how immigration has changed the world essay

Between 1880 and 1930, more than 27 million immigrants arrived, mainly from Europe and Canada. This peak immigration period—the last major wave prior to the current era—also led to new restrictions. Among them was the 1917 Immigration Act, which prohibited immigration from a newly drawn "Asiatic barred zone" covering most of South and Southeast Asia and nearly the entire Middle East, as well as other groups of migrants such as those who could not pass a literacy test. The Immigration Act of 1924 (also known as the Johnson-Reed Act) established the national-origins quota system, which set a ceiling on the number of immigrants allowed from each country, highly preferencing those from Northern and Western Europe. The 1924 law included no provisions for immigration from South and Central America or Mexico.

The Creation of the Modern U.S. Immigration System

Two decades later, the tides slowly started to turn. In 1943, the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed after more than 60 years. The 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act continued the national-origins quota system but for the first time allocated a quota for Asian countries. A new philosophy guiding immigration eventually took hold as part the nation's civil-rights movement, and the resulting Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1965 (the Hart-Cellar Act) repealed the national-origins quota system and replaced it with a seven-category preference system based primarily on family unification. By ending strong preferences for European migration and increasing numerical limits on immigration, the landmark 1965 law set in motion powerful forces that still shape the United States today. Immigration flows that had long been dominated by Europeans gave way to predominantly Latin American and Asian immigration.

Figure 1. U.S. Immigrant Population by Region of Birth, 1960-2019

Source : Migration Policy Institute (MPI), “U.S. Immigrant Population by World Region of Birth, 1960-2019,” MPI Migration Data Hub, accessed December 9, 2021, available online .

The Hart-Cellar Act also for the first time created a permanent admissions category for refugees. Previously, refugees had been allowed into the United States only under the attorney general’s parole authority (this power continued to be used after 1965 to admit refugees beyond the admissions cap). Later, the Refugee Act of 1980 established the modern U.S. refugee system, including authorizing the president to set annual admissions targets, creating the asylum system, and providing a pathway to permanent residence for refugees and asylees.

Though Congress in 1964 terminated the World War II-era Bracero program used to recruit Mexican workers for U.S. farms, the 1965 Act helped usher in a new era of migration from Mexico. As Mexico became the largest source country for legal admissions, it also became the origin for a growing population of unauthorized migrants coming in search of jobs; by the mid-1980s, an estimated 3 million to 5 million immigrants were living unlawfully in the country.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) was intended to address and end illegal immigration with a "three-legged stool” approach: penalize employers who knowingly hired unauthorized immigrants, increase border enforcement, and offer legal status to unauthorized immigrants who had lived in the United States for at least five years (with more leniency for agricultural workers). The law granted legal status to 2.7 million individuals, but it never accomplished its goal of ending illegal immigration. Many unauthorized immigrants were not eligible for legalization under the law’s provisions, and the measure also did not provide for newly legalized immigrants to reunite with their relatives. Meanwhile, policing of employers was minimal and border enforcement was slow to scale up.

Four years later, the Immigration Act of 1990 sought to ease entry for highly skilled immigrants by raising legal immigration caps, creating a preference system for employment-based immigration, and modifying categories for temporary visas, among other changes. It also established Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for nationals of countries deemed unsafe for return because of armed conflict or natural disaster, as well as the Diversity Visa Program, which allots green cards for immigrants from countries with little immigration to the United States.

The continuing rise in illegal immigration sparked a backlash that prompted Congress in 1996 to pass laws that included strict immigration provisions. Among these were the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which significantly expanded the number of crimes that are defined as aggravated felonies and subject noncitizens to removal, provided for expedited removal of inadmissible noncitizens, barred unauthorized immigrants for long periods of time from re-entry, and set income requirements for immigrants' family sponsors at 125 percent of the federal poverty level. IIRIRA also required the government to track foreign visitors' entries and exits, which became a key element in the government's security strategy after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In 1996, Congress also revised federal welfare law with passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which denied some legally present immigrants access to benefits such as Medicaid and food stamps. Finally, that year lawmakers passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), making it easier to arrest, detain, and deport noncitizens.

9/11 and the Securitization of Immigration

For much of U.S. history, debates about immigration had centered on economic, national-origin, and public-safety arguments. Since 9/11, national security concerns moved to the forefront. The government in 2002 created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) by merging 22 federal agencies, including the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which had been the national immigration agency since 1933. Within DHS, INS was replaced by three new agencies to manage immigration: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which oversees the entry of all people and goods; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which enforces immigration and customs laws in the U.S. interior; and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), which adjudicates immigration applications.

The national security focus led to increased scrutiny and sometimes targeting of immigrant communities. Shortly after 9/11, more than 1,000 foreign nationals deemed potential threats were arrested. Officials also established the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) requiring noncitizen men from a group of largely Muslim-majority countries to submit fingerprints and other information upon entering the United States, and DHS later replaced it with the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) program to collect biometrics from all foreign nationals entering the country.

Other expanded enforcement activities included the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which directed DHS to establish a system of technology and at least 700 miles of barriers at the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Meanwhile, ICE increasingly worked with local law enforcement agencies to drive up interior arrests of unauthorized immigrants and other removable noncitizens, including by deputizing local law enforcement agents to enforce immigration laws. The more than 320,000 ICE arrests in fiscal year (FY) 2011 marked a record high.

As the roles of the immigration agencies grew, so did their funding. The $25.1 billion appropriated for immigration enforcement in FY 2020 (which went to CBP, ICE, and the Office of Biometric Identity Management) was nearly five times the $4.3 billion allocated in FY 2000. It was also 28 percent more than the combined $19.5 billion spent on the federal government’s principal criminal law enforcement agencies (the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives).

Aggressive immigration enforcement drew pushback from immigrant-rights advocates, leading to various kinds of so-called sanctuary policies restricting state and local police from cooperating with ICE in places such as California, the Chicago area, and New York City. The 2016 election of President Donald Trump, who promised to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants, further spurred this trend, and eventually birthed a movement among some progressive activists to “abolish ICE.” One effect was that Democratic lawmakers became more hesitant to support increases in immigration enforcement resources and effort, after two decades of dramatic, sustained growth.

The Political Divide Deepens

In the post-9/11 era, lawmakers made multiple attempts to enact comprehensive immigration legislation that traded increased enforcement for paths by which unauthorized immigrants could gain legal status and eventually citizenship. But these efforts failed repeatedly, most notably in 2006, 2007, and 2013. With Republicans increasingly focused solely on prioritizing enforcement and Democrats motivated chiefly by legalization, hopes of reaching a legislative grand bargain have faded. Even legal immigration has become a point of increasing political contention, representing a turning point from the longstanding bipartisan consensus that illegal immigration should be discouraged but that legal immigration benefits the country.

