Governor Schwarzenegger recently signed two bills sponsored by the California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative (CIWC). AB 2060 (De La Torre) makes permanent California's Naturalization Services Program. SB 156 (Kuehl) provides critical assistance to victims of human trafficking and other serious crimes. Thanks and congratulations to all of you who worked on these bills and to everyone who sent in letters and made calls to the Governor's office! CIWC will provide more details in future reports on the implementation of both bills.

CIWC Snapshot - California’s Immigrants

More than a quarter of California’s residents are foreign-born, a rate higher than any other state in the United States. In fact, some 9 million Californians are immigrants.

Most immigrants in California are from Mexico or other parts of Latin America, but a substantial proportion, more than thirty percent, are from Asian nations. California’s immigrant population is varied, with immigrants coming from all over the world, including Europe, Africa and the Arab nations.

Nearly 40% of California’s immigrants are U.S. citizens. There are also about 2.7 million immigrants who are currently eligible to become U.S. citizens.

Overall, immigrants comprise about a third of California’s labor force. They figure prominently in agriculture, manufacturing, construction and the service industries. Immigrants help California’s technology industry, creating thousands of jobs through their entrepreneurial efforts. In San Jose alone, immigrant owners of technology companies created more than 58,000 thousand jobs and generated more than $17 billion in sales during the late 1990s.

California’s immigrants pay approximately $4.5 billion in state taxes each year; their federal tax contribution is more than $30 billion annually, according to data from the U.S. Census and California Employment Development Department.

The California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative (CIWC)
is a collaboration of: