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Alaska

Alaska : General Data

STATE POPULATION

Based on the Current Population Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in July 2008 Alaska’s population had increased to 686,293 residents. That was an annual average increase since 2000 of about 7,150 residents. That is a rate of increase of about 1.1 percent per year.

The rate of increase (14%) was the 17^th in the country, although the amount of increase was not among the 25 states with the largest population increase.

The 2000 population is about 26,000 more persons than the Census Bureau had expected to find in the state in 2000 when it issued its most recent state population projections in 1996. The significance of this is that the Census Bureau has concluded that much of the shortfall in their population estimates during the 1990s was due to an underestimation of the illegal alien population.

Alaska had the 4th highest rate of population increase in the country between 1960-2000.

Between the 1980 and 1990 Censuses, the overall population of Alaska rose by 36.9 percent (401,851 to 550,043 residents).

NET INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION (NIM)

Based on the Current Population Survey, the Census Bureau estimated that between the 2000 Census and July 2008 the state’s annual average population increase from net international migration was about 530 persons (more foreign-born residents arriving than leaving). That constituted about one-seventh (15.7%) of the state’s population increase (not including the children born to the immigrants after their arrival in the United States).

During the same period there was an annual average population loss of about 1,190 native-born residents from net domestic migration (more native-born residents leaving than arriving).

FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION

The U.S. Census Bureau estimated on the basis of the American Community Survey (ACS) that the foreign-born population of Alaska was 45,498 persons in 2006. The ACS is a large-scale, continuous sampling process designed to replace the need for a long-form in the 2010 Census. However, because the ACS does not have the same follow-up procedures as the Census to include non-respondents, the ACS likely underestimates the foreign-born population.

FAIR estimates that the foreign-born population of Alaska was about 46,500 residents in July 2008. This meant a foreign-born population share of 6.8 percent. The amount of change since the 2000 Census indicates an average annual rate of increase in the foreign-born population of about 1,125 people, which is about one-seventh (15.7%) of the state’s annual average population increase. Since 2000, the foreign-born population has increased by 54.9 percent compared to a 3.8 percent increase in the native-born population.

Immigration also contributes to population growth through the children born to immigrants in this country. Nationally the share of births to the foreign-born is about double their share of the population. A 5.8 percent share of the state’s current births is large enough to account for about 3,665 births a year. Combining the increase in the foreign-born population and estimated immigrant births suggests that immigration may account nearly 9,470 persons added to the state’s population annually, i.e., more than one-third (37%) of the state’s overall population increase.

The 2000 Census recorded 37,170 foreign-born residents in the state. That was 5.9 percent of the state's overall population and an increase of 49.8 percent above the 1990 foreign-born population of 24,814 residents. That increase of nearly half again the immigrant population of ten-years earlier was much higher than the 12.3 percent increase in the native-born population. The rate of increase in the immigrant population was lower than the national average (57.4%).

A comparison of the increase in the immigrant population from 1990 with the change in the overall population during the same period shows that immigrant settlement directly accounted for 16.1 percent of the state's overall population increase over that decade. The share of the population increase due to immigration would be still higher if the children of the immigrants born here after their arrival were included with their immigrant parents in the calculation. The amount of the overall impact of immigration (immigrants plus their children) on population change is more likely to account for about 27 percent of the state's population increase, based on the increase in the share of those in Alaska who speak a language other than English at home. 

The 2000 Census found that 39.7 percent of Alaska's foreign-born population had arrived in the state since 1990. This demonstrates the effects of the current mass immigration, but it is a lower share than the national average (43.7%).

An indicator of the change in the immigrant population may be seen in data on the share of the population that speaks a language other than English at home. Between 1990 and 2000 the share of non-English speakers at home in Alaska dropped slightly from 12.1 percent to 11.6 percent. Fewer than two-fifths (37.3%) of those who said they spoke a language other than English at home in 2000 also said they spoke English less than very well.