Changing demographics are the backdrop to the shift away from compromise. Hispanic, Asian-American, and Black voters have grown as a share of the electorate, while the share of non-Hispanic White voters is shrinking, affecting the makeup of registered Democrats more than Republicans. Nonwhite voters accounted for 40 percent of Democrats in 2019, up from around 24 percent in 1996; meanwhile, they accounted for 17 percent of Republicans in 2019, up from 6 percent in 1996. The share of Hispanic voters in particular, some of whom have been among the most vocal advocates for immigrant rights, nearly tripled from 4 percent in 1996 to 11 percent in 2019 (as a whole, though, Hispanics rarely cite immigration as their top priority).

Congressional inaction and increasing partisan polarization have set the conditions for presidents to make immigration changes through executive action. One early example was the Obama administration’s 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary protection from deportation and work authorization to some unauthorized youths who arrived in the United States as children.

Trump took full advantage of the executive branch’s powers. Through FY 2019, a higher share of Trump’s executive orders and presidential proclamations were immigration-related than any other president since 1945. Overall, his administration took more than 500 executive actions on immigration, according to Migration Policy Institute (MPI) analysis, including headline-generating travel bans on nationals of mostly Muslim-majority countries and redirecting Pentagon funds to build a border wall. More under-the-radar moves included encouraging consular officers to authorize visas for shorter durations and raising standards for initial asylum screening interviews. Despite some early losses in lower courts, presidents' ability to use executive power to change immigration policy has been largely upheld by the Supreme Court.

President Joe Biden has largely continued this trend and, as of this writing, has outpaced the Trump administration’s rate of action over a similar period. Among other actions, in 2021 the Biden administration made hundreds of thousands of immigrants, mainly from Venezuela, eligible for TPS, which protects recipients from deportation and allows them to work legally.

But the limits of executive action are apparent. Courts may be more willing to consider challenges to administrative changes than congressional reform. Policies enacted through agency action can similarly be rescinded through agency action. Additionally, administrative changes are not tempered by the need to compromise, resulting in wide policy swings from administration to administration. In the face of more extreme executive actions such as the Trump administration’s travel bans or Biden’s effort to temporarily halt deportations, states have often taken the lead in contesting them in court, exacerbating tensions between states and the federal government.

Who Are Immigrants in the United States?

The 44.9 million immigrants in the United States make up about one-sixth of all international migrants in the world. Although the 13.7 percent foreign-born share of the overall U.S. population is near the previous U.S. peaks of 14.8 percent in 1890 and 14.7 percent in 1910, it still falls below many countries, particularly those with small populations.

Figure 2. Number and Share of Immigrants in the United States, 1850-2019

Source : MPI, “U.S. Immigrant Population and Share over Time, 1850-Present,” MPI Migration Data Hub, accessed December 9, 2021, available online .

MPI estimates approximately 45 percent of the foreign-born population are naturalized citizens, 28 percent are lawful permanent residents (LPRs, also known as green card holders), 23 percent are unauthorized immigrants, and 5 percent are temporary visitors, such as international students or seasonal workers. Among unauthorized immigrants, about 16 percent as of 2019 were temporarily protected from deportation through enrollment in TPS or DACA or because they had a pending asylum application.

Figure 3. Immigrant Population in the United States by Status, 2019

Notes : DACA is Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and TPS is Temporary Protected Status. Sources : These 2019 data result from MPI analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015–19 American Community Survey (ACS), pooled, and the 2008 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), weighted to 2019 unauthorized immigrant population estimates provided by Jennifer Van Hook. Data on DACA recipients are from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), “Approximate Active DACA Recipients: As of June 30, 2019,” accessed December 8, 2021, available online . Data on TPS beneficiaries are from Jill H. Wilson, Temporary Protected Status: Overview and Current Issues (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018), available online . Data on asylum seekers are from USCIS, “Form I-765 Application for Employment Authorization, All Receipts, Approvals, Denials Grouped by Eligibility Category and Filing Type,” accessed December 8, 2021, available online .

Roughly 10.9 million (24 percent) of the immigrant population is from Mexico, the most common country of origin. However, since 2013 new arrivals from India and China have outpaced those from Mexico, due to factors including the large numbers of Indian and Chinese migrants who are international students or hold temporary work visas, as well as reduced illegal immigration from Mexico following the 2008 financial crisis, a growing economy there, and increased U.S. border enforcement. Latin America is the largest region of origin for the overall U.S. immigrant population; the Pew Research Center has projected that immigrants from Asia will make up the largest share of the foreign-born population by 2065. Overall, Indian and Chinese immigrants make up the second- and third-largest immigrant groups, with 2.7 million and 2.5 million respectively, or about 6 percent of the foreign-born population each.

Immigrants are geographically concentrated, with 63 percent residing in six states that have long been the main immigrant destinations: California (about 24 percent of the overall U.S. foreign-born population), Texas (11 percent), Florida and New York (each with 10 percent), New Jersey (5 percent), and Illinois (4 percent). While these states continue to draw the bulk of the foreign-born population, newcomers—particularly unauthorized immigrants from Mexico—have also settled elsewhere in recent decades, following employment opportunities, especially in agriculture, food manufacturing, and construction. Ten states have experienced a more than 350 percent increase in their immigrant populations since 1990: North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, Nevada, South Carolina, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Utah. In four of these states, immigrant populations have more than quintupled. Arrivals of immigrants in new regions may help explain why immigration has become a more salient national political issue.

New migration patterns may also make integration more difficult, as local infrastructure may not exist to accommodate non-English speakers or those from other cultures. Additionally, areas that experience sudden foreign-born population growth are prone to implement more restrictive local policies toward immigrants. Nationally, researchers have found that migrants’ sense of belonging may grow when they reach certain milestones such as language proficiency and citizenship. According to the International Social Survey Program’s National Identity module, immigrants’ sense of belonging in the United States decreased from 2003 to 2013, but even still was higher than many other “settler nations” such as in Western Europe. It is possible that this sense of belonging has deteriorated as restrictionist viewpoints and policies have entered the mainstream in recent years. Between 2014 and 2019, the United States dropped in the Migrant Integration Policy Index, which tracks public policies affecting immigrant integration, from a score of 75 out of 100 to 73 (meanwhile, the average country score increased by two points in the same period).

