Welcoming Communities: Immigrant Incorporation in Dallas, TX, PRP 219

Abstract

In 2017, Dallas became one of the two dozen US cities that established “welcoming communities” as part of immigration incorporation initiatives. Immigrants play a crucial role in the vitality of the city – 25 percent of Dallas residents are foreign born, and 32 percent of the labor force in the Dallas metro area are immigrants. The Dallas Office of Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs (WCIA) developed a multi-faceted strategic plan to promote the successful inclusion of immigrants into the social and economic fabric of the Dallas community. Our research couples the aspirations of the Dallas WCIA strategic plan with the expertise of the LBJ School of Public Affairs graduate students. This Policy Research Project (PRP) centers on policy analysis and methods to measure immigrants’ attitudes about life in Dallas, to delineate immigrant and refugee residents’ access to services, to analyze how Dallas scores on indices based on measures of integration, and to offer policy tools to foster the incorporation of immigrants into Dallas. Our analyses approach immigrant incorporation from three distinct vantage points. The first is assessing how Dallas compares to other major US cities on immigrant inclusion. This tier explores methods of measuring immigrant inclusion and techniques for comparing cities on these standardized indices. The second analyzes census tract data for the City of Dallas to discern the residential patterns of immigrants and the demographic and socioeconomic features of these neighborhoods. The third queries the immigrants themselves to gather insights on the extent that they feel included within the broader Dallas community.