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OCR for page 293
Appendix
A REVIEW OF STATISTICAL ASPECTS CONTAINED WITHIN
PENDING IMMIGRATION LEGI SLATION:
A LETTER REPORT TO THE INS, MAY 1 983
293
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294
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
COMMISSION ON BEHAVIORAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND EDUCATION
2101 Constitution Avenue Washington, D. C. 20418
COMW11EE ON NATIONAL STATISTICS
PANEL ON IMMIGRATION SI AllSTICS
Mr. Alan C. Nelson
Commissioner
Immigration and Naturalization Service
Department of Justice
Washington, D. C. 20536
Dear Mr. Nelson:
May 26, 1983 T~NE(202)33~3066
The Panel on Immigration Statistics of the Committee on National
Statistics was established by the National Academy of Sciences in late
1982, with funding support from the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, to review and determine data needs in the area of international
migration to and from the United States. Attachment 1 gives the names
and affiliations of Panel members. Although the work of the Panel is
still at an early stage, major provisions in legislation currently before
Congress (S. 529 and H.R. 1510) to revise _ ____ _ _ _
Nationality Act have prompted the Panel to consider immediately two
issues of a statistical nature raised be the bills.
and reform the Immigration and
ty Act have prompted the Panel to consider immediately two
a statistical nature raised be the bills.
The Panel has concluded that from a statistical point of view the
legislation can be strengthened in two areas. The major points of our
recommendations are summarized below. Attachment 2 provides a more
detailed explanation and justification of them.
1. Visa waiver for certain visitors. The first recommendation
concerns the provision to institute a pilot program to waive visa
requirements for temporary visitors who are citizens of certain
qualifying countries. Criteria are set forth both for a country to
qualify as a pilot country in the first place and for a country so
selected to continue as a pilot country after the first year. The Panel
finds that the criteria established for permitting continued country
participation in the visa waiver experiment fail to recognize the extent
of the problems, difficulties, and errors inherent in the statistical
system generating the measures to be used. It is our judgment that
enactment of the 2-percent threshold as defined at present in the
legislation would result in few, if any, countries continuing to qualify
for the program after their first year. As a long-run solution, we
propose that INS explore and research the issues and problems involved in
producing the data required for threshold determination and provide
Congress with its findings and recommendations concerning a statistically
appropriate threshold level within one year. As part of its activities,
the Panel would be pleased to assist in this undertaking. In the
interim, we propose the use of a violation ratio based on the number of
The National Research Council is the principal operQ!ing age icy of the National Academy of Sciences and the Nahonal Academy of Engineering
to scrod government and other organizahons
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295
Mr. Alan C. Nelson
May 26, 1983
Page Two
deportable aliens who had entered the United States under the visa waiver
system and were identified by INS in a fiscal year plus those refused
entry or withdrawing their applications for admission, and that the
threshold be adjusted accordingly.
aliens.
2. Data collection aspects of legalization of certain qualifying
The proposed legalization process presents a unique opportunity
to obtain much needed information concerning a group about which virtu-
ally nothing is known. The Panel recommends, accordingly, the inclusion
of a specific provision in the legislation authorizing the collection of
demographic and socioeconomic data over a five-year period, to provide
important insights into the adjustment process of this unique group.
Such information should prove invaluable in evaluating and assessing the
impact of this legislation and in providing a reliable basis for future
debate.
We hope that it may yet be possible to effect the recommended changes
to strengthen the statistical aspects of the legislation
.
Sincerely yours'
Burton H. Singer
Chair
Panel on Immigration
Statistics
Attachments
Lisa Roney
Doris Meissner
(.~:
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Attachment 1
Panel on Immigration Statistics
BURTON H. SINGER (Chair), Department of Mathematical Statistics, Columbia
University
SAM BERNSEN, Fragomen, Del Rey and Bernsen, Washington, D. C.
GEORGE BORJAS, Department of Economics, University of California, Santa
Barbara
NORMAN CHERVANY, Management.Sciences, University of Minnesota
CHARLES KEELY, Population Council, New York City
ELLEN KRALY, Department of Sociology, Hamilton College
MILTON MORRIS, Joint Center for Political Studies, Washington, D. C.
