• Derrick Ashong: Former Host of The Stream, Al Jazeera English
• Ana Kasparian: Co-host, The Young Turks
• Bill McKibben: President and Co-Founder, 350.org
• Rinku Sen: Executive Director, Applied Research Center and Colorlines
• Zakiya Smith: Senior Advisor for Education at the White House Domestic Policy Council

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1. Most new births in 2011 were children of color. As of July 1, 2011, 50.4 percent of our nation's children under age 1 were children of color. Children of color have become the majority in this age range since the 2010 Census, when they made up 49.5 percent of the relevant population. In 2011, 49.7 percent of the population younger than age 5 was nonwhite, up from 49 percent in the preceding year.

2. This demographic change is especially evident in “gateway” states with high concentrations of people of color but it is also happening in nontraditional states. In 12 states and the District of Columbia, the majority of children under the age of 5 are children of color. At current growth rates several states, including North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, and Connecticut, could become majority young children of color in the next decade.

3. A majority of all children of color live in California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois according to the Children’s Fund. The majority of Hispanic children live in three states: California, Texas, and Florida. The majority of Asian/Pacific Islander children live in four states: California, Texas, New York, and New Jersey. The majority of American Indian/Alaska Native children live in seven states. And the majority of black children live in eight states: New York, Florida, Texas, Georgia, California, Illinois, North Carolina, and Maryland.

4. Students of color are already the majority in many public primary schools nationwide. In the 2008-09 school year, nonwhite students made up 55.1 percent of enrollment in public primary schools in the nation’s 100 largest metro areas.

5. About 62 percent of foreign-born family households included children under 18, compared with 47 percent of native-born households. Multigenerational households—with three or more generations living together—were more common among foreign-born (10 percent) than native-born (5 percent) family households. Among the regions of birth, family households with a householder born in Latin America and the Caribbean were the most likely to include children under 18 (70 percent), followed by Africa (67 percent) and Asia (56 percent).

6. The vast majority—90 percent—of Latinos under age 18 are U.S. citizens. As of 2007 an additional 1 percent of them were naturalized U.S. citizens and less than 10 percent of Latino children under 18 years old were noncitizens. 

7. Many children of color are growing up in bilingual households. In 2007, 55.4 million Americans 5 years old and older spoke a language other than English at home. A 2007 Pew Research Center survey found that fluency in English increases across generations among Hispanics. While less than a quarter of adult first-generation Latinos were proficient in English, 88 percent of second-generation Latino adults and 94 percent of third and higher generations were English proficient.

8. Birthrates among people of color provide us an economic advantage. According to the Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy, our nation’s high immigration levels have given the United States a global economic advantage. Unlike nations like Japan and many European countries, which have seen steady declines in their working-age populations, our nation’s strong immigration flow and high Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. have helped the United States maintain a workforce capable of supporting a growing economy.

9. By 2050 the number of children will increase by more than one-third and the numbers of seniors will more than double. In every state at least one in five residents is a child. In 11 states there are at least twice as many children as seniors. In 2050 the nation's population of children is expected to be 62 percent children of color.

10. Today’s children will grow up to become the nation’s workforce. By 2050 nearly half of the people in our workforce will be people of color. Our children today will shape our future and now is the time to invest in these communities.

The Census Bureau’s projections show a transformation in our nation that is rapidly approaching. We need to make the success of children of color a priority to ensure our nation’s future success.

Vanessa Cárdenas is the Director of Progress 2050 at the Center for American Progress.

Brewer KOs Student-Volunteer Commendation Last week Arizona governor Jan Brewer shot down a bill that would have required that the governor commend students who have more than 200 hours of approved community service. Brewer vetoed the bill, which cleared the State Senate unanimously, because it violated her rights under the state’s constitution, she said. “In this bill, one branch of government is obligating another branch of government to do something it can already do.” The bill, which came about after teenager from Tempe, Arizona persuaded a local Senator to take up the cause. Legislators on both sides of the aisles voiced their opposition to Brewer’s veto., Bill sponsor, David Schapira (D-Tempe), said of the veto, “I thought we had a chance here at putting partisanship aside and passing a bill into law that would actually have an impact.” Schapira called the governor’s action “total baloney”, contesting that the state is not doing enough to promote community service. [Arizona Republic]

