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Thursday, November 29, 2007
Hispanics become dominant in English in one generation
Nearly all Hispanic adults born in the United States of immigrant parents are fluent in English, says a report released Thursday.
The study by the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center points to “a dramatic increase in English-language ability from one generation to the next ” and seems to counter concerns that current immigrants are not assimilating as quickly as those in the past.
About one-third of foreign-born Hispanic immigrants report being able to speak English “very well” or “pretty well.” However, 91 percent of their U.S.-born children say they are fluent.
D’Vera Cohn, co-author of the study, said that Hispanics are following a similar pattern of assimilation as previous newcomers — with the first generation speaking limited English, the second generation having one foot in each language with much greater English proficiency, and the third generation virtually letting Spanish fade “into the background.”
The study also found however, that 28 percent of Hispanic immigrants said they speak only Spanish in the workplace, signaling some enclaves where English is spoken little in the United States.
It also found that 46 percent of Hispanics who were naturalized citizens said they spoke English “not at all” or “just a little.”
To read the report, click here.
Illegal immigrant who saved American boy was thinking of his own children
An illegal immigrant who rescued a 9-year-old boy from the southern Arizona desert said Wednesday he was thinking of his own four children when he halted his two-day walk from Mexico to help the boy, the Associated Press reported.
Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes told the AP that he never could have left the boy to continue his journey, even though he was just eight hours from reaching Tucson.
“I am a father of four children. For that, I stayed,” Cordova said in Spanish from his home in Magdalena de Kino in the Mexican state of Sonora. “I never could have left him. Never.”
If he had left, authorities say it could have meant death for the boy, 9-year-old Christopher Buztheitner, who had an injured leg, was dressed in shorts despite the desert cold and had just lost his mother in a car crash, the article said.
According the the AP account, Cordova and Buztheitner spent 14 hours in the desert together before a group of hunters found them and called for help.
To read more, click here.
Clinton urges Chertoff to speed up citizenship applications
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York urged Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff to take quick action to clear up a growing backlog of citizenship applications and asked for a timeline indicating when the problem will be resolved.
Immigrant advocate groups have blasted the department for being unprepared for a significant increase in citizenship applications this year. The delay could keep thousands of people from becoming citizens in time to vote in the 2008 elections.
Clinton is the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
In a letter, Clinton said “these prospective citizens should not be prejudiced because the Department of Homeland Security failed to plan appropriately.”
She also asked him to “reconsider the burdensome fee increases being imposed on applicants.”
To read the letter, click here.
Immigration hot topic at GOP debate; Giuliani, Romney exchange quips
Immigration was a hot topic at the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night hosted by CNN and YouTube.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney traded barbs on the issue, carrying over a theme from the campaign trail.
Giuliani defended his policy in New York where police and local officials did not check the immigration status of residents using city services.
“New York City allowed the children of illegal immigrants to go to school. If we didn’t allow the children of illegal immigrants to go to school, we would have had 70,000 children on the streets at a time in which New York City was going through a massive crime wave, averaging 2,000 murders a year, 10,000 felonies a week,” he said.
In addition, Giuliani said: “If we didn’t allow illegals to report crimes, a lot of criminals would have gone free because they’re the ones who had the information.”
Giuliani also had the quip of the night, accusing Romney of running a “sanctuary mansion.”
Romney used a landscaping firm at his home for years that employed illegal immigrants. Romney has said he did not know the workers were illegal.
At the debate, Romney said it would “not be American” to question the legal status of workers just because they “have a funny accent.”
To read more, click here.
Report: Half of immigrants in Texas are in the country illegally
Half of the nearly 3.5 million immigrants living in Texas are in the country illegally, the Center for Immigration Studies says in a report released Thursday.
Based on the latest Census Bureau data, the report said Texas has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations of any state. It said that 50 percent of the state’s foreign-born population — slightly more than 1.7 million people — are illegal immigrants. Only Arizona at 65 percent, North Carolina at 58 percent and Georgia at 53 percent had a higher proportion of illegal immigrants in their immigrant populations.
In Florida, about 30 percent of the nearly 3.5 million immigrants living in the state are in the country illegally, according to the report.
The influx of immigrants into Texas reflects the national trend, the report showed. The nation’s immigrant population — legal and illegal — reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007.
The report was written by Seven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank that advocates reductions in immigration.
Top read more, click here.