GovBlog: UC Berkeley » Immigration

United States Congressional Serial Set Now Available through LexisNexis Congressional

Jesse Silva — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:38:56 +0000

UC Berkeley has recently acquired full-text access to the United States Congressional Serial Set (1789-1969) through LexisNexis Congressional. The Serial Set contains the legislative history of United States, and also includes many historic agency annual reports, House and Senate Reports, and many other official government documents (for a more complete summary of what is contained in the Serial Set, click here). Prior to this acquisition, citations to the Serial Set found in LexisNexis Congressional had to be searched in the Readex United States Congressional Serial Set database. With this purchase, you can now search LexisNexis Congressional for all your congressional research needs. Off-campus access to LexisNexis Congressional is restricted to current UCB student, faculty and staff, though anyone in the Library may access the database.

New Database: LexisNexis Statistical Datasets

Jesse Silva — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:25:29 +0000

The Library has just subscribed to LexisNexis Statistical Datasets. The database provides fast and easy one-stop shopping to more than 5.3 billion (and growing) data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Sources of data include local, state and international governments and organizations. Datasets allows you to customize the data by selecting subjects, variable(s) of interest, and the ability to view your data in side-by-side tables, charts and even maps. Datasets also provides quick graphs and chats for statistics in the news, and when you download or print, you are given citation information from where the data originated. Anyone may access LexisNexis Statistical Datasets from the public computers in the Library, however, off-campus access to is restricted to current UCB faculty, staff and students through the proxy server or VPN.

Remittances to Latin America from Japan

Susana Hinojosa — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 18:36:25 +0000

Most of us think of remittances from the US to Latin America, but this interesting report, Remittances to Latin America from Japan, reminds researchers that remittances also are sent from other countries. This brief report from the Inter-American Development Bank, Multilateral Investment Fund, gives a broad overview of the growing international labor market. As part of the process of workers looking for better lives for their families, tens of millions of Latin Americans have been migrating to the US and Europe and now increasingly to Japan. Japan with its relatively high wages is the preferred destination for the descendents of the Japanese Diaspora to Latin America in the first half of the 20th century. These “Dekassegui” or migrant workers go to Japan, save their money and send remittances back to family. According to the report there are currently more than 435,000 Latin American adults living in Japan with about 305,000 sending money home regularly. In 2005, it was estimated that over $2.65 billion in remittances were sent home. The report includes a profile of these migrant workers (age, education, income).

2008 National Survey of Latinos

Susana Hinojosa — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:35:45 +0000

The Pew Hispanic Center has published the results of their recent survey, “2008 National Survey of Latinos: Hispanics See Their Situation in U.S. Deteriorating; Oppose Key Immigration Enforcement Measures“. The nationwide survey of 2,015 Hispanic adults reveals that 50% of all U.S. Latinos say that their situation is worse than it was a year ago. Supporting this view are worries about deportation, perceptions of discrimination in employment, and rising unemployment.

2008 State Ballot Measures

Susana Hinojosa — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:37:57 +0000

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has put together a 2008 Ballot Measure Update that tracks the measures that have qualified for statewide ballots across the country. To date there were about 142 qualified measures on state ballots. These are a combination of citizen initiatives and measures referred by state legislatures. The lengthier ballots are in Colorado (18 measures), and California and Oregon with 12 each. The hot issues include abortion (California, Colorado and South Dakota), anti-affirmative action (Colorado and Nebraska), immigration (Arizona, Missouri, and Oregon), same-sex marriage (Arizona, California, and Florida), campaign finance reform (Arkansas, Colorado, Oregon, and South Dakota) and more. To track measures by state and topic see the NCSL Ballot Measures Database.

Two New Pew Hispanic Center Reports

Kay — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:31:49 +0000

Founded in 2001, the Pew Hispanic Center is a nonpartisan research organization. Its mission is to improve understanding of the U.S. Hispanic population and to chronicle Latinos’ growing impact on the entire nation.

2007 National survey of Latinos: as illegal immigration issue heats up, Latinos feel a chill.

Hispanics in the United States are feeling a range of negative effects from the increased public attention and stepped up enforcement measures that have accompanied the growing national debate over illegal immigration.

Hispanics and the 2008 election a swing vote?

After spending the first part of this decade loosening their historic ties to the Democratic Party, Hispanic voters have reversed course in the past year.

State Legislation Related to Immigration

Susana Hinojosa — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 21:15:05 +0000

The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) reports that as of April 13, 2007 at least 1169 bills and resolutions related to immigration or immigrants and refugees have been introduced in the state legislatures of the 50 US states. In 2006 immigration related bills totaled 570. The top areas covered by these bills are employment, law enforcement, benefits and education. Human trafficking issues have been addressed in more than half of all the states. The NCSL information lists the proposed legislation by policy area, number of bills, number and name of states. Enacted proposals are also listed.

Day Laborers in California

Susana Hinojosa — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:35:44 +0000

The first ever national survey on day laborers finds that these workers make up a small percentage of the state’s workforce. The report, Day Labor in the Golden State, by Arturo Gonzalez, was published this past July 2007 by the Public Policy Institute of California. The report finds that the average day laborer is a 34 year-old, single, immigrant male most likely from Mexico (68%), with 29% born in other parts of Latin America. The data also shows that only about 40,000 people are either employed as day laborers or looking for day work on any given day in California. Many communities in California have established formal work centers - in 2004 there were 24 such centers in California and contrasting with 21 in the rest of the US.

Catalog of US Government Publications Maintenance Aug 26

Jesse Silva — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 20:58:23 +0000

The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (CGP) at http://catalog.gpo.gov may be unavailable for a brief interval of time Sunday evening, August 26, as the Government Printing Office performs routine maintenance. If you encounter the period of down time, please try again later.

Minority Data Resource Center

Susana Hinojosa — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 23:47:15 +0000

The new Minority Data Resource Center (MDRC)Â is an initiative of ICPSR (Inter-univeristy Consortium for Political and Social Research) at the Univ. of Michigan.Â The goal of the site is to provide data resources to educators, researchers and students who are interested in analyzing issues affecting racial and ethnic minority populations in the US. The data includes large on-going national surveys in the large gathering of data. Subjects include: education, employment, history, housing, immigration and health.