College Pricing Plan Stokes Anger in California California legislator Roderick D. Wright (D-Inglewood) proposed to implement a controversial two-tier pricing system that would allow wealthier students to register for courses that cost four-times as much as others offered by state schools. The plan, which was shelved in April due to immense backlash, has been regarded as another instrument to help wealthier students gain a leg-up on their less well-off counterparts. In a recent decision, the San Diego Community College Board of Trustees voted to oppose the measure, stating it, “would limit or exclude students’ access based solely on cost, causing inequalities in the treatment of students.” Wright, who represents a district that consists of a large minority population, said that legislation would be one way to prevent  for-profit schools—which have had a shoddy history of offering degree programs of questionable quality— from luring young people of color into their programs. Wright also suggested that the measure would allow people to earn a quality vocational or educational experience, without mortgaging their future by opening more seats at community colleges—a significantly more affordable and reliable education alternative to some for-profits.. [Inside Higher Ed]

More Colleges Drop Health Care Over Contraception Coverage Ave Maria University in Florida dropped its student health care plan in response to the Obama administration’s contraception rule, which narrowed the religious exemption to apply only to houses of worship—allowing  employees of other religiously-affiliated institutions like hospitals and universities access to contraceptives. Under the rule, students at religiously-affiliated schools are protected so long as their student health plans are underwritten by private insurers. Ave Maria’s President, James Towey, said students would see their premiums rise drastically as a result of the rule, and defended his decision to Fox News, stating the rule violated their religious liberties, although the act, as it stands currently provides an out-clause for faith-based institutions that does not require them to cover the cost. [ThinkProgress]

So it was quite the surprise to immigration advocates when the bill he actually introduced this week was not his promised DREAM-like proposal, but rather a bill that attacks “blameless” low-income American children.[1] His bill, which is designed to restrict eligibility for the additional child tax credit, the refundable portion of the federal child tax credit, landed like a heavyweight’s blow to the chin of low-income immigrant families.

In his press release about the bill, Sen. Rubio claims that his proposal will end a “scam that costs American taxpayers $4.2 billion” by blocking refundable credits from going to U.S.-citizen or legally resident children who have an undocumented parent provider. But the child tax credit was enacted in 1998 without regard to the immigration status of the parents for a good reason.

Background on the child tax credit

As the name suggests, this credit was not designed out of concern for low-income parents; it was enacted to help keep America’s children from falling in to poverty. In fact in 2009 the child tax credit and its refundable companion prevented 1.3 million American children from falling in to poverty. This is why Congress only requires the Internal Revenue Service to ensure that the child being claimed is a U.S. citizen or U.S. resident alien.

Immigrant parents of American-born children can claim the child tax credit using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, which enables immigrants who are not eligible for Social Security numbers to file and pay federal taxes. In practice, this means that undocumented workers whose wages are taxed and who file federal income tax returns are eligible to claim the credit on behalf of their U.S.-citizen children.

Take, for example, a single mother with two children, working full time for minimum wage with a yearly income of $15,000. Federal, state, and local payroll taxes are withheld from her paychecks, but her income is too low to owe federal income tax. (Of course, filers who are not liable for federal income tax have usually paid other federal taxes, such as Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes, as well as state and local taxes.) The additional child tax credit, however, makes her eligible for a $1,800 refund to help defray the costs of raising her two American children.

If this woman were an undocumented worker whose children were U.S. citizens, when she filed her taxes using an ITIN, she would be eligible to receive this refund under current law. According to a report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general, in 2010 there were about 2 million taxpayers like this woman who filed with ITINs and claimed a refund. That means millions of American children rely on these parents’ refunds to put food on the table, buy school books and clothes, and shelter them.

The consequences of restricting the child tax credit

The average household income for ITIN filers claiming additional child tax credit refunds in 2010 was about $21,240. This amount is less than half the 2010 median household income in the United States and would mean that a family of four with two children was living below the poverty line. Latino children are more likely to live in poverty than any other racial or ethnic group, and more than half of the 6.1 million Latino children in poverty are the U.S.-born children of immigrants.

That means there are more than 2 million families threatened by Sen. Rubio’s bill—hard-working families with blameless children who are U.S. citizens. As many as 4 million of these American children already living on the economic margin could be harmed by this tax increase. At a time when our nation has the largest number of people living in poverty since data was first collected 52 years ago after the deepest recession since the 1930s, tipping the scales against low-income children is immoral and economically self-defeating.