Still, Gallup reports the share of Americans who say immigration is good for the country has increased from 62 percent in 2001 to 77 percent in 2020, also the first year more people said immigration should increase than decrease (34 percent versus 28 percent). Most of the increase in those supporting higher levels of immigration comes from Democrats and independents, but shows that explicitly pro-immigration sentiment has risen alongside skepticism.

How Does the U.S. Immigration System Work?

The modern U.S. immigration system was largely established in 1965 and allows for arrival through three primary streams: (re)unification for U.S. citizens and LPRs with close family members, employment, and humanitarian protection. Typically, about two-thirds of permanent immigrants arrive through family-based channels, with about 14-15 percent through employment pathways, and the remainder divided among humanitarian migrants, Diversity Visa recipients, and others such as Afghans and Iraqis who worked with the U.S. government. Other migrants come to the United States temporarily as short-term workers or international students, among others.

For more details on how these visas are allocated, see MPI’s explainer on the legal immigration system .

Figure 4. Green Cards Issued by Category, FY 2019

Source : U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), “Table 7. Persons Obtaining Lawful Permanent Resident Status by Type and Detailed Class of Admission: Fiscal Year 2019,” updated January 26, 2021, available online .

Family Pathways

In FY 2019, the 710,000 immigrants admitted via family sponsorship made up 69 percent of the 1 million green cards issued that year. There are huge backlogs in all visa categories, including 3.8 million family applications at the end of 2020. Family-based migration makes up such a large share of overall immigration because immediate relatives of U.S. citizens—including spouses, children under age 21, and parents—are exempted from the yearly cap of 226,000 family-based green cards. But the waits for other categories of relatives can be grueling and sometimes impossible; as of this writing, a Mexican national being sponsored for a green card by a U.S.-citizen sibling faces a wait of more than 150 years.

Employment-Based Channels

Of the green cards issued in FY 2019, 139,000 (14 percent) were issued through employer sponsorship. As has been the case for decades, most of these new LPRs had already been living in the United States on a temporary work visa. Because of lengthy backlogs, particularly for nationals of countries such as India, many had been waiting years to have their application adjudicated.

Because just 140,000 employment-based green cards can be issued each year and more than half tend to go to principal applicants’ spouses and children, the demand greatly outpaces the supply. This is partly because more workers are coming on temporary visas and hope to stay in the United States. For example, more than 389,000 petitions for H-1B visas for temporary high-skilled workers were approved in FY 2019, up from nearly 258,000 in FY 2000. More international students have been granted work authorization for Optional Practical Training (OPT), which allows them to work in the country for one to two years after graduating from a U.S. institution: the 156,000 initial employment authorization documents granted under OPT in FY 2019 were more than twice the 75,000 granted in FY 2003.

Issuance of temporary work visas such as the H-2A visa for seasonal agricultural work and the H-2B visa for seasonal nonagricultural work has also risen in recent years. The 29,000 agricultural work visas issued in FY 1999 rose to 205,000 in FY 2019. In the past decade, agricultural employers who historically relied on a largely unauthorized immigrant workforce have turned to the H-2A visa. Issuances of H-2B visas have also multiplied, from 31,000 issued in FY 1999 to 98,000 in FY 2019. Although H-2B issuances are capped at 66,000 annually, Congress has repeatedly allowed DHS to temporarily raise that cap to meet demand.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers

To qualify as a refugee or asylee, one must demonstrate fear of persecution in their native country because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. Refugees apply from another country and then are resettled in the United States, while asylees apply from within the United States.

From the 1970s through the mid-1990s, more than 100,000 refugees were admitted during some years, typically from Southeast Asia and countries in the former Soviet Union (see Figure 6). Since then, refugee admissions have decreased and their principal regions of origin have shifted to the Middle East and Africa.

Figure 5. Refugee Arrivals by Region of Origin, FY 1975-2021

Sources : U.S. Refugee Processing Center, “Admissions & Arrivals—Refugee Admissions Report as of October 31, 2021,” updated October 31, 2021, available online ; Andorra Bruno, Refugee Admissions and Resettlement Policy (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2018), available online .

The United States has historically led the world in numbers of refugees resettled annually, but there were major dips following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and after Trump became president in 2017—a drop that has continued into the Biden administration. In FY 2021, the United States admitted the fewest refugees since the modern resettlement framework was created in 1980: 11,411.

Meanwhile, recent filings of asylum cases, largely by Central Americans, have reached heights not seen in at least three decades . Asylum cases can be filed either defensively in immigration court if the applicant is already in removal proceedings, or affirmatively with USCIS. Among cases filed defensively, top countries of origin have shifted from Mexico and China in the early 2000s to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. There are less historical data available about affirmative cases, but Venezuela notably emerged as a top country of origin among that group in 2017.

The number of asylum grants increased slightly from 2017 to 2019, but the number of denials increased even more. As a result, the asylum approval rate decreased, largely due to increased pressure on immigration judges to adjudicate cases faster and new policies narrowing asylum eligibility. New filings have outpaced adjudications, so by the end of FY 2021 there were 640,000 asylum cases pending in immigration courts and 386,000 pending at USCIS.

Illegal Flows

The population of unauthorized immigrants in the United States has been relatively stable at an estimated 11 million for the past decade, after reaching a peak of 12 million in 2007. However, its composition has changed: The number of unauthorized immigrants from Mexico dropped by more than 2 million since 2007, although Mexicans still make up about half the unauthorized population, the largest share of any nationality. Over the same period other unauthorized immigrant populations have grown, mainly from Asian countries including India, China, and the Philippines, and from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

From 2010 to 2017, visa overstayers accounted for most of the growth in the overall unauthorized population. However, most unauthorized immigrants from Central America crossed the border illegally. Indeed, for most years since FY 2014 more migrants from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have crossed illegally than single Mexican men seeking U.S. jobs, who had comprised the vast majority of apprehensions in previous decades. Compared to previous Mexican migrants, higher shares of Central Americans come as families and seek asylum.

Figure 6. U.S. Border Patrol Southwest Border Encounters by Nationality, FY 2000-21

Note : Data from FY 2000-06 denote encounters only of either Mexicans or non-Mexicans; subsequent data also specify arrivals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Sources : Data for FY 2000-06 are from U.S. Border Patrol, “U.S. Border Patrol Apprehensions From Mexico and Other Than Mexico (FY 2000 - FY 2020),” accessed December 8, 2021, available online . Data for FY 2007-20 are from U.S. Border Patrol, “U.S. Border Patrol Nationwide Apprehensions by Citizenship and Sector,” accessed December 8, 2021, available online . Data for FY 2021 are from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, “Southwest Land Border Encounters,” updated November 15, 2021, available online .

