Latino Immigrants have crossed the border for the pursuit of happiness and the “American Dream”. As they come, they face challenges that have prevented them from reaching that dream and instead come across financial hardships that leave them experiencing high poverty levels without resources. Even though 2 of every 3 foreign born Latinos have an education less than a high school diploma, their unemployment rates are lower than US born Latinos and non-Latino Whites however, it does not translate into economic achievement (Lopez-Cevallos,781).
Latino Immigrants were largely driven by low-skilled, unauthorized workers seeking economic opportunity, and were faced with hard labor jobs that paid extremely low. Even when Latino Immigrants have been in the United States since a young age, they do not pursue higher education because they need monetary funds for both the cost of living and education. As they seek jobs that can provide them with financial stability, they are unable to get the best paying jobs because of their legal status and educational background. Prior to laws that prevented Latino immigrants from getting resources, government assistance indeed helped them out of poverty.
Before 1990’s, Latino Immigrants had no choice but to utilize the resources that the welfare system provided because of their impoverished life. Immigrants tend to receive welfare at a higher rate not because they are immigrants but because of their socioeconomic characteristics. Nevertheless, because immigrants, on average, have less favorable socioeconomic characteristics they also tend to have higher welfare participation rates (Joo, Kim, 2013).
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The rates quickly shifted as the growth of immigration, it brought an altered wave of anti-immigration views that eventually prevented any immigrants from receiving any welfare even when their children are natural born citizens of the United States.
Latino Immigrants were faced with legislations that were against receiving helpful resources that could alleviate their financial experience in the United States. Congress believed the welfare Latino Immigrants received was making them dependent instead of self-sufficient. As a result, the welfare magnet theory attributed to the declining quality of immigrants which enforced two legislative changes in 1996: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, PRWORA and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, IIRIRA (Joo, Kim, 2013).
The goal for IIRIRA was that sponsors’ incomes be included in benefit-eligibility calculations, allowing states to hold sponsors liable for the value of any benefits that sponsored immigrants. The goal of PRWORA was to alter immigrant flows to the United States by increasing the quality of new immigrants and reducing the pull of the welfare magnet, shift responsibility for the support of immigrants away from the state and onto newcomers’ sponsors and cost savings for the United States (Fix, Capps, Kaushal, ).
This showed the discrimination against any immigrant that came into the United States. There were numerous indirect connections between PRWORA and the immigration reform proposals which included laws that restricted rights of the unauthorized: right to work, housing, drivers’ licenses, public benefits and services (Fix, Capps, Kaushal). In one study, children of native born families had higher percentage of welfare use than the children of noncitizen families in both pre-PWORA and post-PWORA.
The percentage of poor non-families was nearly 48% and the rate was far lower than 60.62% of children in poor native-born families using one of the programs. What was shocking was that poverty rates among children in noncitizen families was more than double the rate of children of native families (Joo, Kim, 2013). As the rates decrease because of the IIRIRA and the PRWORA, many immigrants did not seek governmental help even if their natural born children were eligible in receiving it.
As laws passed that prevented immigrants from receiving governmental help, many of their children who were natural born citizens were eligible however, the immigrant parents of these children did not seek help for several reasons. Immigrants did not seek services because of language, misconceptions regarding immigration laws, fear of deportation and family separation, cost, and discrimination.
In the study children of immigrants used governmental assistance less than children from a natural born citizen even when their poverty rates were higher. Even when immigrants had a net contribution of $115.2 billion to Medicare Trust funds between 2002 and 2009, they contributed more than consuming compared to United States born individuals who had a net contribution of $28.1 billion and they consumed more than they contributed (Lopez-Cervallos, 2014).
Even when they contributed to the economy, the laws were set in place to prevent those who immigrated to the United States to look for a better life than the one in their native home. Instead, they came to the reality of facing poverty and a country that does not want to help them. Even though their children can receive help, Latino Immigrants live with so much fear of family separation that they rather live in their conditions than go back to their foreign country to be away from their children.
