Immigrants living in California's rural, almost exclusively Hispanic communities are three times as likely to be unemployed as Californians statewide, and half as likely to be self-employed as their counterparts in rural areas with fewer Latinos, says UC Davis professor Refugio I. Rochin in a study to be published in the forthcoming UC book "Immigration Reform and U.S. Agriculture," of which Rochin is a co-editor. Since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, many Mexican immigrant workers registered as farm workers have settled into rural areas known as colonias. The colonias have exceptionally high rates of poverty because of lower levels of education and general farm employment patterns, says Rochin, an agricultural economist. Local government revenues and spending per capita are much lower in colonias than in other rural areas. The declining public spending in California can be attributed to Proposition 13, the eroding tax base of colonias due to high unemployment and low incomes, and the state's economic recession.