This change has posed challenges for a U.S. border strategy designed to target illegal crossings by adults from Mexico. Criminal prosecution, expedited removal, detention, and other consequences designed for adults are more difficult to apply to families and unaccompanied children expressing fears of returning to their origin countries.

What Next? Prospects for Reform and the Future of U.S. Immigration

The nearly 60-year-old U.S. immigration system was designed in response to factors that are increasingly disconnected from current economic and demographic realities. The U.S. population is aging, with the U.S. Census Bureau estimating that seniors over age 65 will outnumber children under 18 by 2034, potentially straining pension and health-care systems. Additionally, the gap between labor demand and the skills of U.S. workers is projected to widen. Demand for lower-skill jobs in health care, hospitality, and other fields is expected to grow, but U.S. workers’ rising education levels make them less likely to fill these jobs. And the U.S. population grew by the lowest rate on record, at just 0.1 percent, in 2020.

Immigration could help solve these issues by filling certain labor-market gaps and increasing the number of workers contributing to social welfare systems.  

However, heightened divisions around immigration have made addressing these issues more complex. Political tensions have created a Congress unwilling to consider most reforms in a bipartisan manner. As such, near-term action on immigration is likely to come instead from the executive branch, meaning that immigration policy will continue to change every time the White House switches between the parties. Yet this pendulum swing will still occur within the bounds of the existing legislative framework as determined by the courts, preventing a wholescale reimagining of the system that might be needed to address changing circumstances. Neither skepticism of immigration nor labor-market challenges are new issues, but the fractured nature of U.S. politics is a novel development for a country that is in so many ways defined by its immigrant history. Absent a political breakthrough, the immigration system remains an antiquated, inflexible one.

The historical aspects of this article draw in part from a prior 2013 U.S. country profile published by the Migration Information Source, Immigration in the United States: New Economic, Social, Political Landscapes with Legislative Reform on the Horizon , by Faye Hipsman and Doris Meissner.

Bruno, Andorra. 2018. Refugee Admissions and Resettlement Policy . Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Available online .

Capps, Randy, Julia Gelatt, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, and Jennifer Van Hook. 2020. Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States: Stable Numbers, Changing Origins . Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute (MPI). Available online .

Chishti, Muzaffar and Jessica Bolter. 2021. Two Decades after 9/11, National Security Focus Still Dominates U.S. Immigration System. Migration Information Source , September 22, 2021. Available online .

Chishti, Muzaffar, Julia Gelatt, and Doris Meissner. 2021. Rethinking the U.S. Legal Immigration System: A Policy Road Map . Washington, DC: MPI. Available online .

Chishti, Muzaffar and Faye Hipsman. 2015. In Historic Shift, New Migration Flows from Mexico Fall Below Those from China and India. Migration Information Source , May 21, 2015. Available online .

Cohn, D’Vera. 2015. Future Immigration Will Change the Face of America by 2065. Pew Research Center, October 5, 2015. Available online .

Hipsman, Faye and Doris Meissner. 2013. Immigration in the United States: New Economic, Social, Political Landscapes with Legislative Reform on the Horizon. Migration Information Source , April 16, 2013. Available online .

International Social Survey Programme. 2005. ZA3910: International Social Survey Programme: National Identity II - ISSP 2003. Available online .

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Israel, Emma and Jeanne Batalova. 2020. Mexican Immigrants in the United States. Migration Information Source , November 5, 2020. Available online .

Krogstad, Jens Manuel and Mark Hugo Lopez. 2020. Hispanic Voters Say Economy, Health Care and COVID-19 Are Top Issues in 2020 Presidential Election. Pew Research Center, September 11, 2020. Available online .

Martin, Philip. 2017. Immigration and Farm Labor: From Unauthorized to H-2A for Some? Washington, DC: MPI. Available online .

Meissner, Doris, Faye Hipsman, and T. Alexander Aleinikoff. 2018. The U.S. Asylum System in Crisis: Charting a Way Forward . Washington, DC: MPI. Available online .

Migration Policy Institute (MPI). N.d. U.S. Immigrant Population and Share over Time, 1850-Present. MPI Migration Data Hub. Accessed December 3, 2021. Available online .

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Page Act of 1975 . Public Law 43–141. U.S. Statutes at Large 18 (1875): 477. Available online .

Pew Research Center. 2020. In Changing U.S. Electorate, Race and Education Remain Stark Dividing Lines . Washington, DC: Pew Research Center. Available online .

Refugee Act of 1980 . Public Law 96—212. U.S. Statutes at Large 94 (1980): 102. Available online .

Simonsen, Kristina Bakkær. 2016. How the Host Nation’s Boundary Drawing Affects Immigrants’ Belonging. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 42 (7): 1153-76.

Smith, Samantha and Carroll Doherty. 2016. A Divide Between College, Non-College Republicans. Pew Research Center, March 1, 2016. Available online .

Solano, Giacomo and Thomas Huddleston. 2020. Migrant Integration Policy Index 2020, Key Findings: USA, 2019. Accessed December 2, 2021. Available online .

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How Immigration Changed America

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The early waves of immigration, the melting pot and cultural fusion, economic growth and innovation, demographic changes and diversity, social and political changes.

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The Integration of Immigrants into American Society (2015)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

The United States is a country that has been populated, built, and transformed by successive waves of migration from almost every part of the world. This reality is widely recognized in the familiar image of the United States as a “nation of immigrants” and by the great majority of Americans, who fondly trace their family histories to Asia, Africa, or Europe or to a mix of origins that often includes an ancestry from one or more of the many indigenous peoples of the Americas. The American national mosaic is one of long standing. In the 18th century, Jean de Crèvecoeur (1981 [1782]) observed that in America, “individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men.” More than two centuries later, the American experiment of E Pluribus Unum continues with one of the most generous immigration policies in the world, one that includes provisions for diversity, refugees, family reunification, and workers who bring scarce employment skills. The United States is home to almost one-fifth of the world’s international migrants, including 23 million who arrived from 1990 to 2013 ( United Nations Population Division, 2013 ). This figure (23 million net immigrants) is three times larger than the number of immigrants received by any other country during that period.

The successful integration of immigrants and their children contributes to the nation’s economic vitality and its vibrant and ever-changing culture. The United States has offered opportunities to immigrants and their children to better themselves and to be fully incorporated into this society; in exchange “ immigrants” have become “Americans” —embracing an American identity and citizenship, protecting the United States through service in

its military, building its cities, harvesting its crops, and enriching everything from the nation’s cuisine to its universities, music, and art.

