Study: Immigrants seek welcome, not handouts

Whether immigrants decide to become naturalized U.S. citizens may depend on not only the benefits they can receive, such as welfare, but on how residents welcome them, a new study from two UC Irvine researchers found.

Immigrants are more likely to seek citizenship in states where they’re treated as a valued part of the community, and they’re less likely to want to stay in places with policies that seem to discourage difference, such as English-only laws, according to a study by UCI sociologists Frank D. Bean and Susan K. Brown.

“If residents of a particular state are receptive toward immigrants, if they think they’re good for the economy, if they think that they’re hard working, it turns out that immigrants are more likely to naturalize,” Brown said.

States that appeared more welcoming to immigrants included Arizona, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, as well as seven Midwestern and eastern states.

The least immigrant-friendly states — offering few welfare benefits and poor reception — included Arkansas, Colorado, Utah and eight other states in the West, northeast and south.

California was “kind of in the middle” in the study, Brown said.

“The background, of course, is that there’s a very widespread stereotype that they come to the United States for the welfare benefits that they can possibly get,” she said. “If the stereotype were true, then states that offer the most benefits would have the highest rates of naturalization. We’re finding that’s not so much the case.”

The study looked at data over a period of time from the 1980s to 2002, with a specific focus on changes after the 1996 Welfare Reform Act. It made legal citizenship a criterion for receiving welfare benefits.

Immigrants who feel unwelcome in their community may believe they’re less likely to get benefits such as welfare, jobs and a wider social network, and thus may not try to become citizens; but those who become naturalized probably will better integrate into the community, the study said.

The study was written by Bean, Brown and Jennifer Van Hook of Bowling Green State University and published in the most recent issue of the journal Social Forces, which is published by the University of North Carolina Press.