Click here to download the entire The Economic Impact of the Hispanic Population on Long Island as a printable PDF
Stepped-up anti-immigrant rhetoric is making life more difficult for US Latinos, according to a poll released yesterday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
A solid two-thirds of Latinos polled say their lives have been impacted personally - and negatively - by the political fight over what to do with the 12 million or so undocumented immigrants in this country. 41% stated that they or a close friend or relative had been the target of discrimination, up 10% from just five years ago. and over 80% of Latinos think discrimination against Hispanics is a problem in US schools.
Over 1 in 10 of those surveyed said they had had difficulty finding or keeping a job because of the what the New York Times described as the "public clamor" over immigration. 3 in 20 had had similar difficulties finding housing.
1 in 5 Latinos reported being asked more frequently to produce documents proving their immigration or citizenship status.
Anyone who wants to argue that the debate about immigration in this country is just politics should take a long, hard look at those numbers. There are 47 million Latinos in this country (that’s about 15% of the total US population), and most of them are here totally legally. Immigration is a matter of policy, not just politics: and while we can argue politics until the cows come home, we can't argue policy until the Mexicans go home. This is their home. This is our home.