Tag: immigration

Californians Want the State to Lead

Californians have consistently supported their state government in making its own policies on national issues. Past PPIC Statewide Surveys have shown that residents want the state to address global warming, and they have also favored independent state action on health care. Now there is one more issue to add to the list: immigration. Our new survey shows that 58 percent support California acting on its own to improve the lives of undocumented immigrants in our state.

It is not surprising that Californians are looking to their state government to act on key issues like climate change, health care, and immigration. Residents increasingly view state government in a more positive light than the federal government. The governor’s job approval rating, which held steady for much of 2013, has now climbed to a record-high 58 percent. The legislature’s job approval rating, at 42 percent, is at a near-record high. In contrast, Congress’ rating—which fell to a record-low 18 percent in December—is now just 26 percent. And President Obama’s approval rating is near its lowest point, at 53 percent.

Californians are also optimistic that state elected officials can work together and accomplish a lot in the next year (57%), while far fewer hold this view of their federal leaders (37%).

California’s policymakers have been in sync with state residents. They’ve taken leadership on climate change, been proactive in implementing federal health care reform, and most recently enacted a series of laws affecting undocumented immigrants. In the last year, Governor Brown signed the Trust Act, which limits the criteria by which a local law enforcement agency can comply with federal deportation hold requests. He also signed bills allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain a California driver’s licenses and be admitted as attorneys. In doing so, Brown said, “While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead.”

With few signs of gridlock easing at the federal level and one party in control in Sacramento, it will be interesting to see where else California decides to forge ahead.

Chart Source: PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians and Their Government, January 2014.

Most New Immigrants Are From Asia

News that California has grown to 38.2 million people—the largest population increase in nine years according to the state Department of Finance—garnered a lot of attention. But this increase was actually modest, even slow, when compared to most years before 2005. However, there has been a much more dramatic demographic shift, pinpointed in data from the American Community Survey—a rise in Asian immigration and a decline in Latin American immigration. In 2011 and 2012, three times as many immigrants arrived from Asia as from Latin America.

For decades, Latin America immigrants were by far the largest group coming to California. Even as recently as 2005, 55 percent of all immigrants and 51 percent of those migrating within the past year were from Latin America. However, since then, the number of newly arriving immigrants from Latin America has declined sharply, while the number from Asia has increased.

What accounts for this dramatic change? During the recession, employment prospects for less educated workers fell dramatically and have not recovered as quickly as prospects for more highly educated workers. While only about 14 percent of recent immigrants from Latin America have a college degree, immigrants from Asia tend to be highly educated. About half of working-age Asian adults (ages 18–64) already have college degrees when they arrive in California. In that regard, then, the changing patterns of immigration make sense.

But other factors are undoubtedly at work. Increases in border enforcement and deportations are more likely to affect immigrants from Latin America than from Asia. And improved economic conditions in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, along with slowing population growth, reduces the supply of potential immigrants to California. Still, it will be interesting to see if this new pattern of immigration to California becomes the new normal. If so, in the long run it would lead to a substantial change in the ethnic composition of the state’s population. Just as Latinos are about to surpass whites as the state’s largest ethnic group, perhaps someday Asians will surpass Latinos.

Chart Source: PPIC tabulations based on American Community Survey data.