Census: Whites in minority among new births

For the first time, minorities make up a majority of babies in the U.S., part of a sweeping race change and a growing age divide between mostly white, older Americans and predominantly minority youths that could reshape government policies.

Preliminary census estimates also show the share of African-American households headed by women -- mostly single mothers -- now exceeds African-American households with married couples, a sign of declining U.S. marriages overall but also of continuing challenges for black youths without involved fathers.

The findings, based on the latest government data, offer a preview of final 2010 census results being released this summer that provide detailed breakdowns by age, race and householder relationships.

Demographers say the numbers provide the clearest confirmation yet of a changing social order, one in which racial and ethnic minorities will become the U.S. majority by midcentury. "We're moving toward an acknowledgment that we're living in a different world than the 1950s, where married or two-parent heterosexual couples are now no longer the norm for a lot of kids, especially kids of color," said Laura Speer, coordinator of the Kids Count project for the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation.

"It's clear the younger generation is very demographically different from the elderly, something to keep in mind as politics plays out on how programs for the elderly get supported," she said. "It's critical that children are able to grow to compete internationally and keep state economies rolling."

Currently, non-Hispanic whites make up just under half of all children 3 years old, which is the youngest age group shown in the Census Bureau's October 2009 annual survey, its most recent. In 1990, more than 60 percent of children in that age group were white.

William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution who analyzed the data, said figures in the 2009 survey can sometimes be inexact compared with the 2010 census, which queries the entire nation. But he said when factoring in the 2010 data released so far, minorities outnumber whites among babies under age 2.

The preliminary figures are based on an analysis of the Current Population Survey as well as the 2009 American Community Survey, which sampled 3 million U.S. households to determine that whites made up 51 percent of babies younger than 2. After taking into account a larger-than-expected jump in the minority child population in the 2010 census, the share of white babies falls below 50 percent.

Twelve states and the District of Columbia now have white populations below 50 percent among children under age 5 -- Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, Maryland, Georgia, New Jersey, New York and Mississippi. That's up from six states and the District of Columbia in 2000.

At current growth rates, seven more states could flip to "minority-majority" status among small children in the next decade: Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, South Carolina and Delaware.

By contrast, whites make up the vast majority of older Americans -- 80 percent of seniors 65 and older and roughly 73 percent of people ages 45-64. Many states with high percentages of white seniors also have particularly large shares of minority children, including Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas and Florida.

"The recent emergence of this cultural generation gap in states with fast growth of young Hispanics has spurred heated discussions of immigration and the use of government services," Frey said. "But the new census, which will show a minority majority of our youngest Americans, makes plain that our future labor force is absolutely dependent on our ability to integrate and educate a new diverse child population."

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The Reckless Folly of the "Undocumented Immigrant"

Michelle Malkin

With great fanfare and elite media sympathy, Jose Antonio Vargas publicly declared himself an "undocumented immigrant" this week. "Undocumented" my you-know-what. In the felony-friendly pages of The New York Crimes -- er, Times -- the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned illegal-alien activist spilled the beans on all the illegal IDs he amassed over the years. He had documents coming out of his ears.

The Times featured full-color photos of Vargas' fake document trove -- including a fake passport with a fake name, a fake green card and a Social Security card his grandfather doctored for him at a Kinko's. He committed perjury repeatedly on federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. In 2002, while pursuing his journalism career goals, an immigration lawyer told him he needed to accept the consequences of his law-breaking and return to his native Philippines.

Following the rules would have meant a 10-year bar to reentry into America. Making false claims of citizenship is a felony offense. Document fraud is a felony offense.

Vargas, who frames himself as a helpless victim, freely chose instead to secure yet more dummy documents. He used a friend's address to obtain an Oregon driver's license under false pretenses. It gave him an eight-year golden ticket to travel by car, board trains and airplanes, work at prestigious newspapers, and even gain access to the White House -- where crack Secret Service agents allowed him to attend a state dinner using his bogus Social Security number.

At least Vargas tells the truth when he says he's not alone. Go visit a 7-11 in the D.C. suburbs. Or the countless vendors in MacArthur Park in East L.A. Or any of the 19 cities in 11 states from Massachusetts to Ohio to Kentucky where a massive, Mexico-based "highly sophisticated and violent" fraudulent-document trafficking ring operated until February 2011. "Undocumented workers" and "undocumented immigrants" have plenty of documents.

The persistent use of these open-borders euphemisms to describe Vargas and countless millions like him is a perfect illumination of the agenda-driven, dominant progressive media.

They're as activist inside their newsrooms as Vargas is out in the open now. Bleeding-heart editors were hoaxed by a prominent colleague, exposed to liability, and yet still champion his serial subversion of the law. San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein bragged that he was "duped" by Vargas, but endorses his "subterfuge" because Vargas' lobbying campaign for the illegal-alien student bailout known as the DREAM Act "just might lubricate the politically tarred-up wheels of government and help craft sane immigration policy."

Who's insane? The Vargas deceit is not an object lesson about America's failure to show compassion. It's another stark reminder of America's dangerous failure to learn from 9/11.

Time and again, security experts have warned about how jihadists have exploited lax immigration and ID enforcement. Driver's licenses are gateways into the American mainstream. They allow residents to establish an identity and gain a foothold into their communities. They help you open bank accounts, enter secure facilities, board planes, and do things like drive tractor-trailers carrying hazardous materials.

It's been nearly 10 years since several of the 19 9/11 hijackers operated in the country using hundreds of illicitly obtained fake driver's licenses and IDs. Most states tightened licensing rules, yet Vargas easily obtained a driver's license not only in Oregon, but more recently in Washington State. He again used a friend's residence to pass muster. Washington State's licensing bureaucracy still does not check citizenship. The man sitting in the White House campaigned to keep driver's license laws as loose as possible for the open-borders lobby. He appointed illegal-alien lobbyists to top federal immigration positions. His head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement just signed a memo pushing the DREAM Act through by administrative fiat. And the privacy of illegal aliens still trumps national security. I ask again: Who's insane?

Vargas believes his sob story is an argument for giving up on immigration enforcement and passing a mass amnesty. It's a sob story, all right. Homeland security officials across the country should be weeping at the open mockery Vargas and his enablers have made of the law.

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