As Hawaii continues to be a thorn in the side for President Donald Trump and his immigration policies, a new report underscores how much immigrants mean to the islands.
According to a study from Washington advocacy group American Immigration Council, 1 in 5 Hawaii residents — or more than a quarter-million people — are immigrants, while more than 1 in 7, or 220,000 people, is a native-born U.S. citizen with at least one immigrant parent.
Additionally, more than 150,000 adult immigrant workers comprise 21.2 percent of the labor force, compared to 16.9 percent nationally.
Immigrants contribute more than $1 billion in annual taxes and add billions more to Hawaii’s economy, according to the report.
Specifically, immigrant-led households in Hawaii paid $1.2 billion in federal taxes and $668.5 million in state and local taxes in 2014, while members of immigrant-led households wielded $5 billion in spending power in after-tax income.
“As workers, business owners, taxpayers and neighbors, immigrants are an integral part of Hawaii’s diverse and thriving communities and make extensive contributions that benefit all,” the report says.
OTHER FINDINGS
>> In 2015, immigrant workers were found most often in the following occupation groups: building and grounds cleaning and maintenance (25,600), sales and related (22,453), food preparation and serving-related (18,034), office and administrative support (16,833), and management (13,279).
>> More than half of the state’s immigrants, nearly 147,000, are now naturalized citizens, with another 52,000 eligible as of 2015.
>> Some 45,000 undocumented immigrants comprise 18 percent of the immigrant population and 3.2 percent of the total population.
>> Nearly 20,000 immigrant business owners accounted for nearly a quarter of all self-employed Hawaii residents in 2015, generating $384.7 million in business revenue.
>> One in 4 adult immigrants claims a college degree or further education in 2015, while 1 in 5 had less than a high school diploma.
Source: American Immigration Council
Meanwhile, the state of Hawaii has conducted an assault on the president’s most controversial immigration policy — a travel ban against foreigners from a handful of Muslim-majority countries. Honolulu-based federal Judge Derrick Watson struck down Trump’s proposal for the third time last month.
Elsewhere, state Attorney General Douglas Chin joined 19 other attorneys general in urging Trump to maintain and defend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which gives temporary protection to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children.
In a letter, the attorneys general described how DACA has benefited their states and the nation as a whole and called on the president to fulfill his public commitment to those commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” based on never-passed proposals in Congress called the DREAM Act that would have provided similar protections for young immigrants.
“I am the son of immigrants,” Chin said last month. “Hawaii is the most diverse state in our country — a nation founded by immigrants. A legal process has been established to ensure the almost 1 million Dreamers under DACA can stay in the United States and continue contributing to our country. Rescinding DACA would be senseless, cruel and self-defeating.”
According to the American Immigration Council report, some 300 Dreamers live in Hawaii. And of the state’s estimated 2,000 DACA-eligible immigrants, 821 had applied for deferred action.
Also, DACA recipients in Hawaii paid an estimated $3.2 million in state and local taxes in 2016, the report says.
Drawing data from the U.S. census and other sources, the report notes that most of Hawaii’s immigrants are from the Philippines (46.1 percent of the total), followed by China (8.5 percent), Korea (7.9 percent), Japan (7.7 percent) and Vietnam (3.8 percent).
The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the parent organization of the American Immigration Council.
