This event is hosted by the International Migration Institute

Speaker: Professor Mark Ellis, Department of Geography and Centre for Studies in Demography and Ecology, University of Washington

Abstract: Immigrant settlement patterns diversified to new regions of the US over the last two decades, with some states doubling and tripling their immigrant populations. Dispersion to suburbs and rural areas was another dimension of these new immigrant geographies. Crowley et al (2006) report that immigrants living in newer destination areas in 2000 had lower rates of poverty than those living in traditional gateway areas. National poverty levels declined for immigrants in the 2000s while US-born poverty rates increased (although overall immigrant poverty rates remain higher). What happened to the geography of immigrant poverty in the 2000s? Did the differences between traditional gateway and new destination immigrant poverty rates remain the same throughout the 2000s, as slow economic growth turned to recession? Or did the negative economic conditions of the decade compress spatial variations in poverty?