ALEJANDRO PORTES, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University
JACK ROSENTHAL, The New York Times, New York City
MARK ROSENZWEIG, Department of Economics, University of Minnesota
TERESA SULLIVAN, Department of Sociology, University of Texas
MARTA TIENDA, Department of Rural Sociology, University of Wisconsin,
Madison
JAMES TRUSSELL, Office of Population Research, Princeton University
KENNETH WACHTER, Department of Statistics, University of California,
Berkeley
DANIEL B. LEVINE, Study Director
KENNETH H. HILL, Associate Study Director
ROBERT WARREN, Research Associate
ROBERTA PIROSKO, Administrative Secretary/Research Aide
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297
Attachment 2
Rationale for Modifications to the
Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1983
1. Visa waiver for certain visitors. Both S. 529 and H.R. 1510
contain provisions for instituting a pilot program of waiving visa
requirements for nonim~igrant visitors for citizens of certain
countries. The language in the two bills differs in only very minor
respects. Essentially, a country cannot qualify as a pilot country
unless the number of refusals to grant nonimmigrant visitor visas in the
preceding fiscal year to citizens of that country is less than 2 percent
of the number of nonimmigrant visitor visas granted or refused to such
citizens. In order to continue to qualify as a pilot country, the number
of violators from that country in the preceding fiscal year must be less
than 2 percent of total applications for admission under the visa waiver
scheme; for this purpose, violators are taken to include people who are
excluded, those who withdraw their applications for admission, and those
who violate their terms of entry under the scheme, largely by overstaying.
Given the nature of the statistical system on which the test of
eligibility will be based, the Panel views these requirements for
continuation as a pilot country to be unreasonably restrictive. The
Nonimmigrant Information System (NITS) recently introduced by INS is
based upon a new form (I-94), one part of which is completed upon
arrival, the other part being completed on departure; for departures by
air, the airline is required to collect the form. Each part of the form
contains the same unique identifying number, which permits matching the
arrival and departure portions. Thus, length of stay can be determined
from dates of arrival and departure, allowing in theory the identifica-
tion of those who violated the length of stay condition of admission.
Arrival portions for which no matching departure portions are available
also may be interpreted as violations.
No such strict interpretation is valid, however, because of the
problems, difficulties, and errors inherent in the system that produces
the data and specifically with the matching of arrival and departure
portions of the I-94 form. The new NITS system has not yet generated
enough data for an empirical assessment of its error level to be
possible. It will no doubt represent a substantial improvement over its
predecessor, but the Panel, based on its experience with similar systems,
doubts whether the 2-percent threshold can be meaningfully measured. The
weak points are as follows.
o First, the collection of departure portions of the forms is not
controlled directly by INS, and the possibility of loss is substantial.
For example, for visitors leaving by air, the departure portions may
either not be collected by the carrier or not forwarded to INS, particu-
larly for nonscheduled flights. For persons leaving to Canada, all the
forms may not be collected and duly returned to INS from Canada; for
those departing to Mexico by land, the forms may not be surrendered
voluntarily on departure.
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o Second, a temporary visitor may lose the departure portion, in
which case a replacement with no identification number is to be com-
pleted. The enforcement of such completion is quite limited for all
types of departure, so some arrival portions will not have corresponding
departure portions. A further problem with such a loss is the matching
that, in the absence of an identification number, has to be based on
name, date of birth, and citizenship: name is a notoriously unreliable
basis for matching as a result of spelling variations and different forms
of presenting the same name, and a fairly high incidence of false
non-matches could therefore be expected in the case of such replacement
departure portions.
o The third problem is that of the not insignificant error associ-
ated with entering an 11-digit identification number into a data process-
ing system; an error in the identification number of either the arrival
or departure portion would result in a failure to match.
Errors in the NITS process tend to produce false non-matches that
appear as violations by visitors who in fact have not violated the terms
of their admission. Further, important sources of error arise from parts
of the system that are not under the direct control of INS, the responsi-
bility being on individual visitors or carriers who are difficult if not
impossible to monitor. Currently, measures of the extent and variability
over time of such errors are not known, but in our judgment if the pro-
posed requirements are put into effect, the 2-percent threshold is likely
to defeat the object of the proposed visa waiver legislation, removing
from eligibility countries with very low true violation rates, and indeed
probably removing all countries from eligibility. The Panel believes
that tests of eligibility of this sort should be based upon measures that
can be reliably evaluated, with probable error levels that are small in
comparison with trigger levels.
