Whats Different About Poverty Caused by Immigration?
In any discussion of poverty resulting from immigration, it is important to remember that immigration is a discretionary policy of the federal government. The federal government determines the size, growth, and characteristics of the foreign-born population by setting the level of legal immigration and by the amount of resources it devotes to controlling illegal immigration. While the government can certainly do things to ameliorate poverty caused by such factors as changes in family structures or the economy, these things are complex social phenomena and are not the direct result of a specific federal policy. In contrast, the poverty that results from immigration is avoidable in a way that is not the case for poverty caused by domestic conditions. Data Sources and MethodsData Sources. The data in this study come primarily from the 1980 and 1990 censuses and the March 1998 Current Population Survey (CPS). The censuses and the CPS are used because they are the best sources of informatio
