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The latest “Kids Count in Nebraska” report ventures into atypical and politically charged territory: immigration.
Usually, authors present only a general report card on how children fare in Nebraska. They compile statistics on subjects such as dropout rates, infant mortality and juvenile crime.
This year, Voices for Children, a statewide research and policy group that released the 85-page report, chose to highlight barriers faced by immigrant children and parents.
Annemarie Bailey Fowler, the nonprofit agency’s research coordinator, said immigrants comprise 12 percent of Nebraska children and are the fastest-growing segment of youths nationwide.
“They are the future of our state, not just in population, but in future work force and community leaders,” Fowler said.
The report, released today, does not specify whether its comments refer to children who are in the country legally or illegally.
It notes, though, that 85 percent of children in Nebraska immigrant families are U.S. citizens.
Immigrant children were defined as minors born outside the United States or those who have at least one foreign-born parent.
The Kids Count report and Voices for Children director Kathy Bigsby Moore both stopped short of pushing for certain legal or policy changes.
Rather, the report encouraged “proactive and productive strategies” that allow immigrant children full access to services.
Children do not make decisions on where to grow up, the report said.
“It is unacceptable and unproductive to punish children for their parents’ choices by depriving them of the values and opportunities that we believe all children in Nebraska should have.”
The Kids Count report comes as a state senator plans to introduce a bill to repeal the three-year-old law that extends to illegal immigrant students the same in-state tuition rates provided to classmates who also graduate from Nebraska high schools.
That and other measures related to illegal immigration have divided not only state lawmakers but local politicians.
State Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont, who will introduce the tuition repeal measure, said he was on board with helping people who came to the United States legally.
But Janssen said he wanted to send a message that “the state is not going to reward illegal behavior.”
Lawmakers and agency heads were to receive the Kids Count report today in Lincoln. Similar child welfare reports, done in conjunction with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, are to be distributed later in Iowa and other states.
Nebraska’s report said immigrant children face higher economic and educational risks in part because their parents make less money and have less education.
The median income for families with immigrant children was $40,500 in 2007, compared with nearly $60,000 for non-immigrant families in Nebraska.
About 40 percent of children in immigrant families lived in 2006 with parents who had not completed high school, compared with 4 percent of non-immigrant children, the report said.
Other factors that typically drive child poverty are not as applicable to immigrants. For example, the report said, poverty is often associated with single parenthood.
Yet 75 percent of immigrant children lived in married-couple families — a slightly higher percentage than for Nebraska children overall — in 2007.
The Kids Count committee said lower-paying jobs, lack of English proficiency and illegal status are bigger drivers of immigrant poverty.
It said the state should focus on beefing up English-language and preschool programs and finding “practical solutions to the lack of parental citizenship.”
Kids Count also continued its tradition of looking at broader child welfare indicators that go beyond the immigrant population.
Promising statewide signs included increased usage of Head Start early education programs; an increase in adoptions (572 in 2008, up from 462 the year before); and fewer child abuse and neglect cases in process from the previous year (833 in 2008, compared with 1,775 in 2007).
Alarming signs included the trend of more low birth weight babies.
Magda Peck, a public health expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, called low birth weight the “tip of the iceberg” that portends higher risks of disability, public health costs and lower social development.
About 7 percent of Nebraska newborns were of low weight in 2007, compared with about 5 percent in 1990.
Also, the report said, the state in 2007 had its highest infant mortality rate since 2002 (6.8 deaths per 1,000 births in 2007). Nebraska also had a child poverty rate that increased to 13.4 percent in 2008, up from 10 percent in 2000.
The child poverty rate was 9 percent for whites; for blacks, it was 40 percent; Hispanics, 28 percent; and American Indians, 57 percent.
Contact the writer:
444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com
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