This has not always been a smooth process, and Americans have sometimes failed to live up to ideals of full inclusion and equality of opportunity for immigrants. Many descendants of immigrants who are fully integrated into U.S. society remember the success of their immigrant parents and grandparents but forget the resistance they encountered—the riots where Italians were killed, the branding of the Irish as criminals who were taken away in “paddy wagons,” the anti-Semitism that targeted Jewish immigrants, the racist denial of citizenship to Chinese immigrants, and the shameful internment of Japanese American citizens. This historical amnesia contributes to the tendency to celebrate the nation’s success in integrating past immigrants and to worry that somehow the most recent immigrants will not integrate and instead pose a threat to American society and civic life.

2015 was the 50th anniversary of the passage in 1965 of the Hart Celler Act, which amended the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA) and began the most recent period of mass immigration to the United States. These amendments abolished the restrictive quota system of the 1920s and opened up legal immigration to all countries in the world, setting the stage for a dramatic increase in immigration from Asia and Africa. At the same time, they limited the numbers of legal immigrants permitted from countries in the Western Hemisphere, establishing restrictions on immigrants across the U.S. southern border and setting the stage for the rise in undocumented border crossers.

Today, the approximately 41 million immigrants in the United States represent 13.1 percent of the U.S. population, which is slightly lower than it was 100 years ago. An estimated 11.3 million of these immigrants—over 25 percent—are undocumented. The U.S.-born children of immigrants, the second generation (see Box 1-1 ), represent another 37.1 million people, 12 percent of the population. Together, the first and second generations account for one of every four members of the U.S. population.

The numbers of immigrants coming to the United States, the racial and ethnic diversity of new immigrants, and the complex and politically fraught issue of undocumented immigrants have raised questions about whether the nation is being as successful in absorbing current immigrants and their descendants as it has been in the past. Are new immigrants and their children being well integrated into American society? Do current policies and practices facilitate their integration? How is American society being transformed by the millions of immigrants who have arrived in recent decades?

To address these issues, the Panel on the Integration of Immigrants into American Society was tasked with responding to the following questions:

• What has been the demographic impact of immigration, in terms of the size and age, sex, and racial/ethnic composition of the U.S. population from 1970 to 2010? What are the likely changes in the future?
• What have been the effects of recent immigration on the educational outcomes, employment, and earnings of the native-born population? 1
• How has the social and spatial mobility of immigrants and the second generation changed over the last 45 years?

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1 The native-born population includes the second and third generation descendants of foreign-born immigrants. For more information about how the panel uses “generations” in this report, see Box 1-1 .

• How has the residential integration (or segregation) of immigrants and their descendants changed over the last 45 years? How has immigration affected residential segregation patterns within native-born racial and ethnic communities?
• How rapidly are recent immigrants and their descendants integrating into American society, as measured by competency in English language, educational attainment, rate of naturalization, degree of intermarriage, maintenance of ethnic identity, health outcomes, and other dimensions?
• How has immigration affected American institutions, including civil society, and economic and political organizations? What role do mediating institutions play in the integration process? How responsive are these institutions to the needs of immigrants and their descendants?
• How has immigration affected the stock and growth of scientific and technological skills in universities, research organizations, and private businesses? Is it possible to measure the impact of immigration on the pace of technological change and innovation?
• What are the general attitudes and public perceptions of native-born Americans toward (a) legal and illegal immigration and (b) how immigrants shape American society? How do these perceptions compare with the statistical record?
• How does legal status affect immigrants’ and their descendants’ ability to integrate across various dimensions?
• For each of these questions, how do outcomes vary by gender, race and ethnicity, social class, geography, and other social categories?
• What additional data are needed for research on the role and impact of immigration on American society?

In the sections below, the panel sets up the context for answering these questions. First, we lay out the definition of integration we will use throughout the report. Second, we address the question of demographic changes in the United States since 1970. Third, we discuss demographic projections for the U.S. population based on current and predicted immigration trends. Fourth, we examine native-born attitudes toward immigration and immigrants themselves. Finally, we discuss the implications of these conditions for immigrant integration. The final section outlines the rest of the report.

INTEGRATION

“Integration” 2 is the term the panel uses to describe the changes that both immigrants and their descendants—and the society they have joined—undergo in response to migration. The panel defines integration as the process by which members of immigrant groups and host societies come to resemble one another ( Brown and Bean, 2006 ). That process, which has both economic and sociocultural dimensions, begins with the immigrant generation and continues through the second generation and beyond ( Brown and Bean, 2006 ). The process of integration depends upon the participation of immigrants and their descendants in major social institutions such as schools and the labor market, as well as their social acceptance by other Americans ( Alba et al., 2012 ). Greater integration implies parity of critical life chances with the native-born American majority. This would include reductions in differences between immigrants or their descendants vis-a-vis the general population of native-born over time in indicators such as socioeconomic inequality, residential segregation, and political participation and representation. Used in this way, the term “integration” has gained near-universal acceptance in the international literature on the position of immigrants and their descendants within the society receiving them, during the contemporary era of mass international migration.

Integration is a two-fold process: it happens both because immigrants experience change once they arrive and because native-born Americans change in response to immigration. The process of integration takes time, and the panel considers the process in two ways: for the first generation, by examining what happens in the time since arrival; for the second and third generations—the children and grandchildren of immigrants—by comparisons across generations.

Integration may make immigrants and their children better off and in a better position to fully contribute to their communities, which is no doubt a major objective for the immigrants themselves. If immigrants come to the United States with very little education and become more like native-born Americans by getting more education, one would say they are more integrated. And they would also probably be viewed as being better off, because more education improves their well-being. But immigrants also, on average, come to the United States with better health than native-born Americans. As they become more like native-born Americans they become less healthy. They become more integrated and their well-being declines. So, to the extent that available data allow, the panel measured two separate

2 “Assimilation” is another term widely used for the processes of incorporation of immigrants and their children and the decline of ethnic distinctions in equality of opportunity and life chances. For this report, “integration” is used as a synonym for “assimilation” as defined by Alba and Nee (2003) .

dimensions of change: integration and well-being. The first asks whether immigrants and the native-born become more like one another; the second asks whether immigrants are better or worse off over time.

This report investigates whether immigrants and their children are becoming more like the general population of native-born Americans across a wide range of indicators: attitudes toward social issues, citizenship, crime, education, family structure, health, income, language, occupations, political participation, religion, and residence. Of course this is a complicated process to measure, in part because immigrants are very diverse themselves and have very different starting points in all of these domains when they arrive and because immigrants change at different paces across domains and individuals, but also because Americans are also changing. The convergence between immigrants and later generation Americans may happen because immigrants change once they get here, because native-born Americans change in response to immigration, or both. There is no presumption that change is happening in one direction only.

