WHAT: Meet the Neighbors: Organizational and Spatial Dynamics of Immigrant New Jersey, a report issued by the Program on Immigration and Democracy at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics. The report measures and characterizes the sizable increase in immigration in New Jersey since 1990.
The report outlines the demographic changes in New Jersey and the complex set of circumstances that have accompanied them. It focuses on six salient features in the current immigrant landscape:
- A global shift in source countries
- New destinations, south and to the suburbs
- Unmet language needs
- High concentration of undocumented workers
- Dense concentration of skilled foreign workers
- Community-based infrastructures under strain.
WHO: The report was prepared by an interdisciplinary team at Rutgers including Janice Fine, associate professor, School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR); Anastasia Mann, visiting associate, Eagleton Institute of Politics; David Tulloch, associate professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Environmental and Biological Sciences; and F. Scott Bentley, doctoral candidate, SMLR.
WHEN/WHERE: The report is available today here.
BACKGROUND: The Program on Immigration and Democracy leverages the resources of New Jersey’s flagship public research university to explore the challenges and opportunities stemming from significant levels of immigration – across the state, the region, the nation and the world. This report was made possible by a Rutgers University Academic Excellence Award and grants from the U.S. Democracy Program at the Carnegie Corp. of New York and The Fund for New Jersey.