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Manchester (Conn.) High School's pool has been shut down and its physical education swimming unit removed indefinitely, following the Nov. 21 drowning of a freshman boy.
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Manchester (Conn.) High School's pool has been shut down and its physical education swimming unit removed indefinitely, following the Nov. 21 drowning of a freshman boy.
New information revealed Monday indicates that Malvrick Donkor, a Ghana native who recently moved to the Manchester area, was underwater in the deep end of the pool for approximately 17 minutes. According to the Hartford Courant, a surveillance camera at the pool showed the 14-year-old student climbing down a ladder into the pool's deep end. "There's no splashing, no flailing like you would typically think of," an unnamed source who viewed the surveillance footage told the newspaper. "He just slipped underwater. Other kids were swimming over the top of him, not knowing he was down below."
It wasn't until after class ended that students noticed Donkor's body. P.E. teacher Thayer Redman jumped in and pulled the boy out of the pool; he later died at a local hospital. Redman has been placed on administrative leave, and school officials aren't talking.
Manchester High's principal Matthew Geary did, however, post a letter to students' parents and guardians on the school's home page, inviting them to a vigil Monday night and assuring them that an investigation has begun. "While many questions remain about this terrible tragedy, we have very little information to share at this time. An investigation is under way and will be done thoroughly by trained professionals. The Manchester High School pool is closed until further notice and the swimming unit has been removed from the Physical Education curriculum indefinitely."
According to local media reports, Donkor is the second area high school student to drown in a swimming pool during a supervised P.E. class in 2012. Marcum Asiamah, 15, died Jan. 11 after being found in the East Hartford High School pool.
In October, the family of 14-year-old Antonio Reyes, who was found at the bottom of the deep end of the Wenatchee (Wash.) High School swimming pool after a P.E. class in late 2011, reached a $2 million settlement in a negligence lawsuit filed against the Wenatchee School District. The settlement also called for reforms, including that the district have a certified lifeguard on duty when people are in the pool and that greater efforts be made to evaluate the ability of students to swim, the Associated Press reports.

subset: commoncrawl


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WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of people applying for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to the lowest level since July 2008, a hopeful sign that improvement in the job market is accelerating.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that weekly unemployment claims dropped by 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 407,000 in the week ending Nov. 20. Wall Street analysts expected a much smaller drop.
A Labor Department analyst said the claims figures are volatile during the week between the Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving holidays. A key question is whether claims will remain this low in future weeks, or bounce back.
Still, applications for jobless aid are steadily moving lower. Claims have fallen in four of the past six weeks.
The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped for the third straight week to 436,000, the lowest since August 2008. That's a month before the financial crisis intensified with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, worsening the recession.
"Although weekly claims readings can be volatile, the downward trend over the past three months is too significant to be ignored," Ryan Wang, an economist at HSBC Securities, said.
The stock market responded positively to the jobless claims report and other economic data. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped by 130 points in morning trading, while broader indexes also rose.
The improvement can't come fast enough for frustrated jobseekers. Applications for jobless aid need to stay below 425,000 for several weeks to signal that hiring is accelerating, economists say.
For the first 10 months of this year, claims mostly fluctuated around 450,000 until they began dropping in late October. They fell steadily last year from a peak of 651,000 in March 2009.
Applications for unemployment benefits, while volatile, are a real-time snapshot of the job market. They are a measure of the level of layoffs and indicate whether companies are hiring.
Strong job gains have been slow to materialize this year, even as the economy grows at a modest pace. Earlier this month, the Labor Department said private employers added a net total of 159,000 jobs in October, the most in six months.
Still, the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 percent for the third straight month. And the economy needs to generate roughly twice that many jobs per month to rapidly reduce unemployment.
But the economy isn't expanding quickly enough to generate large numbers of jobs. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that the economy grew at a 2.5 percent annual pace in the July-September period. That's weak compared to previous recoveries from steep recessions.
The Federal Reserve said Tuesday that it doesn't expect the economy to expand much faster anytime soon. It forecasts the economy will grow by 3 percent to 3.6 percent next year, and unemployment will still be between 8.9 percent and 9.1 percent by the end of 2011.
The number of people continuing to claim unemployment aid, meanwhile, fell by 142,000 to 4.18 million, the lowest in two years.
That doesn't include millions of people receiving extended benefits under an emergency program set up by Congress during the recession. Nearly 4.7 million people received extended benefits during the week ending Nov. 6, the latest data available. That's down by more than 260,000 from the previous week.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.


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Having already made it to three hardware development versions, [Toby Baumgartner] is looking for some financial backing to make version four of this robot arm possible.
He's modelling the arm after much larger ABB industrial robots. Like those, it mounts on a stationary base, and features movement along six axes. The first couple of iterations even used ABB Software's RobotStudio for control. This is the same software used by the full-sized robots, and features a special design language to integrate the robots into just about any production facility.
We don't think the need for high-end software used with these small manipulator arms is very great, but we could see the finished product used for small-scale assembly line work some day. In the mean time these might be useful in your own projects. [Toby] has been using an mBed microcontroller board as the hardware driver. It communicates with the computer via an Ethernet connection and he's even working on an Android interface right now.
Check out a video demonstration of version 2 and 3 embedded after the break.


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From the Star Ledger:
N.J. could force employers to pay severance to laid-off workers
Stirred by the plight of New Jersey Toys "R" Us workers who lost their jobs when the Wayne-based retailed filed for bankruptcy and shuttered stores across the country, the state Legislature on Monday passed a bill requiring larger employers in New Jersey pay severance to laid-off workers.
The bill (S3170) would require New Jersey employers with at least 100 employees provide their workers 90 days notice — up from 60 — before a large layoff or a plant closing or transfer that will put at least 50 people out of work. It would also force these businesses to pay their workers one week's severance for every year of service. The payout increases by an additional four weeks if the employer doesn't comply with the 90-day notification rules.
More than 30,000 workers nationwide lost their jobs, including some 2,000 in New Jersey, when the famous retail giant closed its doors. Employees were initially let go without severance. Two of the private equity funds that owned Toys R'Us, facing public pressure, have since established a $20 million severance fund and workers won a $2 million settlement.
United For Respect, a nonprofit group advocating for the bill, said that if signed by Gov. Phil Murphy, New Jersey would become the first state with such a severance mandate.
Meanwhile, the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, which represents 20,000 businesses here, has warned the bill will deter companies from locating or expanding in New Jersey.