Indeed, bidirectional change is often easier to see in hindsight than in real time. Looking back, one can now see how the absorption of immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries changed American culture. Many foods, celebrations, and artistic forms considered quintessentially American today originated in immigrant homelands. Current immigrants continue to contribute to the vibrancy and innovation of American culture as artists, engineers, and entrepeneurs. One-fourth of the American Nobel Prize winners since 2004, and a similar proportion of MacArthur “Genius” Awardees (which are given to people in a range of fields including the arts) have been immigrants to the United States. The foreign-born (see Box 1-2 ) are also overrepresented among authors of highly cited scientific papers and holders of patents ( Smith and Edmonston, 1997 , p. 385; Chellaraj et al., 2008 ; Stephan and Levin, 2001 , 2007 ; Hunt and Gauthier-Loiselle, 2010 ; Kerr, 2008 ). To the extent that one can document changes among the native-born in the 21st century due to immigration, the panel attempts to do so, but we also suspect that many of the changes happening right now will only be visible to future historians as they look back.

Examining integration involves assessing the extent to which different groups, across generations or over time within the same generation, come to approximate the status of the general native-born population. Equality between immigrants and the native-born should not be expected in the first generation because immigrants have different background characteristics: they are younger, their education may not have been in American schools, and they may initially lack proficiency in English. But one can measure progress toward that equality among immigrants and their descendants. To measure equality of opportunity between the native-born and immigrant generations, the report employs conditional probabilities and other means to measure the likelihood of outcomes net of prior characteristics. (For in-

stance, does an immigrant from China with a college degree earn as much as a native-born white with a college degree?) These conditional probabilities are typically estimated for different generations of an immigrant-origin group, with statistical controls for differences from the general native-born population in demographic characteristics and skill levels.

DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES IN THE FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION SINCE 1970

The demographic make-up of the United States in the early 21st century is incredibly diverse compared to mid-20th century America. In many ways, the composition of the contemporary United States is more similar to the polyglot nation of the early 20th century, when major waves of immigrants were drawn by greater economic and political opportunities in the United States than were available in their countries of origin. The desire for religious freedom, flight from persecution, and family ties are also important factors spurring migration ( Massey, 1999 ; Portes and Rumbaut, 2014 ; Grasmuck and Pessar, 1991 ). Today as in the past, nearly one in seven Americans is foreign-born. But today’s immigrants are more likely to come from Latin America or Asia than from Europe, are more likely to be female, are much less likely to be white, and are more geographically dispersed than the immigrants who arrived at the turn of the 20th century. Meanwhile, the development of federal immigration law since that era (discussed in Chapter 2 ) has led to the rapid growth of an undocumented-immigrant population whose experiences differ from immigrants with legal status in fundamental ways (see Chapter 3 ).

In this section, the panel reviews the demographic changes among the foreign-born since 1970. We discuss both flows and stocks of immigrants. Flows are the numbers of arrivals and departures each year or in a designated period (e.g., decades). Stock refers to the number of foreign-born in the population at a point in time, usually based on counts in the census or other surveys such as the Current Population Survey. Both flows and stocks have measurement problems. For example, flows of immigrants as measured by administrative data of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of the Department of Homeland Security include only those immigrants who lawfully enter the United States with a visa of some kind, either permanent or temporary. The panel had less information on how many people leave the United States. Another substantial problem is that these flow data do not count those who enter without inspection, as undocumented immigrants. The stock data are based on the foreign-born as measured in censuses and surveys, but they include anyone residing in the United States, including those who do not plan to stay and do not consider themselves immigrants. Nevertheless, stock and flow data do provide different but complementary perspectives on the composition of the foreign-born population. Flow data represent the recent history of immigration. Stock data provide a snapshot of the current and future composition of the foreign-born.

The next section begins by discussing the rapid growth of immigration in recent decades and then examines the ways in which these immigrants

are different from previous waves of immigrants, how they differ from the native-born, and how they are changing the overall demographics of the United States.

In the 50 years since the 1965 amendments to the INA passed, the demographics of immigration—and in consequence, the demographics of the United States—have changed dramatically. Before that law passed, the number of Americans who were foreign-born had declined steadily, shrinking from over 14 million in 1930 to less than 10 million in 1970 (see Figure 1-1 ). As a share of the total population, the foreign-born peaked at almost 15 percent at the turn of the 20th century and declined to less than 5 percent in 1970. After 1970, the number of foreign-born increased rapidly, doubling by 1990 to 19.9 million and doubling again by 2007 to 40.5 million.

Since the beginning of the Great Recession in 2007, net immigration to the United States appears to have plateaued and undocumented immigra-

tion appears to have declined, at least temporarily. In 2012, there were 41.7 million foreign-born in the United States, a relatively small 5-year increase compared to the rapid growth over the previous two decades. Today, 13 percent of the U.S. population is foreign-born, a proportion that is actually slightly lower than it was 100 years ago ( Figure 1-1 ).

Regions and Countries of Origin

The vast majority of immigrants in 1900 arrived from Europe; today, the majority come from Latin America and Asia. In 1960, over 60 percent of immigrants were from Europe (see Figure 1-2 ), and the top five countries of birth among the foreign-born were Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom. 3 By 1970, Europeans comprised less than 50 percent of the foreign-born, and that percentage declined rapidly in the following decades. Meanwhile the share of foreign-born from Latin America and Asia has grown rapidly. Forty-four percent of the foreign-born in the United States in 2011 were from Latin America, and 28.6 percent were from Asian countries. The top five countries of birth among the foreign-born in 2010 were China, India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Vietnam. And while immigration from Africa is proportionately much smaller, the number of immigrants from that continent has also increased steadily since 1970.

Mexican immigration has been the driver for the dramatic growth in migration from Latin America since 1970. Today, almost one-third of the foreign-born are from Mexico (see Figure 1-3 ). Immigration from other parts of Latin America also increased: since 1990, the number of Central American immigrants in the United States has nearly tripled ( Stoney and Batalova, 2013 ). However, a major demographic shift in migration flows is occurring as Mexican immigration, in particular, has slowed and Asian immigration has increased. Between 2008 and 2009, Asian arrivals began to outpace immigration from Latin America; and in 2010, 36 percent of immigrants arrived from Asian countries, versus 31 percent from Latin America (see Figure 1-4 ). In 2013, China replaced Mexico as the top sending country for immigrants to the United States ( Jensen, 2015 ).