The Census Bureau’s American Community Survey found that in 2006, the state’s foreign born population was 47,066, an increase of 26.6.2% percent since 2000. In comparison, the foreign-born population changed from 24,814to 37,170 residents between 1990 and 2000, an increase of 49.8 percent.

The ten countries below constituted 67.5% of the foreign-born population in Alaska in 2006. The Philippines accounted for 27.7% alone.   

Between the 2000 Census and the Census Bureau estimate for 2006, the foreign-born population in Alaska increased by nearly 9,900 persons (26.6%). Latin America (including Mexico) accounted for an additional 3,900 immigrants (up 59%). Mexico alone accounted for nearly 3,600 additional immigrants (up 130%). Immigrants from Asia grew by 20% (nearly 4,000 people). Immigrants from Africa grew by 362% (about 1,300). The immigrant population from Europe and Canada increased by about 700 persons (23.4%).

THE IMMIGRANT STOCK

The Census Bureau estimates that there were about 83,000 people in Alaska in 1997 who were "immigrant stock." That is a term that refers to immigrants and their children born here after their arrival. Based on that estimate and the population of 626,932, the immigrant stock share of the state's population was 13.2 percent.

As the graph below shows, the amount and share of Alaska’s population change due to the increase in the foreign stock is rising rapidly. Over the past 34 years the new immigrants and children born to them have added about 50,700 people to the population. Over this period, the increase in the foreign stock has accounted for 14.3 percent of the state’s population increase.

NATURALIZATION

Data from the 2006 American Community Survey indicate that 22,414 residents, or 47.6 percent, of the foreign-born population in Alaska were citizens, compared to 20,011 residents, or 53.8 percent, in 2000.

Nationally, 40.3 percent of the foreign-born population was citizens in 2000, and 42.0 percent in 2006.

Refugee Settlement

Alaska has received 373 refugees over the most recent ten fiscal years (FY'97-'06) including 25 in FY'06.

Under the Office of Refugee Resettlement's (HHS/ORR) assistance funding for FY'02 $75,000 is available for refugee employment training and other services programs in Alaska based on a three-year refugee settlement program covering 115 refugees (an average of $652 per refugee). This allocation does not include a larger share (55%) of funding programs for communities heavily affected by recent Cuban and Haitian entrants, communities with refugees whose cultural differences make assimilation especially difficult, communities impacted by federal welfare reform changes, educational support to schools with significant refugee students, and discretionary grants. ORR grants for FY’05 and FY’06 respectively were $135,682 and $272,190.

LIMITED ENGLISH PROFICIENCY STUDENTS

Data are not available nationally on immigrant students (either legally or illegally resident in the United States) who are enrolled in primary and secondary schools (K-12). However, many of these students who come from non-English-speaking countries are enrolled in Limited English Proficiency/English Language Learning (LEP/ELL) instruction programs. Data on enrollment in LEP/ELL programs are collected by the federal government from school systems that receive Title VII funds for these special instruction programs. A few of these LEP students may be U.S.-born, but it is likely that nearly all of these students are foreign-born, and most probably are illegal residents.

FOREIGN STUDENTS

The 2006/07 annual report of the Institute of International Education (IIE) lists the number of foreign students attending post-secondary school in Alaska as 452. Below, a chart illustrates the sharp increase of foreign students attending school in Alaska from 1960-2007.

ILLEGAL ALIENS

FAIR Estimate - FAIR estimates the state’s illegal alien population as of 2008 is as many as 10,000 persons. This is part of an overall estimate of the U.S. illegal alien population of about 13 million persons.

INS/DHS Estimate - The INS (now dissolved into the Dept. of Homeland Security) estimated in February 2003 that the resident illegal population in Alaska was 5,000 as of January 2000. This number was 1,300 higher than the INS' 1996 estimate.