Accordingly, the following courses of action are recommended:
o That INS explore and research the issues, problems, and errors
involved in producing the data elements necessary for threshold determi-
nation and provide the Congress with its findings and recommendations as
to a statistically appropriate threshold level within one year. The
Panel would be pleased to assist the INS in this undertaking.
o In the interim, that the threshold computation use information on
persons positively identified by INS as being in violation of the terms
of admission. Included as "violators" would be those overstaying,
working unlawfully, or engaging in criminal activities, and those
excluded from admission or withdrawing applications. "Violators" thus
would represent the number of Reportable aliens who had entered the
country under the visa waiver system and who were identified as violators
by INS in the fiscal year plus the number of exclusions and withdrawals
in the year. Data for 1979, the most recent year for which information
is available, indicate a violation ratio defined in this way of 0.5
percent for all temporary visitors. The Panel therefore recommends the
adoption of a threshold of 0.5 percent pending completion of the study
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299
recommended above. The violation ratio as described here involves no
matching, and the likely error in both numerator and denominator is
11.
2. Data collection aspects of legalization of certain qualifying
aliens. The provisions of S. 529 and H.R. 1510 for legalizing the status
of certain unlawfully resident aliens represent an important opportunity
for obtaining much needed information concerning a group about which
virtually nothing is known. The Senate bill, S. 529, already recognizes
in Section 401(e) the importance of obtaining information, for those
aliens legalized under the act, on their demographic characteristics,
employment, and participation in social service programs. In the spirit
of this provision, the bill should also recognize, first, the need for
this information to be collected in a statistically sound and reliable
manner, and, second, the need for information to be collected concerning
changes that occur over time among those legalized under the proposed
legislation. It is such changes over time that will reflect the impact
of the new law on the American economy and society and on the legalized
population itself. Only information collected during the time when the
effects of the law are felt, not before they are felt, can provide a
sound basis for continuing responsible administration of the programs
initiated by the law.
Objective findings on the progress of assimilation of the legalized
population following enactment of the law would provide the basis for
developing a consensus in regard to facts, bringing closer together the
groups with highly diverse perspectives that have joined in the debate
about proper immigration policy. Furthermore, the periodic updating of
geographical and employment information on at least one group of former
unlawfully resident aliens would be essential in realizing the potential
value for law enforcement of statistical information acquired as part of
the legalization program; this potential value was emphasized by the
Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy in its report.
Modern statistical panel survey methods, using a sampling design, provide
a way to obtain information on changes over time at a fraction of the
cost of a routine reporting system. They also permit estimates of the
reliability of the findings to accompany the resulting tabulations so
that the quality of the conclusions can be assessed.
The Panel therefore recommends the inclusion in the legislation of a
specific provision mandating the collection of demographic and socio-
economic information over a five-year period from a sample of aliens
coming forward for legalization. The group to be designated for this
study could be selected in two stages. First, a sample could be drawn of
aliens coming forward for legalization, and information additional to
that normally obtained from applicants for permanent residence could be
collected from the sampled aliens, particularly concerning their entry
into, and employment history in, the United States. A subsample of these
aliens could then be drawn to participate in the continuing survey. It
is further recommended that a workshop be convened in the near future to
discuss the design, methodology, content, and cost of the proposed
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300
surveys; that Section 401 of S. 529 be amended to provide explicitly for
such data collection; and thee a section similar to Section 401 of S. 529
be added to H.R. 1510.
It should be recognized that the proposed study will not provide
information for undocumented aliens who do not come forward for legaliza-
tion. Efforts to obtain information about this even more inaccessible
group through other approaches should continue. The value of information
about aliens seeking legalization also would be greatly enhanced by
parallel studies of legal immigrants and refugees. It is recommended,
therefore, that consideration be given to undertaking similar studies
over a five-year period for these groups, though this recommendation is
beyond the scope of the legislation currently before the Congress.
1
Representative terms from entire chapter:
visa waiver
