Inland immigrants among country's least-skilled
 

Inland immigrants among country's least-skilled
The Inland area has among the country's least-educated immigrants, a new study finds.
The region had the eighth-lowest "skill ratio" of the nation's 100 largest metropolitan areas, according to a report released late Wednesday by the Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. The ratio is based upon educational levels of immigrants.
"The jobs available to immigrants are the same jobs that are available to non-immigrants, and an area like Riverside that doesn't have a lot of high-skilled jobs is not going to attract a lot of highly skilled immigrants," said Matthew Hall, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago and co-author of the report.
Inland leaders have long bemoaned the relatively small number of high-paying, highly skilled jobs in the region. Riverside and San Bernardino counties have the lowest percentage of people with a college degree -- 19.2 percent, compared with 27.9 percent nationwide -- of any of the nation's 52 metropolitan areas with a million or more people, according to 2009 U.S. Census Bureau estimates. The new study is based primarily upon those 2009 estimates.
Inland immigrants are less likely to graduate from college than a native-born resident. Only 16 percent of the region's foreign-born residents who are 25 or older have a college degree. Nationwide, nearly 30 percent do. Fifty-eight percent of Inland immigrants have a high school degree, compared to 72 percent nationwide.
Nationwide, more immigrants today have college degrees than lack high school diplomas, a reversal from 1980, when immigrants' educational levels were lower.
The report doesn't address how to tailor U.S. immigration policy to narrowly focus on attracting the most highly skilled, most creative immigrants who could help spur innovation at high-tech and other companies, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors more restrictions on immigration. Even most immigrants with college degrees are average workers seen as sources of cheap labor, he said.
MEXICAN POPULATION
Regions with a disproportionate number of Mexican-born residents tend to have less-educated immigrants than other metro areas, the report found. That's a result of low educational levels in Mexico and the low-skill jobs that draw most Mexican migrants over the border, Hall said.
Nationwide, almost two-thirds of immigrants are Mexican. In the Inland area, nearly 90 percent are.
The Inland area's immigrant population soared between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s. Migrants flocked to jobs that did not require a high level of education, said Todd Sorensen, an assistant professor of economics at UC Riverside.
"Riverside in 2004, 2005, 2006 was definitely a case of not having enough native-born residents to fill all the jobs, especially the construction jobs from all the housing being built," he said.
Many of those jobs vanished with the crash of the housing market and the severe recession. The Inland area's 13.4 percent unemployment rate remains among the highest in the country. Nationwide, the rate is 9 percent.
David Stewart, dean of UCR's School of Business Administration, said that even when the economy improves, the region will not return to the era of plentiful well-paying jobs for those without a post-secondary education.
"The world has changed, and not just for immigrants," he said.
There's now more incentive for immigrants to receive more training and learn English, he said. The Brookings report said English is key to lifting the skill level and incomes of immigrants.
Leopoldo Ledezma has lived in the Inland area for 22 years. He first worked as a farm worker and, most recently, as a construction worker earning $35 per hour.
With the housing bust, Ledezma, 50, of Perris, hasn't worked since August 2010. Ledezma said that, in the past, he didn't have time to take English classes and didn't need it for work.
"Now it's not the same," Ledezma said during a break from an English course he's taking at TODEC (Training Occupational Development Educating Communities) Legal Center, an immigrant assistance organization in Perris.
TODEC has a waiting list of one to two months for some of its English classes, said Luz Gallegos, community programs director of the group.
Ledezma said he realizes the best path to a well-paying job now is through English. He worked briefly as a truck driver but struggled because he couldn't communicate well with distribution centers.
Armida Hernandez, 54, also of Perris, said she too is banking on English classes. Her past jobs, in factories and at a McDonald's, were all minimum-wage.
"I need to lift myself up," Hernandez said in Spanish. "English is the No. 1 way to move forward."
IMMIGRANT SKILLS
A new report finds that the Inland area has among the nation's least-educated immigrants:
The region was tied for 93rd place in education levels among the country's 100 largest metropolitan areas.
Nationally, only 28 percent of immigrants lack a high school diploma. Nearly 42 percent of Inland immigrants have not finished high school.
Nationwide, about 30 percent of immigrants have college degrees, compared to 16 percent in the Inland area.
SOURCE: BROOKINGS INSTITUTION METROPOLITAN POLICY PROGRAM. BASED UPON 2009 CENSUS ESTIMATES FOR ADULTS 25 AND OLDER.

Nobody should be living in the US who does not speak English. Nobody is allowed legal residence in this country who does not speak English. Nobody who cannot speak English is allowed to become a citizen.

Anybody, anywhere should be allowed to speak as many languages as they want. But if they want to live in the US, they must be able to speak English.

If I remember right, the median education level in Mexico is something like fifth grade.

As well, the work in the tracts which:

Has been performed in criminally shoddy manner since the early 1980s.