Other Estimates - The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the illegal alien population of the state at less than 10,000 of 2005

COSTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS

Incarceration Costs - Alaska has received partial compensation under the federal State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) that was established in 1994 to compensate the states and local jurisdictions for incarceration of "undocumented," aliens who are serving time for a felony conviction or at least two misdemeanors.

The recent SCAAP amounts that Alaska has received were:

FY’99	—	$1,372,640
FY’00	—	$265,995
FY’01	—	$494,888
FY’02	—	$331,460
FY’03	—	$1,400
FY’04	—	$33,417

The amount of SCAAP awards has been declining in both total distributions and even more as a share of the state’s expenses. In FY’99 the state received 38.6% of its costs for 97 prisoner years of detention. By FY’02, the state’s reported illegal alien detention had decreased to 64 prisoner years, or 34 percent, while compensation fell by 76 percent. 

Medical Costs - Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, hospitals with emergency rooms are required to treat and stabilize patients with emergency medical needs regardless whether they are in the country legally or whether they are able to pay for the treatment. Congress in 2003 enacted an appropriation of $250 million per year (for 4 years) to help offset some of the costs due to use of this service by illegal aliens. This amount has been allocated among the states based upon estimates of the illegal alien population and data on the apprehension of illegal aliens in each state. This amount compensates only a fraction of the medical outlays. For Alaska, the proposed payment in fiscal year 2004 is $119,235

Educational Costs - In our study Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools into the Red, we estimated based on 2004 data that educational expenditures for illegal immigration were costing the Alaskan taxpayer $27 million dollars annually. This cost was partially for educating students who were themselves illegally in the country ($11.3 million) and in part for the education of their siblings born in the United States to illegal residents ($15.8 million).

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Alaska : Immigrant Admissions

Alaska Immigrant Admissions by Fiscal Year
1997	1,060
1998	1,008
1999	1,058
2000	1,374
2001	1,401
2002	1,564
2003	1,188
2004	1,219
2005	1,525
2006	1,554
Total	12,951

Recent immigrant admissions are more than 520 percent above the level of admissions just after adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. During the 1965 to 1969 period, annual admissions averaged about 270 persons. During the most recent five years, admissions averaged 1,410 persons.

The charts below show recent immigrant admissions and the cumulative amount of immigrant admissions since FY'65. The number of annual admissions has ranged from 196 in FY'69 to 1,554 in FY'06. The cumulative total of immigrant admissions to Alaska between fiscal years 1965 and 2006 was about 36,950 persons.

 

 
 

The data for fiscal years 1989-91 were artificially raised slightly by the inclusion of former illegal aliens who were amnestied in 1986. According to immigration service data (1991) the number of amnesty applicants from Alaska was 754 (378 pre-1982 residents and 376 agricultural workers).

The data for FY'95 and FY'97-'99 and FY '03 were artificially low because the government did not issue green cards to all the eligible applicants for adjustment of status who were already in the United States. In those years, new immigration could have registered as much as 30 percent higher, if the government had kept up with its workload.

Beginning with FY'01, the government began to increase admissions as a result of reducing the size of the backlog of Section 245(i) adjustment of status cases, i.e., amnesty, for illegal aliens.

INS DATA BY NATIONALITY: FY'96 - FY'05

The table below furnishes INS data on the immigrants who have been admitted for residence in Alaska since 1996 by nationality.

The INS data are for nationals of the countries with the largest number of immigrants admitted or adjusted to legal residence each year since 1996. The absence of data means that the total number of admissions to the United States by nationals of that country was not enough to merit detailed reporting in that year.

The nationalities may change each year, so the totals in some cases will not reflect all the immigrants of that nationality who have become legal immigrants in Louisiana during this period.

The Department of Homeland Security website is has detailed data on immigrant admissions since FY’03 by year and by country. That resource has data for all source countries. (See http://www.dhs.gov/ximgtn/statistics/data/dslpr.shtm).