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- City Fajr Shuruq Duhr Asr Magrib Isha
- Dubai 05:26 06:39 12:34 15:52 18:24 19:37
French actor Gerard Depardieu will not show up at a Paris court on Tuesday to face drunken driving charges because he has clashing professional commitments abroad, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Depardieu's lawyer Eric de Caumont said his client was not trying to dodge French justice, but is abroad "meeting the producers of a movie," whose filming in New York will begin in January.
Caumont suggested on BFM-TV that the movie in question will see Depardieu play the disgraced former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
The 64-year-old star of films such as "Green Card" and "Cyrano de Bergerac" was picked up last November by police after he fell off his scooter in northwest Paris.
The drunken driving hearing will now be deferred to a criminal court, and he could lose his driving license and could face up to two years in jail, Caumont said.
Depardieu has caused controversy in recent weeks for other reasons. On Saturday he received a Russian passport from President Vladimir Putin, after threatening to return his French passport after Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault called him "pathetic" for deciding to move to tax-friendly Belgium.
In a much publicized letter in December, Depardieu also made reference to his headline-grabbing lifestyle: "I won't cast a stone at (people) who have cholesterol, hypertension, diabetes or too much alcohol or those who fall asleep on their scooter: I am one of them, as you dear media outlets like so much to repeat."
Back in 1998, Depardieu also crashed his motorcycle when his blood-alcohol limit was five times over the legal limit, escaping with leg and face injuries.
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Wet noses to the touchscreen, iPads go to the dogs
NEW YORK CITY – You may or may not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you can certainly try to get Fido to use an iPad.
New York dog trainer Anna Jane Grossman has done just that, with success – although a lack of apps limits the possibilities.
"It's a novelty. It's just sort of a fun thing to do," Grossman told AFP at School for the Dogs, the canine classroom she runs with partner Kate Senisi near Manhattan's Union Square.
"There's not a huge amount of purpose to it – but the way I see it, we're playing games all the time on our iPads anyway, so why not play games with our dogs?"
Grossman, a native New Yorker and lifelong dog lover who's also a freelance writer, was inspired by a fictional news article about a college grad who instructs dogs on correct tablet technique.
The original real-life iPad dog was Grossman's eight-year-old poodle-Yorkie mix Amos, whose rich repertoire of silly tricks such as rolling over dead upon hearing the words "bang bang."
In the interests of objectivity, AFP brought its own dog, a three-year-old dachshund mix, down to Grossman's place to see if she could turn him into a genuine geek on four legs.
Starting off simply, Grossman got Bandit to touch her hand with his nose on command, in return for a tasty treat as a reward for correct behavior.
From there she got the dog nudging a fly swatter, then a pad of Post It notes, occasionally using a smear of peanut butter to focus its attention.
Then came the iPhone and iPad – no doubt Android devices work just as well – with their touchscreens reacting instantly to the gentlest pressure from a wet canine nose.
"We go through a lot of screen cleaner here," Grossman confessed.
Within an hour, Bandit could take a self-portrait on command, using an app called Big Camera Button that triggers an iPhone camera shutter just by touching the screen. (The resulting image was an extreme close-up of his eyes and forehead.)
"What's nice about the iPad or iPhone or whatever you're using is that it registers that moment that (the dog) touches it," Grossman explained.
With an app called YesNo, with a green yes button and red no button, Grossman can get Amos to answer the most profound questions ("Does two plus two equal five?" No! "Is print media dead?" No!
Designed to help nonverbal youngsters communicate with others, YesNo is one of the few reactive touchscreen apps that Grossman has come across with crossover potential.
"The problem isn't so much what dogs are capable of doing," said Grossman, author of a book on obsolete technology.
"It's that there aren't a lot of apps out there that are both big enough for a dog to touch with his nose and synched up for practical purposes," such as switching on a light or opening a door.
That said, Grossman has been experimenting on getting a seeing-eye dog to differentiate between dark and light pairs of socks so it can help its owner get dressed, using an audio-enabled app.
Another client is a pilot who wants his dog, on command, to nose-touch his iPad in just the right spot in order to summon the latest in-flight weather report.
Having rigged a litter box with a motion sensor to send a text message every time her cat does its business, Grossman is tinkering with synchronizing an iPad with a doggie treat dispenser.
Along the same lines, Pavlov Dog Monitor, an app released earlier this year, uses a smartphone's audio sensor technology to send a Facebook message every time it hears a home-alone dog barking.
"A lot of service dogs are trained to touch buttons in case of an emergency," so it shouldn't be too much of a leap for them to do same via a smartphone or tablet screen, Grossman said.
But while more and more people hear about dogs using iPads, not everyone is impressed.
"In the dog training community, people have been, like, 'That's so cool'," said Grossman, whose school now is offering "iDog" seminars.
"But I've also gotten a lot of angry emails from people saying, like, 'Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave'."


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Toronto 2011: Pearl Jam comes out of its shell
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
Like a high school reunion or the sight of an aging Michael Jordan, word that Pearl Jam is celebrating its 20th anniversary can elicit an unnerving rhetorical question: Where did all the time go?
Yet here they are, one of the seminal Seattle grunge bands — symbols, not always willingly, of a generation — marking precisely that milestone with a double-disc set of archival recordings, an art book/written history, and a new film, no less.
Though famously press shy, the band allowed rock journalist-turned-director Cameron Crowe — who solidified the fame of Eddie Vedder and the rest of the group when he used several of their songs on the soundtrack to the 1992 movie "Singles" — to put together the documentary "Pearl Jam Twenty."
"As a writer, before I create anything I often think, 'What are the obstacles?'" said Crowe. "And this band has had nothing but obstacles."
The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival over the weekend, is a sonic and video history of the group from its early days to its roller coaster of fame in the mid '90s to its current status as a less prominent, yet oddly happier, act focused on touring.
That enthusiasm was on display Monday night as the band played a sold-out show at Toronto's 20,000-seat Air Canada Centre. If Vedder, 46, didn't stage dive as he once did, he nonetheless gave an intensely physical performance for nearly 2-1/2 hours, jumping and kicking with the energy of a man half his age. Vedder and the rest of the band also worked the crowd expertly, playing to the last row in the cavernous arena and even turning around and delighting fans who had packed the obstructed-view seats high behind the stage.
"Twenty," which focuses more on the band's music and popularity than the members' personal lives, will play at the ArcLight Hollywood and movie theaters around the country on a one-day national rollout Sept. 20 before a limited engagement at Laemmle's Sunset 5 beginning Sept. 23. It will also air as part of PBS' "American Masters" series on Oct. 21.
Nursing beers Saturday night at a Toronto hotel, the band members were jokey and appeared content, a sharp contrast to their anguished public image of the 1990s when they boycotted Ticketmaster over surcharges and resisted videos and other trappings of successful bands. "I think pretty much everything in the last 10 years has been really good. We're in a kind of golden-years period. We have families now, and we're just really happy to be playing live," said Vedder, his trademark low, rumbling voice slow and thoughtful. "Before that it was harder. I'm not saying we're diamond-like, but we were formed by pressure, and it seems like in the last 10 years we've been able to cut the diamond and see the facets."
Crowe draws from archives of video material shot by people loosely associated with the band. There are local TV clips, haunting concert footage (a 2006 rendition of the ballad "Release Me" stands out), reflective present-day interviews and glimpses of everyday moments that turned into serendipitous events. (Vedder and his bandmates jamming on a bus and coming up with the lyrics and melody that would become their hit "Daughter," for one.)
Crowe traces Pearl Jam's inception from the late 1980s, when Seattle musicians Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament helped form Mother Love Bone. When that group's singer, Andrew Wood, died of a drug overdose, Gossard and Ament got together with Mike McCready, but they needed a frontman.
Enter Vedder, a then-unknown singer from San Diego, who moved to Seattle to join the band that would become Pearl Jam; Gossard and Ament learned of him, the movie shows, after he sent them a cassette that had his phone number written on it.
The events that followed are the stuff of rock legend. In summer 1991 the group released "Ten," a watershed collection of rough but melodic songs about subjects including fatherlessness and bullying that sold nearly 10 million copies. In 1993 came "Vs.," which went platinum seven times over.
At the time, Pearl Jam had plenty of company, with similar-sounding acts such as Alice in Chains, Nirvana and Soundgarden all charting. Yet those other bands withered away as the '90s wore on, in several cases because of substance-abuse issues, the deaths of members or other tragedies, leaving Pearl Jam a kind of last band standing.
"As an outsider looking in, I was always impressed by how they made decisions," said Matt Cameron, a former Soundgarden drummer who joined Pearl Jam in 1998. "A lot of groups get to a place of success and they let other people make the decisions for them. And Pearl Jam never did."
It was a lack of conventional music-business thinking that, by design or not, seemed to work out, Gossard said. "If you asked 10 managers, 'Do you agree with what Pearl Jam is doing?' I don't think you'd get one of them to support it," he said.
Chief among those decisions was the fight against Ticketmaster. After the band became irritated with so-called convenience charges they believed were unfair to fans, Pearl Jam refused to play any venue for which Ticketmaster sold tickets, and even testified about the company's business practices before Congress. The band members' stance led them to play only minor venues and even stop touring, though they were at the height of their popularity.
"The Ticketmaster episode left them as the lone wolf out there," Crowe said. "But that worked out too. Who would have known it was a way to gather a whole new generation of fans who would know them for taking a stand?"
Pearl Jam would come to take more stands, particularly Vedder, who in the last decade became known for strident comments against the Iraq war and President George W. Bush. The band was also vocal in its support of the so-called West Memphis Three, a trio of Arkansas teenagers convicted of murder who recently were freed after questions arose about the case.
But asked to name the band's gravest crucible, Vedder replied without hesitation: "Roskilde. I think everyone in this room would say that," he said, referencing the festival in Denmark where in 2000 nine fans were killed during a riotous Pearl Jam performance; the police initially sought to hold
the band members accountable, but later exonerated them.
Less dramatic but still trying, said Vedder and his bandmates, was the mainstream popularity. Although to outsiders such a statement may seem whiny or ungrateful, the reality, they contend, is more complicated — struggling to live up to expectations, even as they faced charges of selling out from hard-core fans.
Pearl Jam, which last released an album in 2009 (the New Wave-influenced "Backspacer"), is now on a small tour — after the handful of Canadian dates, it will head to South America. The band's members are happy to continue working as they enter its third decade. But the reflection may only go so far.
"I know it's an anniversary and so we're supposed to be not only looking back but looking ahead to where the next five or 10 years are going to take us," Vedder said, then with a small smile, added, "But we don't have to do that right now, so let's not."
Toronto 2011: Cameron Crowe's Pearl Jam doc rolls out
Toronto 2011: Seth Rogen cancer comedy 50/50 earns standing ovation
Toronto 2011: Keira Knightley says Dangerous Method role wigs her out too
--Steven Zeitchik in Toronto


