Immigration is a hot-button issue. Detailed and authoritative information about many in the USA is readily available. The scope of this website, one of many sectors of the Census, is to quote its introduction, an accounting of:
anyone who is not a USA citizen at birth, including naturalized USA citizens, lawful permanent residents (immigrants), temporary migrants (such as foreign students), humanitarian migrants (such as refugees and asylees), and unauthorized migrants regardless of legal status.
Unauthorized migrants are implicitly included in Census Bureau estimates of the total foreign-born population, though the intentional tracking of this population is performed by the Department of Homeland Security, which produces useful statistical reports. The information from the Foreign Born site comes from the American Community Survey (annual, helps determine how federal and state funds are allocated) and the Current Population Survey (monthly, varies to cover a wide variety of topics such as child support, volunteerism, health insurance coverage and school enrollment). The first screen of Foreign Born allows the user to look at news, publications or working papers. When accessed in March of 2017, the news included the Irish born (in honor of St. Patrick’s Day), Hispanic-owned businesses (in Spanish) and higher education achievement by generational status. Publications included research about transportation and migration of young people. Working papers included those on factors such as English language and educational status that might be related to being counted in various administrative polls, “likely transgendered” counted and Hispanics and Medicaid.
One of the first clicks from the navigational tabs on the left takes the user to a number of detailed data tables, so it is easy to see overall patterns of population, household types, education, employment, occupation and income and poverty status from the most recent surveys. This reports, for one example, that 21 per cent of native-born under-18-year olds are living below poverty status, compared to 20.5 per cent of naturalized under-18-year olds and 31.4 per cent of those under 18 who are not US citizens. Other charts take the user to poverty status of foreign born by year of entry and by world region. All of the charts have information that is more granular when opened, such as the data broken out by year, by gender, age, etc.
If the user wants to start with a different informational entry point, going to the data tools tab takes the user to the DataFerrett, which necessitates setting up a computer with software and settings and the American Fact Finder. Here, users can start with a community or county. For example, looking at Baltimore in Maryland, 17.5 per cent (margin ± 0.4) of 25 years old have less than a high school diploma, but among those over 25 who are not US citizens, 26.2 per cent (±1.279) have less than a high school diploma. Almost 80 per cent of those who are not citizens speak a language other than English at home. This chart also enumerates poverty status, housing details, as well as access to a vehicle. Grandparents living with and/or responsible for grandchildren, internet access and other data points are available, depending on the year. The American Fact Finder advanced search allows for other geographic starting points – school districts, congressional districts, Metropolitan Statistical Areas. For example, in Minnesota, Minneapolis and Saint Paul with Bloomington is a logical gathering of officially separate entities that, looked at in the aggregate, are valuable ways of understanding what is referred to as the Twin Cities to understand in its holistic sense. The guided search feature allows the user to choose this area, then the foreign born, then look at poverty, education, transportation and more for this particular conglomeration of city and suburbs.
Librarians will be helping patrons sort out the facts and fiction of immigration. The richest information in Minnesota comes from state and nongovernmental agencies, but for the basic who, what, when kinds of questions, the US Census Foreign Born website will help inform the researcher and link out to other federal sites to find out the numerical facts about people living in the USA.
