Americas Quarterly - Spring 2011

ities must design a strategy that creates incentives and offers competitive prices to attract the level of shipping business that will justify the enormous expense and effort of this project. Such a strategy will involve increased cooperation between the canal, Atlantic Coast port operators, East Coast railroads, and local as well as state governments along the Atlantic Coast.

It is therefore difficult to predict
the consequences of the Panama
Canal enlargement. The project will
certainly lead to increased competi-
tion between ports and carriers and,
in this, the shippers will be the
clear winners. Atlantic Coast ports
may experience some growth in
traffic, but it may be less than what
is suggested by the optimistic fore-
casts that are the basis for invest-
ments in these ports.

Liliana Rivera is a PhD Candidate at the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics. Yossi Sheffi is the Elisha Gray II Professor of Engineering Systems and director of the MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics.

Immigration & Integration
THE ROLE OF THE PRIVATE SECTOR

ALEXANDRA DÉLANO AND JASON MARCZAK

The 2010 U.S. Census results underlined not only the dra- matic growth of the U.S. Hispanic population but its high mobility. In the last decade, data show that the number of Hispanics jumped by 43 percent—from 35. 3 million in 2000 to 50. 5 million in 2010—with this group accounting for over half of the total U.S. population increase. Latinos also continue to live in new destinations. Since 1990, the number of those living in the nine states with the historically highest concentrations of Hispanics shrank by 10 percentage points to a total of 76 percent.

The rise of the Hispanic population, together with an immigrant population estimated at 38. 5 million (of which more than half are from Latin America), continues to spark a variety of public policy and private-sector responses. The most worrisome has been the explosion of anti-immigrant bills in state legislatures, which claim to be reacting to the absence of nationwide comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) and lack of enforcement.

More than 6,600 immigration-re-
lated bills were introduced in states
between 2005 and 2010. Although
only 838 bills were enacted, this
level of activity is a clear illustra-
tion of the anxieties and fears in
many parts of the country. 1

Since proposed immigration
reforms failed, many
businesses have spoken out
about the socioeconomic
contributions of
immigrants.

PRIVATE SECTOR FILLS THE VOID

As the U.S. population ages, the country’s future economic growth and competitiveness will depend on new entrants to the labor market, and those entrants will increasingly be foreign born or— given recent data on fertility rates—Hispanic. These populations are already making vast contributions to their communities. Supporting their integration can enhance these benefits.

But CIR and other legislation that may provide funding for integration can provide only some of the help.

That’s why U.S. businesses are stepping up to fill the void in federal legislative action. Business leaders across the country are now promoting integration through em-ployer-led programs and initiatives involving partnerships between companies, community groups and/ or local governments to develop programs that focus on language instruction, skills training, financial literacy, civic engagement, and health and wellness.