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The Devil Wears Prada Musical Sets 2020 World Premiere in Chicago
The hotly anticipated musical adaptation of The Devil Wears Prada has scheduled a world premiere staging at Chicago's James M. Nederlander Theatre. The production will run from July 14, 2020 through August 16 prior to a Broadway engagement, with further details to come.
Based on Lauren Weisberger's bestselling 2003 novel, which was turned into a smash 2006 film, The Devil Wears Prada follows Andy Sachs, a smart but drab aspiring journalist who gets sucked into the glamorous world of the elite fashion magazine Runway and the servitude of its cutthroat editor, Miranda Priestly.
Anna D. Shapiro will direct the new musical, which features a book by Paul Rudnick, music by Elton John and lyrics by Shaina Taub. Casting and additional creative team members for the Chicago production will be announced at a later time. Till then, look back at the film's trailer below.


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Download this Backgrounder as a pdf
Each month the Census Bureau conducts the Current Population Survey (CPS), the primary purpose of which is to collect employment data. The March CPS includes an extra-large sample of Hispanics and is considered the best source for information on persons born outside of the United States — referred to as foreign-born by the Census Bureau, though for the purposes of this report, foreign-born and immigrant are used synonymously.1 Analysis of the March 2000 CPS done by the Center for Immigration Studies indicates that 28.4 million immigrants now live in the United States, the largest number ever recorded in the nation's history, and a 43 percent increase since 1990. As a percentage of the population, immigrants now account for more than one in 10 residents (10.4 percent), the highest percentage in 70 years.
Other findings in the new Center report:
- More than 1.2 million legal and illegal immigrants combined now settle in the United States each year.
- The number of immigrants living in the United States has more than tripled since 1970, from 9.6 million to 28.4 million. As a percentage of the U.S. population, immigrants have more than doubled, from 4.7 percent in 1970 to 10.4 percent in 2000.
- By historical standards, the number of immigrants living in the United States is unprecedented. Even at the peak of the great wave of early 20th century immigration, the number of immigrants living in the United States was less than half what it is today (13.5 million in 1910).
- Immigration has become the determinate factor in population growth. The 11.2 million immigrants who indicated they arrived between 1990 and 2000 plus the 6.4 million children born to immigrants in the United States during the 1990s are equal to almost 70 percent of U.S. population growth over the last 10 years.
- The percentage of immigrants without a high school diploma is 30 percent, more than three times the rate for natives. Also, of all persons without a high school education, one-third are now immigrants. Immigrants are also slightly more likely than natives to have a graduate or professional degree.
- In 2000, 37.4 percent of immigrants are naturalized citizens, and immigrants account for 5.5 percent of all eligible voters.
- The poverty rate for immigrants is 50 percent higher than that of natives, with immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under age 21) accounting for 22 percent of all persons living in poverty.
- The proportion of immigrant households using welfare programs is 30 to 50 percent higher than that of native households.
- One-third of immigrants do not have health insurance — two and one-half times the rate for natives. Immigrants who arrived after 1989 and their U.S.-born children account for 60 percent or 5.5 million of the increase in the size the uninsured population.
- Immigration accounts for virtually all of the national increase in public school enrollment over the last two decades. In 2000, there were 8.6 million school-age children from immigrant families in the United States.
- Immigrants and natives exhibit remarkably similar rates of entrepreneurship, with about 1 in 9 of both groups being self-employed.
Because all children born in the United States to immigrants are by definition natives, the sole reason for the dramatic increase in the immigrant population is new immigration. While some immigrants die and others return home, the issuance of 700,000 to 900,000 permanent residency visas annually and the settlement of several hundred thousand illegal aliens each year greatly exceeds deaths and out-migration. In the March 2000 CPS, just under three million immigrants indicated they had entered the country between 1998 and March of 2000. An additional 2.2 million immigrants responded they had arrived in 1996 or 1997. These numbers indicate that at least 1.2 million immigrants, and perhaps 1.3 million, now arrive in United States each year.
In any discussion of immigration's effect on the country it is important to keep in mind that the number of legal immigrants allowed in each year, the selection criteria used, and the level of resources devoted to controlling illegal immigration are all discretionary policies of the federal government. Given the sampling and non-sampling error that exists in any survey, the results of this Backgrounder for states and immigrant groups with relatively small populations should be interpreted carefully.
Historical Comparison
While immigration has played an important role in American history, the level of immigration and the size of the immigrant population has varied considerably. Figure 1 shows the number of immigrants living in the United States over the course of the last 100 years. The 28.4 million immigrants residing in the United States in 2000 are the most ever recorded. Even during the great wave of immigration at the turn of the century, the immigrant population was less than half what it is today.
Figure 1 shows that, after growing in the early part of this century, the immigrant population stabilized at around 10 or 11 million for about four decades. In the mid-1960s, changes in immigration law and other factors caused the annual level of legal immigration to rise steadily, from about 300,000 in the 1960s to 800,000 in the 1990s. As a result, between 1970 and 1980 the number of immigrants living in the United States grew by a record 4.5 million. Reflecting the continuing increase in legal and illegal immigration, the immigrant population grew by 5.7 million in the 1980s — another record — and by 8.6 million in the 1990s, again surpassing the previous record.
The foreign-born population's growth rate since 1970 is higher than at any other time in history, far surpassing growth at the beginning of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1910, the immigrant population grew by 31 percent, less than the 47 percent increase in the 1970s, the 40 percent increase in the 1980s, and the 43 percent growth of the 1990s.
Additionally, immigrants now account for a much larger share of the increase in the total U.S. population. For most of last century, the growth in the immigrant population accounted for little or none of the increase in the size of the U.S. population. Even during the first decade of the last century, when immigration was an important part of population growth, the immigrant contribution to U.S. population growth was much less than it is today. The 3.2 million increase in the size of the immigrant population between 1900 and 1910 accounted for only 20 percent of the total increase in the U.S. population. In contrast, the 8.6 million-increase in the immigrant population from 1990 to 2000 accounted for 34 percent of U.S. population growth in the 1990s. Immigration now accounts for such a large percentage of population because the fertility of natives was much higher in the early 1900s. As a result, the population grew regardless of immigration. Today natives have only about two children on average, with the result that immigration now accounts for a very large share of population growth. Also in contrast to the past, a much higher percentage of today's immigrants remain in the United States rather than returning home. Because so many immigrants in the early 20th century eventually returned to their home countries, immigration at that time did not add permanently to the overall size of U.S. population in the way that it does today.2
While the number of immigrants and the growth rate of the immigrant population are higher now than at any other time in the last 100 years, the immigrant percentage of the population was higher in the first few decades of the 1900s. Table 1 shows that in 1910, the immigrant population reached a high of 14.7 percent of the total U.S. population. As a result of World War I and changes in immigration law in the early 1920s, the level of immigration began to fall, as did the foreign-born percentage of the population. The 1930 Census was the last time the percentage of immigrants was as high as it is today.
In terms of the impact of immigrants on the United States, both the percentage of the population made up of immigrants and the number of immigrants are clearly important. The ability to assimilate and incorporate immigrants is partly dependent on the relative sizes of the native and immigrant populations. Still, 28.4 million immigrants are likely to have an enormous effect on the socio-economic life of the United States, regardless of whether this represents 10 or 15 percent of the nation's population, especially because immigrants are largely concentrated in only a few states.
Population Growth
The CPS can be used to provide insight into the likely impact of immigrants on the size of the U.S. population. Table 2 reports six different methods using the March 2000 CPS to estimate the effect of immigration on U.S. population growth in the 1990s.
The first column in Table 2 shows the growth in the U.S. population based on a comparison of the total population as enumerated in the 1990 Census and the March 2000 population estimate prepared by the Census Bureau.3 The first three rows of Table 2 use the growth in the size of foreign-born population to estimate the effect of immigration on population growth between 1990 and 2000. As already pointed out, the 8.6 million increase in the size of the immigrant population between 1990 and 2000 is equal to approximately one-third of total U.S. population growth over this period. As shown in the second row, the impact of immigration on population growth is even larger (40 percent) if births to immigrants who arrived in the 1990s are added to the growth of the foreign-born population. The third row indicates that if births to all immigrant women during the 1990s, including those who arrived prior to 1990, are added to the growth in the immigrant population, then immigration is equal to almost 59 percent of population growth.
Instead of using the growth in the foreign-born population, the last three rows of Table 2 use the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s as the basis for estimating the impact of immigration on population growth. Analysis of this kind is possible because the CPS asks of foreign-born persons their year of arrival to the United States. In 2000, 11.2 million immigrants in the survey indicated that they had entered the country between 1990 and 2000.
The 11.2 million figure is larger than the 8.6 million growth in the foreign-born because the immigrant population shrinks as a result of deaths and out-migration. Thus, even though 11.2 million immigrants arrived in the 1990s, the immigrant population grew by only 8.6 million because 2.6 million immigrants here in 1990 had either died or gone home by 2000. It is reasonable to view the 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s as the basis for estimating immigration's effect on population growth because this flow reflects current U.S. immigration policy — both legal immigration and the level of resources devoted to controlling illegal immigration.
The 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s are equal to 43.8 percent of population growth in the 1990s. If births only to immigrants who arrived during the 1990s are added to this figure, then immigration accounts for 50.3 percent of U.S. population growth. The last row in Table 2 adds all births to immigrants between1990 and 2000 to the 11.2 million immigrants who arrived in the 1990s. Births to immigrants plus 1990s immigration are equal to 68.8 percent of population growth between 1990 and 2000. Taken together, the estimates in Table 2 make clear that no matter what assumption is used, immigration policy has very significant implications for U.S. population growth.
State Data
Table 3 ranks the states by the size of their immigrant populations. It also shows the number of immigrants who reported arriving in the 1990s. California clearly has the largest immigrant population; New York, the state with next largest number of immigrants, has fewer than half as many. Table 3 also shows how concentrated the immigrant population is: Only a few states represent the vast majority of the foreign-born population. The nearly 8.8 million immigrants in California account for 30.9 percent of the nation's total immigrant population, followed by New York (12.8 percent), Florida (9.8 percent), Texas (8.6 percent), New Jersey (4.3 percent), and Illinois (4.1 percent). Despite having only 39.3 percent of the nation's total population, these six states account for 70.5 percent of the nation's immigrant population.
Table 4 ranks states by the percentage of their populations composed of immigrants. While the rankings by "percent immigrant" are similar to those in Table 3, there are some significant differences. Because of their relatively small total populations, several states such as Hawaii and Nevada, with high percentages of immigrants, rank lower in terms of number of immigrants.
Table 5 compares the 1990 Census counts of the immigrant population with the March 2000 CPS and ranks the top 15 states by the numerical increase in their immigrant populations. While the states that had large immigrant populations in 1990 continue to account for most of the growth in the immigrant population, Table 5 shows substantial growth in the foreign-born populations in such states as Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina, and Nevada.
Table 6 examines immigration and state population growth for the top immigrant- receiving states. The first column in the table reports population growth between 1990 and 2000 by state. Columns 2, 3, and 4 show the number of 1990s immigrants in the state, births to 1990s immigrants, and births to all immigrants during the 1990s. Column 5 uses 1990s immigrants plus births to only 1990s immigrants, while column 6 uses 1990s immigrants and all births to immigrants to estimate immigration's impact on state population growth. Table 6 shows that using either assumption, there are a number of states in which immigration has had a very large impact on population growth.
While the arrival of natives from other parts of the country plays a significant role in population growth in states like Arizona, Washington, and Colorado, immigration has also become an important component of population growth. For Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, Florida, and Texas, immigration plays an even larger role — accounting for at least one-third to more than half of the increase in the population of these states between 1990 and 2000.