Immigrant Admissions by Fiscal Year
Country	FY'96	FY'97	FY'98	FY'99	FY'00	FY'01	FY'02	FY'03	FY'04	FY'05	Total
Bangladesh	1	-	4	2	2	-	1	4	-	84	98
Canada	55	36	39	31	40	94	64	49	42	82	532
China *	39	56	67	77	55	57	86	50	55	1003	645
Colombia	19	15	12	16	18	12	26	35	30	-	183
Cuba	5	1	1	4	-	1	2	4	4	41	63
Dom. Rep.	24	23	32	31	51	55	41	33	41	4	335
Ecuador	1	1	3	3	1	2	4	-	3	16	34
El Salvador	12	10	13	15	27	19	26	11	5	27	165
Germany	0	23	21	29	20	15	16	20	20	8	172
Guatemala	8	8	10	7	9	24	23	7	6	-	102
Guyana	-	3	10	-	-	-	1	-	-	-	14
Haiti	2	2	6	1	1	4	2	3	-	-	21
Honduras	-	3	6	6	7	-	5	-	7	5	39
India	28	9	14	11	12	11	16	14	28	15	158
Iran	4	4	3	15	3	1	2		6	4	42
Ireland	0	3	2	1	3	-	1	-	4	3	17
Jamaica	2	3	1	3	2	6	3	-	3	-	23
Japan	-	12	15	6	13	14	19	21	12	14	126
Korea	109	68	41	54	85	79	85	59	53	75	708
Mexico	111	111	105	106	136	126	99	69	75	96	1034
Nicaragua	-	5	3	3	4	2	2	-	-	3	22
Nigeria	6	8	21	4	3	-	-	4	11	-	57
Pakistan	9	5	4	8	5	2	6	-	-	15	54
Peru	16	13	15	6	13	11	11	16	24	15	140
Philippines	385	379	254	311	327	366	462	405	373	435	3697
Poland	8	8	9	2	6	15	13	9	9	5	84
Sov. Un. *	110	70	116	101	166	118	207	132	159	20	1199
Trin.& Tob.	-	2	2	-	-	-	2	5	-	3	14
U. Kingdom	25	20	21	17	47	17	25	18	23	19	232
Vietnam	24	17	13	19	21	22	17	22	16	8	179
Yugo. *	45	6	13	29	33	13	34	13	15	28	229
Other	232	136	132	140	264	315	263	115	195	397	32,235
Total	1280	1060	1008	1058	1374	1401	1564	1118	1219	1525	12607

A dash (-) indicates that the data for that year was not published for that country in the Immigration Statistical Yearbook.  * China includes Hong Kong and Taiwan. The Soviet Union includes Russia and former parts of the USSR. Yugoslavia includes Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro-Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

The 31 nationalities above represent more than four-fifths (86.3%) of all immigrant settlement and adjustment in Alaska during this ten-year period. The four largest sources of the new immigrants - Philippines, Mexico, Korea and former Soviet Union - accounted for more than half (52.7%) of the total "green card" issuance since 1996. The Philippines alone accounted for more than one-in-four (29.3%) of the total new legal permenant residents.

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Alaska : Poll Data

Rasmussen Poll: Arizona Law SB 1070
July 2010

Suppose the new Arizona immigration law was being considered for your state. Would you favor or oppose passage of that law in your state?

The U.S. Justice Department has decided to challenge the legality of Arizona’s new immigration law in federal court. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to challenge the legality of Arizona’s new immigration law?

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Alaska : Immigration Impact

Environmental and Quality of Life Profile

Water: By 2050 the state's population is projected to rise to 897,000.¹ Alaska has a daily, per-capita water demand of 127.6 gallons.²  This means that by 2050 public water usage will have increased by nearly 29 million gallons each day.