Race and Ethnicity

The United States has a long history of counting and classifying its population by race and ethnicity, beginning with the first Decennial Census in 1790 ( Prewitt, 2013 ). However, the categories of race and their interpretation have changed over time—in no small part due to immigration and the absorption of people from different parts of the world. The meaning of

3 See https://www.census.gov/how/pdf//Foreign-Born--50-Years-Growth.pdf [September 2015].

the term “race” itself has also changed. At the height of immigration from Europe, different national-origin groups such as the Irish, Poles, and Italians were considered “races” in popular understanding and by many social scientists, although these beliefs were not formalized in the official census classifications ( Snipp, 2003 ; Perez and Hirschman, 2009 ).

This report uses the federal (as defined by the Office of Management and Budget) race and ethnic categories, with Hispanics as an independent category alongside the major race groups (see Box 1-3 ). The panel uses the terms “race and ethnicity” and “ethnoracial categories” to refer to this classification scheme. For example, we report on the ethnoracial categories—white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic, Asian non-Hispanic, American Indian non-Hispanic, and Hispanic—when we are reporting on race and ethnic characteristics of the population. We use the terms “Hispanic” and “Latino” interchangeably to refer to the same group, as these terms are used to varying degrees in different parts of the country or are preferred by different individuals.

The racial and ethnic categorizations of the population are a good example of how immigration changes American society and American society changes immigrants. Census and survey data on race and ethnicity are based on the subjective identities (self-reports) of respondents who complete written forms or respond to interviewer questions, and respondents are free to check any listed category or to write in any group identity that

is not listed. Many immigrants remark that they learn their “official” ethnoracial identity soon after they arrive and are asked about it constantly: on government forms, when they register their children for school, on employment applications, etc. Many come to understand and identify with a racial or ethnic category that was often unfamiliar or meaningless before they immigrated. Black immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean had not thought of themselves as African Americans before immigrating to the United States, and the category “Asian” is often new to many people who had thought of themselves as Chinese or Pakistani before their arrival. In this sense, one can speak of people being “racialized” as they come to the United States. They may also face racial discrimination, based on neither their identity as immigrants nor their national origin identity but rather on their new “racial identity.”

The shift from European to Latin American and Asian migration has also significantly changed the racial and ethnic make-up of the United States (see Figures 1-5 and 1-6 ). In 1970, 83 percent of Americans were non-Hispanic white; today, that proportion is 62.4 percent. In 1970, Lati-

nos were approximately 4.6 percent of the total U.S. population. 4 In 2013, Latinos made up 17 percent of the U.S. population, with foreign-born Latinos accounting for 6 percent of the population, or about one-third of all Latinos. 5 Since 2000, the native-born Latino population grew at a faster rate than the foreign-born because of both a decline in migration from Mexico and an increasing number of native-born children of Latino immigrants. Overall, Latino population growth between 2000 and 2010 accounted for more than half of the nation’s population growth ( Passel et al., 2011 ).

Asians, meanwhile, have become the fastest-growing racial group in

4 The 1970 Decennial Census marked the Bureau’s first attempt to collect data for the entire Hispanic/Latino population. However, there were problems with data collection. For further discussion, see http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/03/03/census-history-countinghispanics-2/ [September 2015].

5 See http://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/04/29/statistical-portrait-of-hispanics-in-the-unitedstates-2012/ , Table 1 [September 2015].

the United States ( Passel, 2013 ). In 1970 Asians accounted for less than 1 percent of the U.S. population, a reflection of long-term discriminatory regulations that banned most Asian immigration (see Chapter 2 ). In 2010, they made up almost 6 percent of the U.S. population, and 74 percent of them were foreign-born ( Passel, 2013 ).

The proportion of foreign-born among blacks in the United States is much smaller: only 9 percent in 2013. However, the number of black immigrants has increased steadily since 1970, 6 and immigrants accounted for at least 20 percent of the growth of the black population between 2000 and 2006 ( Kent, 2007 ).

Overall, racial and ethnic minorities accounted for 91.7 percent of the nation’s population growth between 2000 and 2010 ( Passel et al., 2011 ). Non-Hispanic whites are now a minority of all births, while fertility rates for Latinos, in particular, remain relatively high ( Monte and Ellis, 2014 ). 7 Today, there are four states where the majority of the population

6 See http://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-184.html [September 2015].

7 See https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-113.html [September 2015].

is “minority”—California, Hawaii, New Mexico, and Texas—plus the District of Columbia ( Desilver, 2015 ). It is not a coincidence that most of these states also have large immigrant populations. As discussed further below, the United States will be even more racially and ethnically diverse in the future, due to immigration, intermarriage, and fertility trends.

The foreign-born population is now much younger than it was 50 years ago ( Grieco et al., 2012 ). 8 The median age for the foreign-born declined dramatically after the 1965 amendments to the INA, dropping from 51.8 years in 1970 to 39.9 in 1980. 9 Before 1970, over half of all foreign-born in the United States were over the age of 50 (see Figure 1-7 ) and the foreign-born were mostly European immigrants who arrived during the earlier wave at the turn of the 20th century. By 2000, only 20 percent were in this age category, while 70 percent were between the ages of 18 and 54. However, after bottoming out at 37.2 years in 1990, the median age of the foreign-born began to creep upward as the proportion under the age of 18 declined. In 2012, the median age of the foreign-born was 41.4 years, compared to 35.9 years among the native-born. 10 , 11

Part of the explanation for the higher median age of the foreign-born is the large number of second generation Americans under the age of 18, which pulls down the median age of the native-born (see Figure 1-8 ). The vast majority of immigrants are of child-bearing age, and immigrants generally have higher fertility rates than the native-born (see Figure 1-9 ). In 2013, 37.1 million Americans, or about 12 percent of the population, were members of the second generation, and one-fourth of all children in the United States (17.4 million) had at least one foreign-born parent. 12 This has particular significance for the future racial and ethnic composition of the country because so many of the second generation are racial and ethnic minorities. The panel discusses the implications of this increasing diversity

8 The median age for foreign-born from Mexico and Central America is the lowest at 38, while the median age for foreign-born from the Caribbean is the highest at 47. See http://www.pewhispanic.org/2013/01/29/statistical-portrait-of-the-foreign-born-population-in-the-unitedstates-2011/ [September 2015].

9 See http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/working-papers/2012/demo/POPtwps0096.pdf [September 2015].

10 See http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states [September 2015].

11 Since the children of immigrants born in the United States count as native-born, and the majority of those immigrating are adults, the median age for immigrants is generally higher than it is for the native-born.

12 See https://www.census.gov/population/foreign/files/cps2010/T4.2010.pdf [September 2015].

among the native-born in the population projections below and in the chapters that follow.