In New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California it appears that absent immigration, these states may have declined in population or at least grown very little. This is because there is a significant out-migration of natives from these states. There is, however, both anecdotal and systematic evidence indicating that in high- immigration states some natives leave because they are adversely affected by immigration. In particular, less-skilled native-born workers may leave to avoid job competition, and some parents may leave high-immigration areas because of the strains it creates on public schools. Therefore, it is by no means certain that without immigration all of these states would have declined in population.
Region and Country of Origin
Table 7 shows the distribution of immigrants by region of the world, with Mexico and Canada treated separately. Mexico accounts for 27.7 percent of all immigrants, with 7.9 million immigrants living in United States, more than the number of immigrants from any other part of the world. Immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and East Asia make up the majority of immigrants, with 69 percent of the foreign-born coming from these areas. For immigrants who have arrived in the 1990s, these regions account for 71.2 percent of the foreign-born. Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe make up a relatively small portion of the immigrant population, accounting for only 17.1 percent of all immigrants and 13.8 percent of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s.
Table 8 ranks the top-20 immigrant-sending countries by the number of post-1970 immigrants living in the United States as of March 2000. Mexico is, of course, the largest sending country, accounting for more than five times as many immigrants as the combined total for China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. As is clear from Table 8, Latin American, Caribbean, and East Asian countries dominate the list of immigrant-sending countries, accounting for 14 of the top-20 post-1970 countries.
Labor Market Characteristics
Immigrants now comprise 12.8 percent of the nation's total workforce.4 This is somewhat higher than the 10.4 percent of the total U.S. immigrant population because, in comparison to natives, a slightly higher percentage of immigrants are of working age. Table 9 reports the educational attainment and other characteristics of immigrants and natives in the workforce. In 1998, almost 30 percent of immigrants who worked full time did not have a high school diploma, and of those who arrived in the 1990s, 34.4 percent were dropouts. In comparison, slightly less than 9 percent of natives lacked a high school education. At the highest level of education, immigrants tend to be slightly more educated than natives, with 10.7 percent of immigrants holding a graduate or professional degree compared to 9.3 percent of natives.
The large number of immigrants with low levels of education means that immigration policy has dramatically increased the supply of workers with less than a high school degree, while increasing other educational categories more moderately. The last column in Table 9 shows the portion of each educational category composed of immigrants. While immigrants comprise 13 percent of the total workforce, they comprise more than 35 percent of the high school dropouts in the workforce. This means that any effect immigration may have on the wages or job opportunities of natives will disproportionately affect less-skilled workers.
Given the large proportion of immigrants with few years of schooling, it is not surprising that the income figures reported in Table 9 show that as a group, immigrants have lower median incomes than natives. The annual median income of immigrants is only about 76 percent that of natives. And for the most recent immigrants, median income is only 58 percent that of natives. While as a group immigrants earn significantly less than natives, the income data by year of entry suggest significant progress over time.
Since the cohort data is only based on one point in time, March 2000, it is possible that the seeming economic progress of immigrants is at least partly caused by the departure of those immigrants who did not fare well in the U.S. labor market. Moreover, the age data in Table 9 indicate that 1970s immigrants are by 2000, on average, older than natives in the workforce. Because greater workforce experience comes with age, one would expect this to translate into higher income. Despite this, the median income of immigrants who arrived in the 1970s is actually slightly below that of natives, even though they are on average older than natives and have been in the United States for more than 20 years. Only the cohort that arrived before 1970 had higher incomes than natives, which is expected given that they are much older than natives on average. In addition to their age, the higher income of immigrants who arrived prior to 1970 may also be explained by the fact that most were admitted under the pre-1965 immigration system, which tended to produce a more educated flow of immigrants relative to natives than today's policies.
Table 10 shows the occupational concentration of immigrants and natives by occupation. The upper half of the table lists those occupations in which the immigrant component is less than or nearly equal to their proportion in the overall workforce. The lower half lists those occupations in which immigrants comprise a proportion larger than their representation in the workforce (henceforth referred to as low-immigrant and high-immigrant occupations, respectively). Given the low level of educational attainment of a large proportion of immigrants, it is not surprising that high-immigrant occupations are those that tend to require fewer years of education. For example, while immigrants make up 18 percent of those holding non-private household service jobs, such as janitor, security guard, and child-care worker, they comprise only 10 percent of individuals in managerial and professional jobs.
Table 10 reveals that only 26 percent of natives are employed in occupations that have a high concentrations of immigrants. This suggests that most natives are not in competition with immigrants.5 However, as Table 10 shows, high-immigrant occupations pay an average of only 56 percent of what low-immigrant occupations pay. Additionally, high-immigrant occupations have an unemployment rate more than double that of low-immigrant occupations. By itself, this does not necessarily mean that immigrants have lowered the wages or increased unemployment in these occupations. What it is does mean, however, is that any negative effect from immigration will likely fall on the 26 million native-born workers who already have the lowest wages and the highest unemployment.
Table 10 also shows that 40 percent of native-born blacks work in high-immigrant occupations, compared to only 22.9 percent of whites. This means that blacks are much more likely to be affected by any decline in wages or benefits resulting from immigrant-induced increases in the supply of labor.
Self Employment
One of the most common perceptions of immigrants is that they are uniquely or distinctly entrepreneurial. Table 11 examines the self-employment rates of immigrants and natives. Consistent with other research, Table 11 shows that immigrants and natives exhibit remarkably similar levels of entrepreneurship. The table shows that 10.7 percent of immigrants and 11.6 percent of natives are self-employed. Thus, less than one percentage point separates the self-employment rate for immigrants and natives. Turning to self-employment income reported at the bottom of Table 11, we see that the average self-employment income (revenue minus expenses) or both immigrants and natives is very similar. While immigrants overall are not more entrepreneurial than natives, immigrants from some countries are significantly more likely than natives to be self-employed. Those from China, Korea, Canada, Poland, and Iran are much more likely to be self-employed than natives.
Clearly, entrepreneurship is neither a lacking nor a distinguishing characteristic of the nation's immigrants. If one removed immigrants from the data, the overall rate of self-employment in the United States would be virtually unchanged. Therefore, one simply must look elsewhere to make an argument for or against current immigration.
Based on the March 2000 CPS, 16.8 percent of immigrants compared to 11.2 percent of natives lived in poverty in 1999 (poverty statistics are based on annual income in the year prior to the survey). The poverty rate is 23.5 percent for immigrants who entered in the 1990s, 15.2 percent for 1980s immigrants, and 11.5 percent for 1970s immigrants. As is the case with the income data in Table 9, it is unclear to what extent this progress reflects the out-migration of unsuccessful immigrants, the different selection criteria used in the past, and the changing origins of immigrants over the last few decades.
Table 12 also reports poverty rates for persons from the top-20 post-1970 immigrant-sending countries. The data indicate that there is an enormous variation in poverty rates among immigrants from different countries. For example, the 32.5 percent poverty rate for Dominicans is more than six times that of persons from United Kingdom and five times that of immigrants from the Philippines. The last column in Table 12 shows the proportion of persons 21 years of age and older from each country who have not completed high school. These educational data indicate that those countries that have the highest percentage of adults without a high school education also tend to have the highest poverty rates.
The higher incidence of poverty among immigrants as a group has significantly increased the overall size of the population living in poverty. Immigrants accounted for almost 15 percent of all persons living in poverty. While this is a large percentage, it would be even larger if the native-born children (under age 21) of immigrants, who are included in the poverty figures for natives, are counted with their parents. The poverty rate for children and for most young adults reflects their parents' income, therefore it is reasonable to view poverty among the U.S.-born children of immigrants as attributable to their immigrant parents. The bottom portion of Table 12 shows that the poverty rate for immigrants and their U.S.-born children together is 18.3 percent.
Of the 27.5 million natives living in poverty, 2.27 million (8 percent) are the U.S.-born children of immigrant mothers. If the native-born children of immigrants are excluded, poverty among natives drops from 11.2 percent to 10.7 percent. And if the 4.75 million immigrants in poverty are also excluded, along with their U.S.-born children, from the nation's overall poverty counts, the overall number of people living in poverty drops by 7.02 million. This means that immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 21.8 percent of the 32.26 million people living in poverty in the United States. Among persons under age 21 living in poverty, 24.2 percent are the children of immigrants.
In addition to poverty, Table 12 also reports the percentage of immigrants and natives living in or near poverty, with near poverty defined as income less than 200 percent of the poverty threshold. As is the case with poverty, near poverty is much more common among immigrants rather than natives. Table 12 shows that 41.4 percent of immigrants compared to 28.8 percent of natives live in or near poverty. Among the children of immigrants (under age 21), 53 percent live in or near poverty, in contrast to 35.6 percent of the children of natives. If the native-born children of immigrants are excluded from the figures for natives, the rate of poverty/near poverty among natives drops from 28.8 percent to 27.8 and the poverty rate is 44 percent for immigrants and their native-born children combined. If the 11.7 million immigrants in or near poverty are excluded, along with their U.S.-born children (5.17 million), then the overall number of people living in or near poverty in the United States drops by 16.9 million. This means that immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for 20.5 percent of the poor and near poor in the United States.
Welfare Use
Table 13 shows the percentage of immigrant- and native-headed households in which at least one member of the household receives public assistance (including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and general assistance programs), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Food Stamps, or Medicaid (health insurance for those with low incomes). Table 13 indicates that even after the 1996 welfare reforms, which curtailed eligibility for some immigrants, immigrant welfare use remains higher than that of natives for all four major programs and for all entering cohorts after 1970. In fact, the year of entry data suggest that in some cases immigrant welfare use actually rises over time as they "assimilate" into the welfare system.
As was the case with lower income and higher poverty rates, the higher welfare use rates by immigrant households are at least partly explained by the large proportion of immigrants with few years of schooling. Less-educated people tend to have lower incomes and higher levels of unemployment and poverty. Therefore, it is not surprising that immigrant use of welfare programs is significantly higher than that of natives.
While immigrants' welfare use is higher than natives', Table 13 shows that most households, immigrant or native, do not use means-tested programs. On the other hand, even though a relatively small portion of the population uses welfare, for 1999 the total costs of just the first three programs listed in Table 13 is more than $70 billion a year, and Medicaid by itself costs an additional $190 billion. Moreover, there are other welfare programs not listed in the table that are linked to those reported in Table 13. For example, 15.5 percent of immigrant households reported having at least one child receiving subsidized school lunches, compared to only 5.8 percent of native households. Finally, there is the question of whether native use of welfare is the proper yardstick by which to measure immigrants. Some may reasonably argue that because immigration is supposed to benefit the United States, our admission criteria should, with the exception of refugees, select only those immigrants who are self-sufficient.
In addition to welfare programs, Table 13 reports use of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). With an annual cost of $25 billion, the EITC is the nation's largest means-tested cash assistance program for workers with low incomes. Persons receiving the EITC pay no federal income tax and instead receive cash assistance from the government based on their earnings and family size. Table 13 shows that immigrant households use the EITC at almost double the rate of natives.