Trends for the Future: Proposals to drill for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge are at the center of a national debate rooted in the U.S.'s ever increasing dependence on foreign energy supplies. Yet efforts to combat energy shortages will be doomed to failure if we do not lower immigration, finds a report by San Jose University professor Dr. Donald F. Anthrop, a past consultant to the California Energy Commission on energy conservation standards. His study shows that immigration has been directly responsible for a full one-third of the increase in U.S. energy use over the last 25 years.³

Pollution:Pollution increases as population rises. In Alaska, the effects are being felt by the area's abundant populations of fish, shellfish, birds, and marine mammals. As more and more pollutants go into the sea, water quality is worsening. DDT and PCBs are now found in alarmingly high concentrations in Alaska's marine life, and many seabird and marine animal populations are in severe decline.⁴

Traffic:Nearly half (46 percent) of Alaska's major roads are in poor or mediocre condition. Vehicle travel on Alaska's highways increased 30 percent from 1990 to 2007.⁵ Driving on rough roads takes a toll on passenger vehicles in 2007, the typical Alaska driver paid $324 in operating and maintenance costs that were attributable to poor conditions.⁶

The typical Anchorage commuter sat in 10 extra hours of traffic due to congestion in 2007. In total, Anchorage commuters lost time and fuel valued at $32 million.⁷ About 8 percent of Alaska commuters had a commute of 45 minutes or longer in 2008.⁸

Crowded housing:An estimated 14,769 of Alaska's housing units were classified as crowded in 2008, defined as units with more than one occupant per room. This amounted to 6.3 percent of the state's housing units. 5,281 of those were severely crowded, with at least 1.5 occupants per room.⁹ Though sufficient data on the state's immigrants is unavailable, crowded housing is driven by immigrants nationwide. Nationwide, children in immigrant families were three times as likely to live in crowded conditions as children in native families (27 percent to 9 percent).¹⁰

Poverty: Alaska's immigrants are more likely to be poor than their native-born counterparts. In 2007, 9.5 percent of foreign-born households were below the poverty line, compared to 8.9 percent of native households. An additional 12.2 percent of the foreign-born and 7.3 percent of native households had incomes between 100 and 149 percent of the poverty level.¹¹

Schools: Public school enrollment in Alaska decreased by about 4,700 students between 1998 and 2008. Over the same period, the number of students per teacher decreased from 17.6 to 15.0. ¹²

In the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District, the population is growing faster than new schools can be built. Officials are examining dramatic changes to the school day. The changes under review include year-round classes, double shifts, and sending students from bulging classrooms in the Wasilla and Palmer areas to roomier schools in Big Lake or Sutton. Crowded classes are already a problem, especially at Wasilla High School and several elementary schools, where students as young as first graders attend school in portable classrooms. In 2005, about 3,070 children were expected to crowd a group of core-area elementary schools built to hold about 2,700.¹³

End Notes:

1. Jack Martin and Stanley Fogel. "Projecting the U.S. Population to 2050." FAIR. March 2006.
2. U.S. Geological Survey 2000.
3. Donald Anthrop, Running in Place: Immigration's Impact on U.S. Energy Usage, FAIR Horizon Press, 2002.
4. Rick Steiner, "Alaska's Waters Need Protection," Anchorage Daily News, January 23, 2003.
5. Report Card for America's Infrastructure, Accessed July 22, 2010 (2009 Data).
6. The Road Information Project (TRIP), "Rough Roads Ahead," May 2009.
7. Texas Transportation Institute, "Urban Mobility Report 2009."
8. American Community Survey, 2008 Estimates, Custom Data Table.
9. American Community Survey, Three-Year Estimates 2006-2008. Data retrieved using ACS Custom Table tool.
10. "Wisconsin Children in Immigrant Families," WisKids Count Issue Brief, Spring 2008. Cited 2006 ACS data.
11. Migration Information Source State Data (Migration Policy Institute)
12. NEA, "Rankings and Estimates," 1999 and 2009 editions.
13. "Report Card for America's Infrastructure 2005," American Society of Civil Engineers.

Other Resources  

State Local Reform Organizations

State Representatives Voting Record

Updated November 2010

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