The Sandra Starr Foundation--established in 1998 to support "the improvement of community life and development of progressive community leadership in the Princeton-Mercer County area"--has begun a new program focusing on the impact of immigration on Mercer County.
On June 1, the foundation's board approved a grant to New Jersey Policy Perspective, a nonpartisan group committed to progressive policy change, to report on the current state of immigration in the county, the impact that immigrants have had, and the implications for public policy.
As New Jersey Policy Perspective noted in its proposal, census data show that New Jersey ranks third among states in the proportion of its population, 19 percent, who are foreign born. About 50,000 new legal immigrants have arrived in the state every year since 2000. In addition, an estimated 350,000 to 425,000 illegal immigrants live in New Jersey.
Mercer County has shared in this influx: 25 percent of its immigrants have arrived since 2000. Among all counties in the United States, Mercer ranks 43rd in concentration of foreign born. About one of every five new immigrants lives at or below the poverty level.
New Jersey Policy Perspective observes: "In 1996, with passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Welfare Reform Act, the federal government washed its hands of responsibility for indigent immigrants. Unlike many other states with large concentrations of foreign-born, New Jersey does not have a state-level agency focused on immigrants. Taken together this devolution of services and the rising numbers of immigrants make it critical to understand how effectively counties like Mercer are responding to the needs of new immigrants."
In addition, immigrants are also helping Mercer County's economy through the jobs they fill and the investments they are making in homes and businesses. The Foundation's interest is not only to determine needs for services, but also to examine the positive contributions of immigrants and to assess the potential local impact of national immigration legislation.