While on the whole immigrant households have higher welfare use rates, this is not true for immigrants from all countries. Table 14 shows that immigrants from those countries with higher education levels tend to have lower welfare use rates. From the list of countries in Table 14, it is also clear that refugee-sending countries, such as Russia and Vietnam, tend to have higher rates of welfare use. On the other hand, Mexican and Dominican households have welfare use rates that are as high or higher than Russian or Vietnamese immigrants, and virtually none of these immigrants are refugees. Thus, it is clear that the higher rate of welfare use by immigrants overall is not caused simply by immigrants admitted for humanitarian reasons. In addition to being more likely overall to receive welfare, Table 14 indicates that the average payments received by immigrant households on public assistance, SSI, or the EITC are larger than those of natives.
According to the Census Bureau, since 1989 the uninsured population has grown by almost 9.2 million. and stood at 42.6 million (almost one-sixth of the total U.S. population) in 1999. (Figures for 1999 are based on the March 2000 CPS.) Much of this growth has been driven by immigration. Immigrants who arrived after 1989 along with their U.S.-born children account for 60 percent or 5.5 million of the increase in the uninsured population in the 1990s.6
Table 15 reports the percentage of immigrants and natives who where uninsured for all of 1999. The table shows that lack of health insurance is a significant problem for immigrants from many different countries, including countries that tend to have lower poverty rates and higher education levels, such as China and Korea. The lower portion of Table 15 reports the percentage of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 21) who are uninsured. Almost 31 percent of immigrants and their children lack health insurance, compared to 13 percent of natives. The large percentage of immigrants and their children without insurance has significantly increased the overall size of the uninsured population. Immigrants and their U.S.-born children account for almost 28 percent of all uninsured persons in the country, double their percentage of the overall population. The high percentage of immigrants without health insurance is even more striking when one recalls from Table 13 that immigrant households were more likely to use Medicaid.
The low rate of insurance coverage associated with immigrants is primarily explained by their much lower levels of education. Because of the limited value of their labor in an economy that increasingly demands educated workers, many immigrants hold jobs that do not offer health insurance, and their low incomes make it very difficult for them to purchase insurance on their own.
A larger uninsured population cannot help but strain the resources of those who provide services to the uninsured already here. Moreover, Americans with insurance have to pay higher premiums as health care providers pass along some of the costs of treating the uninsured to paying costumers. Taxpayers also are affected as federal, state, and local governments struggle to provide care to the growing ranks of the uninsured. There can be no doubt that by dramatically increasing the size of the uninsured population, our immigration policy has broad-ranging effects on the nation's entire health care system.
School-Age Children
In the last few years, a good deal of attention has been focused on the dramatic increases in enrollment experienced by many school districts across the country. The Department of Education recently reported that the number of children in public schools has grown by nearly 8 million in the last two decades. All observers agree that this growth has strained the resources of many school districts. While it has been suggested that this increase is the result of the children of baby boomers reaching school age (the "baby boom echo"), it is clear from the CPS that immigration policy explains the growth in the number of children in public schools.
Table 16 shows that there are 8.6 million school-age children of immigrants (ages 5 to 17) in the United States. While fewer than one-third of the 8.6 million children are immigrants themselves, the use of public education by the native-born children of immigrants is a direct consequence of their parents having been allowed into the country. The children of immigrants account for such a large percentage of the school-age population because a higher proportion of immigrant women are in their childbearing years, and immigrants tend to have more children than natives. In addition, the effect of immigration on public schools will be even larger in the coming years because 17.6 percent of children approaching school age have immigrant mothers.
Table 16 also shows that immigration has significantly increased the school-age population in all of the top-eight immigrant-receiving states. Of course, a dramatic increase in enrollment may not create a problem for public education if tax revenue increases proportionately. But as we have seen, immigrants generally have lower incomes than natives, so their tax contributions are unlikely to entirely offset the costs they impose on schools. This is especially true because of the higher costs associated with teaching children whose first language is not English.
The absorption capacity of American public education is clearly an important issue that needs to be taken into account when formulating a sensible immigration policy. Table 16 suggests that the failure to consider this question may have significant consequences for America's schools.
Characteristics of Immigrants by State
Table 17 reports selected characteristics for immigrants in the leading immigrant-receiving states. The first column reports the percentage of immigrants 18 and over in each state who indicated that they were naturalized citizens of the United States. While there is some variation, the percentage of immigrants in most states who are citizens falls near the national average of 40 percent. As a share of all eligible voters in each state, immigrants vary significantly: in California immigrants account for 15.7 percent of eligible voters; in New York, 11.8 percent; in Florida, 10.8 percent; in Texas, 5.6 percent; in New Jersey, 9 percent; in Illinois, 5.2 percent; in Massachusetts, 6.5 percent; and in Arizona, 6 percent. It is worth noting that research indicates that some immigrants, primarily those from Mexico and Central America, tend to report that they are naturalized citizens when in fact they are resident aliens. Thus, the actual citizenship rate of immigrants is likely to be somewhat overstated in the CPS.
The second and third columns of Table 17 report the percentage of immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under 21) who live in or near poverty, with near poverty defined as income below 200 percent of the poverty threshold. Despite the fact that the demographic characteristics of immigrants differ significantly by state, immigrants and their U.S.-born children (under age 21) have much higher rates of poverty and near poverty than natives, with the exception of Illinois. As a share of all persons in or near poverty, immigrants and their children account for more than one-half of the poor and near poor in California and roughly one-third in New York, Florida, and Arizona. In Texas, immigrants and their children represent 27 percent of all persons in or near poverty and 29.3 percent in New Jersey.
Turning to health insurance coverage by state, Table 17 shows a similar pattern to poverty. With the exception of Illinois, immigrants and their children in every major immigrant-receiving state are significantly more likely than natives to be uninsured. The impact of immigration on the overall size of the uninsured population in some states can only be described as enormous. In California, 58.8 percent of the uninsured are immigrants or the U.S.-born children (under age 21) of an immigrant. As Table 17 shows, if immigrants and their children are not counted in California, the uninsured rate would be 13 percent — precisely the rate for natives. But, because of immigration the actual state uninsured rate is 20 percent, making it one of the highest in the country. In New York, immigrants and their children represent nearly half (47.7 percent) of the uninsured; in Florida, 39.5 percent; in Texas, 32.5 percent; in New Jersey, 34.7; in Illinois, 22.6 percent; in Massachusetts, 27.5 percent; and in Arizona, 36.4 percent.
The last two columns in Table 17 show the percentage of immigrant and native households using at least one of the major welfare programs. Not surprisingly, with the exception of Illinois, immigrant household use of welfare is higher than that of natives in every state. As a result of their higher use rates, immigrant households account for a very significant percentage of the welfare caseloads in these states. In California, immigrant households account for 42.2 percent of all households using at least one major welfare program; in New York, it's 31.8 percent; in Florida, 26.4 percent; in Texas, 21.8 percent; in New Jersey, 23.7 percent; in Illinois, 10.2 percent; and in Arizona, immigrant households account for 26.6 of all households receiving welfare. While higher than the rate of natives in almost every state, it is important to note that there is no state in which a majority of immigrant households are on welfare.
Metropolitan Statistical Areas
Table 18 reports figures for the nation's top-six immigrant-receiving Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Areas (CMSA). While the Los Angles and New York CMSAs have the largest immigrant populations, the Miami CMSA ranks first in terms of the percentage of immigrants. These six metropolitan areas account for nearly 53 percent of all immigrants living in the United States but only 23.1 percent of the nation's entire population. These six cities continue to attract a large share of new immigrants. Of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, 48.7 percent settled in these six CMSAs.
The fourth column in Table 18 reports population growth for each metro area between 1990 and 2000. All six metro areas grew significantly in population during in the 1990s. If we compare the population growth figures to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, it is clear that immigration has played a very large role in growing the population of all six metro areas. Even in the Washington-Baltimore CMSA, the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s (348,000) was equal to almost half of the 701,000-person increase in the area's total population. If the 175,000 children born to immigrant parents in the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan area during the 1990s are added to the number of immigrants who arrived in the 1990s, then immigration is equal to almost 75 percent of the CMSA's population growth.
Table 19 examines the distribution of immigrants and natives between the nation's central cities, suburban, and rural areas. With 44.8 percent of immigrants living in the nation's central cities compared to 26.2 percent of natives, immigrants are clearly much more likely than natives to live in central cities. But contrary to the general impression, most immigrants do not live in the nation's central cities. In fact, immigrants are just as likely as natives to live in the suburbs. As Table 19 shows, the primary difference between the two groups is that natives are much more likely to live in rural areas while immigrants are more likely to live in central cities. The large number of immigrants who live in suburban areas may be a positive sign that immigrants are successfully integrating into American society and obtaining a middle class standard of living. On the other hand, it is in suburban areas where the problems of sprawl and congestion are most acutely felt. Thus, the nearly 13 million immigrants who have settled in suburbia are likely to have contributed to these problems.
While immigration's impact continues to be the subject of intense national debate, there can be no doubt that the large number of immigrants now living in the United States represents an enormous challenge. With more than half of post-1970 immigrants and their U.S.-born children living in or near poverty and one-third having no health insurance, the situation for immigrant families is clearly precarious. While the current economic expansion may tempt some to ignore these facts, when the next economic downturn occurs the costs of immigration will likely become glaringly apparent. Setting aside the lower socio-economic status of immigrants, no nation has ever attempted to incorporate more than 28 million newcomers into its society. Moreover, without a change in immigration policy, the Census Bureau projects 11 to 12 million immigrants will arrive in the next decade alone. Thus, immigration's impact will continue to grow if current trends in immigration are allowed to continue.
End Notes
1 All persons not born in the United States, one of its outlying territories, or of U.S. parents living abroad are considered immigrants. All persons born in the United States, including the children of illegal aliens, are considered natives. The immigrant population in the CPS includes perhaps five million illegal aliens and perhaps 600,000 persons on long-term temporary visas, such as students and temporary workers. The 134,000 persons in the CPS, 15,400 of whom are immigrants, are weighted to reflect the actual size of the total U.S. population. The survey is considered such an accurate source of information on the foreign-born because, unlike the decennial census, each household in the CPS receives an in-person interview from a Census Bureau employee and the data are weighted to reflect the undercount of minorities who are often missed by surveys.
2 See Robert Warren and Ellen Percy Kraly, 1985, The Elusive Exodus: Emigration form the United States. Occasional Paper #8. Population Reference Bureau, Washington, D.C.
3 In contrast to the decennial census and the March 2000 population projection, which are the basis for the population growth figure found in Table 2, the CPS is designed to measure only the civilian non-institutionalized population. The CPS is also different because it is weighted to reflect the undercount of the non-institutionalized population, primarily minorities, that is missed by demographic surveys. Overall, these two factors tend to cancel each other out because the institutionalized immigrant population that is not included in the CPS is roughly equal in size to the undercount adjustment. This allows for direct comparisons to be made between the 1990 Census and the immigrant population in the CPS. The Census Bureau has done so in a number of recent publications. (See for example, Schmidley, 1999, pp.23-195)
4 This figures refers to persons aged 18 or older who worked full-time hours for at least part of 1999. If part-time workers are also included, then immigrants comprise 12.3 percent of the labor force.
5 There are a number of specific occupations included in the upper portion of Table 8 that do have a large concentration of immigrants, such as medical doctor. Because of the sample size, however, it is not possible to break out these occupations separately even though the effect of immigrants on these specific occupations is likely to be significant.
6 Includes only uninsured U.S.-born children whose parents arrived in the 1990s.
Steven A. Camarota, Ph.D. is the Center for Immigration Studies' Director of Research.