The $4.2 billion in refundable credits that were issued in 2010 to more than 2 million ITIN filers represented about 15 percent of the total child tax credit refunds paid. Those same ITIN filers, however, also contributed more than $7 billion in federal taxes toward Medicare and Social Security, programs from which they will never recoup benefits. In other words, morality aside, the U.S. Treasury and American taxpayers still come out ahead by granting child tax credits to low-income families with an undocumented tax filer.

It all adds up to hypocrisy

Sen. Rubio’s bill would shift the focus of the child tax credit away from protecting blameless kids. The goal of punishing parents for their lack of legal immigration status would trump the objective of protecting U.S.-citizen kids who live in low-income households.

There is no way Sen. Rubio can logically square this proposal that puts low-income U.S.-citizen children in the crosshairs with his professed desire to provide “humanitarian” relief to “blameless” undocumented youth. This attack on the child tax credit appears to be a calculated attempt by Sen. Rubio to demonstrate his commitment to “legality” and his willingness to crack down on “illegal immigrants.” But in his zeal to burnish his hardline bona fides with conservatives, he would actually take food off the tables of low-income U.S.-citizen kids who are, in every sense of the word, blameless.

Even using a political calculator, adding Sen. Rubio’s two proposals together equals hypocrisy.

Marshall Fitz is the Director of Immigration Policy at the Center for American Progress.

Endnotes

[1] The Responsible Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Act of 2012 (S. 3083).

The Public Religion Research Institute, in conjunction with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, recently conducted a large-scale survey of college-age Millennials (ages 18-24). Among the findings was Millennials’ strong stand against inequality. Almost three-quarters (73 percent) agreed that “the economic system in this country favors the wealthy.”

Around 7 in 10 college-age Millennials (69 percent) also agreed that “the government should do more to reduce the gap between rich and poor.”

Finally, 72 percent said they favored “increasing the tax rate on Americans earning more than $1 million a year.”

Conservatives’ plans to exacerbate inequality may please some segments of the electorate but the Millennial generation does not appear to be one of them.

Ruy Teixeira is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress. To learn more about his public opinion analysis, go to the Media and Progressive Values page and the Progressive Studies program page of our website. 

“He was given a time to lead, and he didn’t do it,” a disappointed Dee Coram, 44, told the Denver Post. Coram, who called his father before the vote, described his father’s actions as a “let down.”

If Coram had approved the measure, advocates say it would’ve had enough mettle to pass in the larger House; clearing the way for Colorado to legally recognize same-sex couples. But Coram and House Speaker Frank McNulty exploited a legislative procedure to ensure that the measure would never see its day on the House floor.

Coram, a Republican from a rural Colorado district, explained that despite his son’s wishes, he just couldn’t vote against his constituency. Coram recycled an oft-used Republican citation—the state’s 2006 referendum banning same-sex marriage — but chose to ignore the overwhelming support that civil unions, and the like enjoy among Coloradoans. As many as 75 percent say they support legal recognition of same sex couples, according to a recent Public Policy Polling survey [PDF].

Colorado’s long battle over same-sex couples’ rights was reinvigorated earlier this year when Republicans formed a group to advocate for civil unions. Coloradoans for Freedom hosted a “conservative cocktail reception” to kick off the beginning of the legislative session, framing their advocacy using the rhetoric around liberty instead of human rights.

“There are a sizable number of Republicans who view this as a freedom issue,” former state Rep. Rob Witwer, who gave the keynote address at the January reception, told the Colorado Statesman. “The government’s role is to maintain order, but beyond that it is to maximize freedom.”

With a handful of Republicans on board with civil unions, supporters estimated they finally had enough votes to pass the measure.

Last year, a bill that would allow unmarried Coloradans to enter into civil unions was passed by the Democrat-controlled state Senate, but failed to make it out of the House Judiciary Committee on a party-line vote.

This go-around, the bill’s sponsors watched it pass three Republican-led House committees, only to see it stagnate with McNulty’s refusal to bring it to a vote on the House floor.  

In response, Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper called a special session on Monday night but McNulty strategically directed the bill to the state affairs committee, known colloquially as the “kill committee” for its tendency to axe bills that are unpopular with conservative Republicans.

This last redirection left the bill before Coram, the committee chair, who cast the final vote condemning the measure after saying he was proud of his gay son.

It appears with a 5-4 final tally, which ended Colorado’s latest battle over same-sex unions, Coram’s lip service doesn’t do a lot for his son.

“He could have and should have been the deciding vote,” Dee Coram said.  

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