Copyright 2002 Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
 Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service
 The Orange County Register
 
 June 5, 2002, Wednesday
 
SECTION: WASHINGTON DATELINE
 
KR-ACC-NO: K0843
 
LENGTH: 511 words
 
HEADLINE: Census: Proportion of foreign-born residents hits 70-year 
high
 
BYLINE: By Dena Bunis
 
BODY:
 
 WASHINGTON _ One in 11 people living in the United States was not 
born in
this country, the largest proportion of foreign-born residents in 70 
years,
according to new Census figures released Tuesday.
 
   The data represents a 57 percent increase in foreign-born residents 
Over 1990. And the figures also show that the majority of immigrants coming to the United States are from Latin America. Of the 31.1 million foreign-born in the United States in 2,000, 51.7 percent are of Latino descent. The next largest migration comes from Asia, 26.4 percent. Together, Latino and Asian immigration accounted for 78.2 percent of the foreign-born population, up from 28.3 percent in 1970.
 
   "Along with this major change in the geographic origins of the
foreign-born, we've seen a major change in their settlement pattern within the United States," said Census Bureau demographer Campbell Gibson. In 2,000, the percent of foreign-born residents living in the West and South was 65 percent compared with 37.7 percent in 1970.
 
   The new data, which was drawn from the census long-form, eclipse
Estimates last year, which showed that 28.3 million U.S. residents were 
foreign-born.
 
   The question these numbers pose, says Alan Kessler, visiting 
Research fellow at the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego, is how to deal with such an assimilation in challenging economic times.
 
   "We're now in an era of fiscal limits," Kessler said. "How will we 
bear the costs? And a lot of the costs fall disproportionately on state and local governments," especially California, the magnet for the majority of new immigrants.
 
   "Assimilation is not automatic," Kessler said. While the numbers are 
not inherently as problem, he said, "it might be a problem coming up with the funding necessary to facilitate assimilation" in such areas as 
education and health care.
 
   Those who prefer to see a more restrictionist immigration policy 
Pointed to the challenges such high foreign-born numbers pose while immigration advocates see the trend as a plus.
 
   "No country has ever attempted to incorporate and assimilate 31 
million newcomers into its society," said Steven A. Camarata, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that prefers limits on immigration. "Whatever one thinks of current policy, the number released today by the Census Bureau indicate that the nation faces enormous challenges in integrating the tens of millions of immigrants into the country, and those challenges will only grow if current policies are allowed to remain in place."
 
   But Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration 
Forum, an advocacy group, says this pattern is not news.
 
   "Every new wave of immigrants have been met with suspicion and every 
past wave of immigrants has been exalted and congratulated," Sharry said. "We think this depicts an American success story."
 
   ___
 
   (c) 2002, The Orange County Register (Santa Ana, Calif.).
 
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JOURNAL-CODE: OC
 

LOAD-DATE: June 5, 2002