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The CCI and CGI interfaces point to a general need for interprocedure comminication between web applications and other applications. Here are some critical interface points between components of the web.
The GET operation in the web retrieves the persistent state for an object across the network, so that the object can be activated/initialized on the client side.
Typically, the persistant state of an object is stored in a file, i.e. a document on the desktop. But it can also be in a database, or the output of a computation.
System | Facility | Example |
libwww | HTAccess, SGML parsing | request = ...; HTRequest_setOutputStream(request, output); HTAnchor * anchor = HTAnchor_findAddress(url); HTRequest_setAnchor(request, anchor); return lauch_request(request, NO); ... parse stream, call SGML_start(), SGML_data(), SGML_end()... |
COM | Monikers, persistance | um = URLMoniker("http:...") ctx = CreateBindingContext() str = um.bindToStream(ctx) CoCreateInstance(read_uuid(str), &obj, IID_Document)) obj.initFromStream(str) |
M3 network objects | Stable, pickles. | lm = NEW(WebLogManager.T).init(); (* WebLogManager.T <: LogManager.T
*) obj = NEW(Document).init("http://...", r, lm := lm); .. which calls: lm.recover("http://...", log, checkpt) .. obj.readCheckPoint(checkpt) ... Pickle.Read(checkpoint) ... obj.replayLog(log) |
Java | URLConnection, Serialization | |
CORBA | persistance, Externalization | pid = PIDFactory.create_from_key("http://...") obj.restore(pid) /* CosPersistancePO::PO.restore */ /* hmmm... no way to access the persistant data directly!!! */ |
Note that web objects are animated by a variety of software systems on a variety of platforms. HTML works well across systems.
Tricky issue: type fingerprints (a checksum of the type definition). Modula-3, Java, ILU, and probably other use them, but they are specific to the type system. Hence, a persistance format like M3 Pickles or Java Serialization is unsuitable in the common case.
Format Negotiation is negotiation about the persistance format. Note that the APIs of the systems other than the web assume a single persistance format, and lack the equivalent of "accept" headers in their binding parameters.
Format negotiation should not be used for more ambitious purposes like different documents for different screen sizes, user agent capabilities, etc. Or should it? How does PEP relate? Perhaps interface negotiation can be combined with format negotiation; perhaps a contract is a contract is a contract, whether it's about the persistance format, client capabilities, commercial agreements, etc.
Type fingerprints map nicely into URL schemes: m3fingerprint:xxxx, java:xxxx, ilu:xxxx, and they are analagous to DTD system identifiers ala <!doctype html system "http://...">
XML should work well in this capacity as well. Hence an XML parser/generator API should support "marshalling" ala M3 StableGen logs, Java Serialization, CORBA externalization, COM serialization.
See also: an essay on pickling ideas.
Hmmm... both M3 and CORBA have a way of connecting an object to a store such that the store tracks updates to the object (stable.init() and PO.connect, resp.). See also: compound document architectures for update-in-place file formats like Bento and Structured Storage.
@@@@ M3 sources
CORBA persistance, 5.4: OIDs are for sharing, PIDs are not. pom_id: name of POM is passed around at runtime? (analog of clsid?) pre_store/post_store: concurrency?
DDL: ala SGML DTD, ANS.1
System | register class implementation | create instance | generic call |
Web servers | /cgi-bin, config files | opaque | POST, www-form-urlencoded |
Java | class loader | new | apply in reflection API |
CORBA | registration of implementations | BOA::create. Called by implementation. Must provide all interfaces at once. | CORBA DII |
COM | CoRegisterClass | CoCreateInstance, called by client, who asks for any one interface. | IDispatch::invoke
(for example see visual Tcl) |
ILU | ilu_Publish() called by impl (I think) | ??? | ILU_PUBLIC void _ILU_C_GenericCall (ilu_Class class, ilu_Method method, _ILU_C_ExceptionDescription evec, ILU_C_Object *discriminant, ILU_C_ENVIRONMENT *status, char *argdesc, ...); |
Novel ideas in invocation:
@@ need to review CORBA query service, etc.
@@ review of CORBA security spec ongoing.
See Also: Addressing: URIs, URLs, etc.
Netscape plug-ins have been grandfathered. (i.e. there's a control that runs plugins)


