Media Coverage
Immigrants benefit region, report says
Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC), January 28, 2010, Contra Costa Times
Area churches, unions and nonprofit groups on Tuesday marked the release of a new report stressing the positives of immigration statewide and locally.
"Immigrants are a broad population who are contributing in great ways to our society," said Corey Timpson, director of Inland Congregations United for Change, which participated in a news conference in Riverside highlighting the report's findings.
Nearly a quarter of San Bernardino and Riverside county residents are immigrants. Thirty-eight percent of immigrants in the two counties are citizens.
Immigrants in the region are more likely to create than their own jobs or be self-employed than workers born in this country, according to the report from the California Immigrant Policy Center, a statewide partnership of immigrant advocacy groups.
Immigrants workers contribute about 28 percent of the region's gross domestic product and make up nearly a quarter of total household income in the two counties.
"Immigrants do contribute to the community by paying taxes, consuming goods and providing labor," said Emilio Amaya, director of the San Bernardino Community Service Center, a nonprofit immigrant assistance organization.
The longer immigrants remain in the region, the more their poverty rates decline and home ownership rises, the report says.
"There's progress in terms of economics," said USC economist Manuel Pastor, a co-author of the report. "There's progress in terms of home ownership. There's progress in terms of English learning."
The report, which uses census data from the 2005-2007 American Community Survey, includes legal and illegal immigrants.
