Alabama
| Summary Demographic State Data (and Source) | |
|---|---|
| Population (2008 CB est.): | 4,661,900 |
| Population (2000 Census): | 4,447,100 |
| Foreign-Born Population (2008 FAIR est.) | 145,130 |
| Foreign-Born Population (2000 Census) | 87,772 |
| Share Foreign-Born (2008 FAIR est.) | 3.1% |
| Share Foreign-Born (2000) | 2.0% |
| Immigrant Stock (2000 CB est.): | 136,000 |
| Share Immigrant Stock (2000 est.): | 3.1% |
| Naturalized U.S. Citizens (2006 CB est.): | 40,583 |
| Share Naturalized (2006): | 31.2% |
| Legal Immigrant Admission (DHS 1997-2006): | 23,533 |
| Refugee Admission (DHS 1997-2006) | 1,327 |
| Illegal Alien Population (2008 FAIR est.): | 60,000 |
| Costs of Illegal Aliens (2005 FAIR) | $112,000,000 |
| Projected 2050 Population (2006 FAIR) | 5,579,000 |
Alabama : General Data
STATE POPULATION
Based on the Current Population Survey, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that in July 2008 Alabama’s population had increased to 4,661,900 residents. That was an annual average increase since 2000 of about 7,150 residents. The annual rate of increase was about 0.8 percent per year.
The 2000 Census found 4,447,100 persons resident in Alabama. This was an increase of 406,513 persons above the 1990 Census. The annual rate of increase was 1.0 percent.
The 2000 population was about 4,000 more persons than the Census Bureau had expected to find in the state in 2000 when it issued its state population projections in 1996. The significance of this is that the Census Bureau concluded that much of the shortfall in their population estimates during the 1990s was due to an underestimation of the illegal alien population.
Between the 1980 and 1990 Censuses, the population of Alabama grew at an annual rate of 0.4 percent (from 3,894,025 to 4,040,587 residents).
Net International Migration (NIM)
Using the Current Population Survey, the Census Bureau estimated that between the 2000 Census and July 2008 the state’s population increased by about 31,180 from net international migration. That was an annual average increase of about 3,760 (or 14.5%) of the total increase (not including the children born to the immigrants after their arrival in the United States). The remainder was due to net domestic migration and natural change (births minus deaths).
FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated on the basis of the American Community Survey (ACS) that the foreign-born population of Alabama was 130,790 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 Alabama was about 145,130 residents in July 2008. This meant a foreign-born population share of 3.1 percent. The amount of change since the 2000 Census indicates an average annual rate of increase in the foreign-born population of about 6,910 people, which is more than one-fourth (26.7%) of the state’s annual average population increase. Since 2000, the foreign-born population has increased by 65.3 percent compared to a 3.6 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 6.2 percent share of the state’s current births is large enough to account for about 3,910 births a year. Combining the increase in the foreign-born population and estimated immigrant births suggests that immigration may account nearly 10,820 persons added to the state’s population annually, i.e., more than two-fifths (41.9%) of the state’s overall population increase.
A comparison of the increase in the immigrant population since 1990 with the change in the overall population during the same period shows that immigrant settlement directly accounted for 10.9 percent of the state's overall population increase over that decade. The effect of immigration on population change is still greater when the children of the immigrants born here after their arrival are 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 14 percent of the state's population increase, based on the increase in the share of those in Alabama who speak a language other than English at home. The 2000 Census found that 53.6 percent of Alabama's foreign-born population had arrived in the state since 1990. This demonstrates the effects of the current mass immigration, and it is much higher than the national average (43.7%). Over a third (37%) of the state's foreign-born population in 1990 had arrived since 1980.
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 Alabama increased slightly from 2.9 percent to 3.3 percent. About two-fifths (39.3%) of those who said they spoke a language other than English at home in 2000 also said they spoke English less than very well.
|
Speakers of Foreign Languages | |
| Spanish | 89,730 |
| German | 14,890 |
| French | 13,410 |
| Chinese | 4,655 |
| Vietnamese | 4,560 |
| Korean | 4,030 |
| Arabic | 2,620 |
| Japanese | 2,200 |
| Italian | 2,160 |
| Tagalog | 1,700 |
|
(Source: Census Bureau report: Language Spoken at Home for the Population 5 Years and Over, April 2004) | |
The ten countries below constituted 62% of the foreign-born population in Alabama in 2006. Mexico accounted for 30.1% alone, but in 1990 it was not in the top ten.