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I had an idea for an invention. I found nothing similar on uspto.gov. Then I discovered Google Patents. I immediately found that someone from Canada is filing a patent for the same invention on the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO).
The application is active and the most recent payment was a "Maintenance Fee - Application - New Act" paid in Feb of this year with a "due date" coming up.
I then found that they have also filed an international patent.
I am so so so disappointed as I have already put in time and have been excited beyond belief about starting this business. I already have a first draft business plan and a home made prototype not to mention hours of patent search and educating myself. And I thought everything was fine when there was no prior art on uspto.gov (thank goodness for Google Patents)
Do I have any options?
Can I go ahead with the business anyway and hope I am not sued? Scary. How often does this happen successfully/unsucessfully?
If the Canadian guy's patent is rejected, can I try? (His application is badly written, definitely not by an attorney) His "description" is different from my idea but his "claim" is so broad that it encompasses mine easily with no loopholes.
Given where he is in the process, how do I find out if his application is rejected? If it is, I know he has a chance to edit and reapply. But if he drops it, then its public domain right? And no one can patent it?
Any advice appreciated. About anything. Even if you just have part of the answer to my post. I really want to do this business. Please help! sophie


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Teknologi umpan berbahan aktif kitosan untuk pengelolaan rayap tanah Cototermes curvignathus Holmgren (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae)Baiting technology with chitosan active in gradient to manage of subterannean termite Cototermes curvignathus Holmgren (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae)
(IPB (Bogor Agricultural University), 2007)
The cost of termite Coptotermes curvignathus attack on buildings is enormous. In Indonesia, we know one environmental tolerant method to overcome the attack which is called baiting systems. However, this methods is relatively ...


