the trustees run in village-wide races for two open seats each year. The court found that if trustees ran in separate districts, one of which had a Hispanic majority, then Latinos would have a means to gain representation in their local government.

The case is complicated and easily misunderstood. Basically, the Department of Justice proved a set of problems with the old system. The voting pattern in Port Chester has been racially polarized, and candidates supported by the entire Hispanic electorate routinely lost. There was also the matter of a racist flier in 2007 and a lack of language assistance at the voting booths. No Latino, incidentally, has won office in a village that is nearly half Hispanic.

One of the details mentioned in the final day of arguments yesterday was a bit ironic. (I didn’t have room for it in today’s Journal News article, attached below.) Cesar Ruiz, at right, the unsuccessful board candidate who sparked the case and became a plaintiff, doesn’t live within the proposed Hispanic-majority district. His attorney, Randolph McLaughlin, proposed that candidates in each new district not be subject to a residency rule.

There was also an intriguing discussion about how non-U.S. citizens figure into all this. I’ll get to that later.

(Top photo: Carucha L. Meuse/ The Journal News)