| Foreign-Born Change: Top Ten Countries 1990-2006 | ||||||||
| Rank | Country | 1990 | Country | 2000 | Country | 2006 | ||
| 1 | Germany | 5,685 | Mexico | 23,303 | Mexico | 39128 | ||
| 2 | United Kingdom | 3,348 | Germany | 7,372 | India | 7858 | ||
| 3 | Canada | 2,477 | China | 4,425 | Vietnam | 6416 | ||
| 4 | India | 2,450 | India | 4,280 | Germany | 5440 | ||
| 5 | Korea | 2,221 | United Kingdom | 3,913 | Korea | 4805 | ||
| 6 | Vietnam | 1,812 | Korea | 3,548 | China | 4020 | ||
| 7 | Japan | 1,685 | Vietnam | 3,406 | Canada | 3864 | ||
| 8 | Taiwan | 1,471 | Canada | 3,168 | Japan | 3555 | ||
| 9 | Philipines | 1,179 | Guatemala | 2,676 | England | 3143 | ||
| 10 | China | 1,130 | Philipines | 2,059 | Philippines | 2441 | ||
| All Other | 20,075 | All Other | 29,624 | All others | 49379 | |||
| Total | 43,533 | Total | 87,772 | Total | 130,049 | |||
Between the 2000 Census and the Census Bureau estimate for 2006, the foreign-born population in Alabama increased by more than 42,000 persons (48.2%). Latin America (including Mexico) accounted for an additional 26,000 immigrants (up 74.3%). Mexico alone accounted for nearly 16,000 additional immigrants (up 67.9%). Immigrants from Asia grew by 52.8% (nearly 14,000 people). Immigrants from Africa grew by 59% (about 2,500). The immigrant population from Europe and Canada declined by about 500 persons (-2.2%).
THE IMMIGRANT STOCK
The Census Bureau estimates that there were about 136,000 people in Alabama in 2000 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 4,447,100, the immigrant stock share of the state's population was 3.1 percent.
As the graph below shows, the amount of Alabama’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 123,200 people to the population. Over this period, the increase in the foreign stock has accounted for 11.4 percent of the state’s population increase.
NATURALIZATION
Data from the 2006 American Community Survey indicate that 40,583 residents, or 31.2 percent, of the foreign-born population in Alabama were citizens, compared to 32,200 residents, or 36.7 percent, in 2000.
Nationally, 40.3 percent of the foreign-born population was citizens in 2000, and 42.0 percent in 2006.
REFUGEE SETTLEMENT
Alabama has received 1,327 refugees over the most recent ten fiscal years (FY'97-'06) including 57 in FY'06. This is an average of about 133 refugees per year
Under the Office of Refugee Resettlement's (HHS/ORR) assistance funding for FY'02 $106,915 is available for refugee employment training and other services programs in Alabama based on a three-year refugee settlement program covering 426 refugees (an average of $251 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 $143,557 and $183,596.
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 are enrolled in Limited English Proficiency/English Language Learning (LEP/ELL) instruction programs. Many may be U.S.-born, but the majority of these students may be assumed to be either immigrants or the children of immigrants, with the exception being areas with native Americans who speak a native language other than English.
In Alabama, overall enrollment in 2004 (729,100) was 1.1 percent above enrollment in 1995. By contrast, LEP enrollment was 236 percent higher than a decade earlier.
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. The data on LEP/ELL enrollment are understated because data from private schools that do not apply for Title VII assistance are sketchy.
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 Alabama as 6,933. One school in Alabama is listed as having a major concentration of these students: University of Alabama had enrollment of 1,011 foreign students, 6.1% of total enrollment. Below, a chart illustrates the sharp increase of foreign students attending school in Alabama from 1960-2007.
ILLEGAL ALIENS
FAIR Estimate - FAIR estimates the state’s illegal alien population as of 2008 is about 60,000 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 Alabama was 24,000 as of January 2000. This number was 20,000 higher than the INS' 1996 estimate.
Other Estimates - The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the illegal alien population of the state at 30,000 to 50,000 as of 2005.
COSTS OF ILLEGAL ALIENS
Incarceration Costs - Alabama 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 Alabama has received were:
| FY’99 | — | $450,037 |
| FY’00 | — | $384,085 |
| FY’01 | — | $334,000 |
| FY’02 | — | $317,951 |
| FY’03 | — | $109,487 |
| FY’04 | — | $71,952 |
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 122.7 prisoner years of detention. By FY’02, the state’s reported illegal alien detention had risen by more than half to 186 prisoner years, while compensation decreased by 29 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 Alabama, the proposed payment in fiscal year 2004 is $572,326.
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 Alabama taxpayer $82.5 million dollars annually. This cost was partially for educating students who were themselves illegally in the country ($34.4 million) and in part for the education of their siblings born in the United States to illegal residents ($48.1 million).
Projected Fiscal Costs - In 2006 we estimated that Alabama taxpayers are currently burdened with annual costs of about $112 million because of illegal aliens residing in the state. That estimate was based on only expenditures for education, emergency medical care and incarceration. We projected that those costs will rise unless we gain control over our borders and our worksites. If a new amnesty and increases in immigrants and guest workers were enacted, as proposed by business and ethnic advocacy groups, we project that the cost to the state’s taxpayers for those same programs would rise to $195 million per year in 2010 and to $346 million per year in 2020.