text: hi ya craig On Thu, 24 Jan 2002, Craig Tierney wrote: > Saying that 'they use no local disk, opting for a huge disk farm' is > not exactly correct. All nodes are diskless, and they do have a huge disk > farm. The san is for data storage, user codes, etc. The nodes are diskless > because they need to be able to switch parts the machine from classified to > non-classified depending on the situation. They cannot have any storage locally > to accomplish this. It doesn't take much disk to boot 1000 nodes remotely. > All common files are shared, and only some system specific things such as /etc > are generated unique to each node. I think (not positive) that /var and /tmp > may be small ram disks, but I don't remember exactly. > > Does hdparm work with SCSI? Does it really accomplish much? I didn't think > it did. They SAN is scsi, so I don't think they are running hdparm to optimize it. hdparm is for ide.. ( am thinking on ide-based raid5... for the other responder... and yes...fibrechannel is good too, but again, any dual hosted controllers for it too ??? have fun linuxing alvin http://www.Linux-1U.net .. 8x 200GB IDE disks -->> 1.6TeraByte 1U Raid5 ..


text:
/ Source: The Associated Press
General Motors is recalling nearly 4,000 Cadillac SRX crossovers from the 2010 model year to fix power steering problems that could lead to engine fires.
GM says in a statement that power steering fluid could leak and lead to a fire in the engine compartment. The Detroit automaker says it is aware of one fire in an unattended SRX.
There have been no crashes or injuries linked to the problem.
The vehicles under recall were built in December 2009. Most of the vehicles are in the United States and more than 300 were exported to China.
GM says it believes only a small number of the recalled vehicles have the problem. Owners will be notified about the recall and their vehicles will be repaired at no charge.


text:
There are a lot of variations of this phrase, most notably including
- "for God's sake"
- "for Heaven's sake"
- "for Jesus sake"
- "for Pete's sake"
Which of those are most commonly used in modern English? Is there any context in which one of them should be preferred? For example, I have never ever heard about "for Pete's sake" before reading "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov, where this term is widely used.


text:
What you need: Serves-4;
2 cups Basmati rice
2 cups fresh/canned coconut milk
2 cups hot boiling water
1 medium onion chopped 3-4 garlic cloves chopped
½ cup fresh/frozen peas
Whole garam masala (An inch of cinnamon stick, 4 cloves, 2 bay leaves, 2 green cardamoms) 4 to 6 cashews
Salt to taste
2 tsp of ghee/butter/oil
Soak the raw rice in cold water and set aside for 20 minutes.
In the meantime, get a thick bottom quart pan or cooker pan heating on medium. Add the ghee, when it shimmers, add in the whole garam masala, cashews and garlic.
Once the garlic turns light brown, toss in the onions and let it cook to a caramel brown. Add the peas, 2 cups coconut milk and 2 cups water.
When it begins to boil, add in the soaked, drained rice and salt to taste. Let it cook on low for about 12-15 minutes until the rice is cooked and flaky. Serve hot with any curry, or eat as is. Enjoy!
Tip: You may also make this in the electric rice cooker. Just saute all the ingredients, add it into the rice cooker, and pour in 2 cups of coconut milk and 2 cups of water; salt to taste, and turn it on.
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