Foreign-born women are filing into Colorado birth clinics in record numbers, a new study has found.
In Denver, foreign-born women gave birth to 41 percent of babies in 2002, compared with 23 percent nationwide, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., think tank that favors setting limits on immigration and boosting enforcement.
The findings reflect a sharp change since 1990, when immigrant mothers accounted for about 15 percent of births nationwide and in Denver.
In populous Front Range counties, the share of births to immigrant mothers has at least doubled since 1990.
The study placed Colorado fifth among the states in the percentage of births to illegal immigrants.
Doctors are adapting to their new clientele. In Denver, Dr. Richard Jones, 58, interim chief of obstetrics for the Denver Health citywide system of clinics, took classes at night after work to hone his Spanish-speaking skills.
“It doesn’t matter where you are from,” Jones said. “We’ll take care of you and your baby.”
Though Denver clinics don’t track patients’ citizenship, the burden of caring for about 70,000 patients a year who lack insurance, many of whom are legal or illegal immigrants, is growing. Uninsured patients cost Denver Health $285 million last year, up from $100 million in 1991, spokeswoman Bobbi Barrow said.
Denver Public Schools officials also are undaunted about what increasing immigrant births may mean for the future, spokesman Mark Stevens said.
“Our role is to take kids where they are when we get them and move them forward. … Our job is to find the most talented teachers available who enjoy and see the benefits of working with that population,” Stevens said.
The change in Colorado has been exceptionally rapid: Immigrants gave birth to 4.2 percent of babies statewide in 1970, 6.8 percent in 1980, 8.6 percent in 1990 and 23.3 percent in 2002.
The study drew on birth certificate data from 50 states at the National Center for Health Statistics. Each birth certificate lists the mother’s place of birth.
The study found 380,000 births in 2002 were to mothers in the country illegally – about 10 percent of total births nationwide. In Colorado, 11.9 percent of births were to illegal immigrants, it found.
These results were based on calculations that factored in foreign-born population data including estimated fertility rates – 2.6 children per immigrant mother versus 1.9 per U.S.-born mother.
Under U.S. law, any child born in the country automatically gains citizenship rights that can help parents avoid deportation.
Increasing births to immigrant mothers will accelerate a shift away from assimilation of immigrants and toward “separate nations within the United States” and residents will have “a very weak sense of national identity and national cohesion,” said Steve Camarota, author of the study and director of research at the center.
More immediately, Camarota said, advocates of the “temporary worker” program President Bush has proposed to ease illegal immigration woes must realize workers probably would have babies and this would mean “hundreds of thousands of permanent additions to the U.S. population each year.”
The American Immigration Lawyers Association, which advocates for immigrant rights, embraced the results even while criticizing the Center for Immigration Studies as biased against population growth.
“Immigrants are a relatively small percentage of the total population, and they are becoming part of America,” said Judy Golub, the group’s director of advocacy. “We think immigrants contribute positively to this country.”
But others see a need to rethink policy and enforcement.
The births to immigrants “puts real strains on hospitals and schools that you can’t just walk away from; ordinary Americans have some reason to be concerned about it,” said Peter Skerry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“Now, does it mean we need to shut down the (U.S.-Mexico) border? No,” Skerry said.
“We need to figure out ways to own up to the impacts of these global changes. I don’t think we do that real well. Either people overreact and go to the extremes, like the ‘Minuteman’ version of things, or we blithely sit back and say, ‘This is going to happen and there’s not much we can do about it.’
“There’s got to be some more balanced approach where we acknowledge the strong pressures of these changes and at the same time figure out a way of regulating these things and responding to the impacts globalization can have.”
Staff writer Bruce Finley can be reached at 303-820-1700 or bfinley@denverpost.com.