Immigrant Admissions
| Alabama Immigrant Admissions by Fiscal Year | |
| 1997 | 1,613 |
| 1998 | 1,608 |
| 1999 | 1,275 |
| 2000 | 1,904 |
| 2001 | 2,257 |
| 2002 | 2,570 |
| 2003 | 1,689 |
| 2004 | 2,247 |
| 2005 | 4,200 |
| 2006 | 4,278 |
| Total | 23,533 |
Recent immigrant admissions are more than four times the level of admissions just after adoption of the current immigration system in 1965. During the 1965 to 1969 period, annual admissions averaged about 695 persons. During the 2002 to 2006 period, admissions averaged about 2,975 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 499 in FY'69 to 4,278 in FY'06. The cumulative total of immigrant admissions to Alabama between fiscal years 1965 and 2005 was about 66,205 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 INS data (1991) the number of amnesty applicants from Alabama was 1,776 (591 pre-1982 residents and 1,185 agricultural workers).
The data for FY'95, FY'97-'99, and FY '02-'04 were artificially low because the INS 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 INS 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 Alabama 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).
(-) 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 about three-quarters (73%) of all immigrant settlement and adjustment in Alabama during this ten-year period. The three largest sources of the new immigrants - India, Mexico and China - accounted for nearly one-third (31.7%) of the total immigrant settlement and adjustment since 1996.
Revised January 2008
Alabama : Poll Data
A Rasmussen Report poll conducted 500 Likely Voters in Alabama on November 14th found:
- 82% oppose granting drivers’ licenses to illegal aliens.
- 81% say that when police officers pull someone over for a traffic violation, they should routinely check to see if that person is in the country legally.
- 78% believe that if an illegal immigrant is discovered in this manner, they should be deported.
A January 2005 poll of 1,018 Alabamians conducted by Auburn University’s Center for Governmental Services found
- “58% agreed that guest immigrant workers take jobs away from Americans and 55% disagreed that immigrants bring needed skills to the state. (“Survey: State opposed to immigration,” The Birmingham News, January 13, 2005)
Alabama : Immigration Impact
Impact on Environment and Quality of Life
Traffic - As population growth put more traffic on the roads, the average time for Alabama commuters increased 48.5 percent during the 1990s, from 17.6 minutes to 26.1 minutes in 2000 (versus a national average increase of 47.2 percent).1
32% of Alabama's major roads are in mediocre or fair condition. 31% of Alabama's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. 29% of Alabama's urban freeways are congested. Driving on roads in need of repair costs Alabama's motorists $313 million a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs - $91 per motorist. 2
As of fiscal year 2008, expenses for the $38 billion federal highway aid program in Alabama will outpace revenue from gas taxes and other sources, according to forecasts by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Within three years, the program's reserves will be exhausted, meaning that the fund will no longer have enough money to meet all the demands on the books. 3
Disappearing Open Space - Each year, Alabama loses 63,100 acres of open space and farmland due to development.4
While Alabama pine plantation land has grown in recent years—primarily for commercial uses—the state lost 500,000 acres of natural forests during the 1990s. As these natural forests are converted to urban use, habitats are disrupted and species are becoming endangered.5 Alabama is expected to lose almost three million acres of forestland to urban growth by 2040, with particularly heavy losses expected around Birmingham.6
Crowded Housing - 16,000 Alabama households are defined as severely crowded by housing authorities, a 15 percent increase since 1990.7,8 Studies show that a rise in crowded housing often correlates with an increase in the number of foreign-born.9,10
Affordable Housing - As population increases, the affordable housing supply often drops. Alabama workers who earn minimum wage must work 72 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area’s fair market rent. Alabama’s housing wage (the amount a full-time worker must earn per hour to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent) is $9.31, but its minimum wage is $5.15.11
Air pollution - As population increases, pollution usually rises along with it. In Birmingham, the problem is so bad that the city expects to be unable to meet new federal air quality regulations and may face stiff penalties. Jefferson and Shelby counties also are not expected to meet the new standard.12
Poverty - One in five immigrants in Alabama have incomes below the poverty level. Among non-citizens, the rate climbs to almost in four.13
Endnotes
- “Travel time to work for workers 16 and over”, Census 2000 Summary file 3 (P31) and Census 1990 Summary file 3 (P050).
- TRIP Fact Sheets, July 2003 cited in “Report Card for America’s Infrastructure,” American Society of Civil Engineers.
- “Report Card for America’s Infrastructure,” American Society of Civil Engineers.
- “State Rankings by Acreage and Rate of Non-federal Land Developed,” Natural Resources Conservation Service, United States Department of agriculture.
- “State’s Forestland Grows by Million Acres,” Associated Press, February 23, 2002.
- Allen G. Breed, “Sprawl Number 1 Threat to N.C. forests, Study Finds,” Associated Press, May 26, 2002.
- “Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 2000,” Census 2000, U.S. Census Bureau.
- “Table DP-1-4, Profile of General Demographic Characteristics: 1990,” 1990 Census, U.S. Census Bureau.
- Haya El Nasser, “U.S. Neighborhoods Grow More Crowded,” USA Today, July 7, 2002.
- Randy Capps, “Hardship Among Children of Immigrants: Findings from the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families,” Urban Institute, 2001.
- “Rental Housing for America’s Poor Families: Farther Out of Reach than Ever,” National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2002.
- “Birmingham Likely to Miss New Smog-Reduction Deadline,” Associated Press, November 15, 2002.
- “Alabama State Factsheet,” Migration Information Source, Migration Policy Institute.