The gender ratio for the foreign-born is generally balanced, with 101 males for every 100 females (see Table 1-1 ). 13 The native-born population, on the other hand, skews toward more females, with a gender ratio of 95

13 See http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/sex-ratios-foreign-born-united-states [September 2015].

males per 100 females. As the ratios by age in Table-1-1 show, these ratios vary by age because women live longer than men and because the age structure of migrants is concentrated in the young-adult working ages. Thus, a better measure is to examine gender ratios that have been age standardized. Donato and Gabaccia (2015 , p. 154) created age-standardized gender ratios for the years 1850-2010, and these are plotted in Figure 1-10 .

Gender ratios for all of the foreign-born have varied over time, with the percentage of women among immigrants growing. The gender composition among immigrants shifted from male dominated toward gender balanced in the 1930s and was gender balanced by the 1970s. Unstandardized rates show women at above 50 percent of the stock of immigrants beginning in 1970; standardized rates indicate a gender balanced stock where women comprise about 50 percent of the foreign-born after 1970 ( Donato et.al., 2011 ).

As Donato and colleagues (2011 , 2015 ) point out, because Mexicans are such a large percentage of recent immigrant flows after 1970 and because they are a much more male-dominated migration stream, it is useful to separate the gender ratio for all immigrants from the gender ratio for Mexican migrants ( Figure 1-10 ). The lines diverge beginning in 1970 when men were predominant among the Mexican foreign-born, whereas among the rest of the foreign-born women’s share continued to grow. By 2010 the percentage of females was 50 percent for all the foreign-born in the United States and was slightly higher at 51 percent when Mexicans are excluded.

Nonetheless, the gender ratios for specific source countries vary widely. India (138 males per 100 females) and Mexico (124 per 100) have male-to-female gender ratios well above the median, as do El Salvador (110 males per 100 females) and Haiti (109 per 100). Germany (64 males per 100 females), South Korea (65 per 100), the Dominican Republic (68 per 100), the Philippines (71 per 100), and Japan (74 per 100) all have much lower ratios of males to females, indicating that more females than males may be immigrating from those countries but also reflecting the age structures of the different immigrant populations (older populations in source countries such as Germany and Japan will reflect the demographic that women live longer than men in those countries).

The gender-balanced immigrant population of today reflects a complex mix of factors including shifts in labor demand, civil strife around the world leading to more refugees, and increased state regulation of migration ( Donato and Gabaccia, 2015 , p. 178; Oishi, 2005 ). Many women immigrate and work. No matter how they enter—on a family preference visa, as a close relative exempt from numerical limitations, without legal documents, or with an H-1B or other employment worker visa—most are employed in the United States after entering and are therefore meeting market demands for labor. The increasing percentage of women among immigrants

TABLE 1-1 Male to Female Ratio among Immigrants to the United States, 1870-2000

SOURCE: Data from U.S. Census Bureau Decennial Census. Also see Gibson and Jung (2006) , Hobbs and Stoops (2002) , and Ruggles et al. (2010) .

thus reflects a much stronger demand for labor in a variety of occupations such as domestic service, child care, health care, factory assembly work, and food processing/production. The gender imbalance in deportations may also contribute to the feminization of Latino immigration, in particular ( Mexican Migration Monitor, 2012 ). The increase in human trafficking in the United States and globally also contributes to the feminization of immigration ( Pettman, 1996 ).

Geographic Dispersal

A key component of the story of recent immigration is the significant geographic dispersal of immigrants across the United States. Historically, immigrants tended to cluster in a handful of traditional gateway cities or states, such as California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Although these states are still the most popular destinations and have the largest numbers of foreign-born, recent years have seen immigration to states that had not previously witnessed a large influx of foreign-born. The panel discusses this geographic dispersal in further detail in Chapter 5 , but we highlight some of the most important trends here.

Six states—California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Texas—attract the largest proportion of the foreign-born, but that share has

declined in recent years, from 73 percent in 1990 to 64 percent in 2012. 14 The states with the fastest growth in immigrants today are in the South and West: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia. Although the numbers in many of these states are still relatively small, some saw more than 400 percent growth in their foreign-born population since 1990. The rapid growth of immigration in the South and Midwest and in the Mountain States has been dramatic in the last few decades. Many of these receiving communities were either all white or contained a mix of black and white residents but had virtually no Latino or Asian residents. The sudden influx of Latino and Asian immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, has challenged long-established racial and social hierarchies, has posed new problems for school systems who had not previously dealt with children in need of instruction in English as a second language, and sometimes has led to negative attitudes and anti-immigrant backlash. Other communities, particularly declining rural areas, have welcomed the new influx as a way to revitalize small communities that were experiencing long-term population decline.

Immigration has also broadened from traditional gateway cities, such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York City, to other metropolitan areas—including Atlanta, Dallas, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C. Many immigrants to these metro areas are finding homes in the suburbs. 15 And while overall immigration to rural areas is relatively small, some rural counties have witnessed a surge in Latino immigration, particularly in places where meat processing plants are major employers. 16 This influx of immigrants has created new challenges for communities and local institutions that have not previously had to create or maintain integrative services (see Chapter 5 ).

The European immigrants who arrived at the turn of the 20th century had less formal schooling than the native-born; on average, immigrants from southern, eastern, and central Europe had a little more than 4 years of education versus 8 years for the native-born ( Perlmann, 2005 ). Rates of illiteracy in 1910 were less than 10 percent among immigrants from northwestern Europe and about 20 to 50 percent among immigrants from eastern and southern Europe ( Lieberson, 1963 , pp. 72-73). By 1920, with rising educational levels

14 Data are from Jeffrey Passel, Pew Research Center, presentation to the Panel on the Integration of Immigrants into American Society on January 16, 2014.

15 See http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/twenty-first-century-gateways-immigrants-suburban-america [August 2015].

16 See http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/in-the-news/immigration-and-the-rural-workforce.aspx#Foreign [August 2015].

in Europe and the imposition of a literacy test in 1917, illiteracy was generally less than 2 to 3 percent for most immigrant streams from all European countries. The educational attainment of the second generation from European immigration generally matched the larger native-born population, demonstrating large strides in just one generation ( Perlmann, 2005 ).

Since 1970, although immigrants’ education level has increased, either before arrival or after they have reached the United States, immigrants are still overrepresented among the least educated: 31.7 percent have less than a high school degree, compared to 11 percent of the native-born. 17 However, the educational attainment of immigrants has risen since 1980 ( Hall et al., 2011 ). In 2013, 28 percent had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and a slightly higher proportion of immigrants than native-born had advanced degrees (see Figure 1-11 ). Meanwhile the largest proportion of the foreign-born are actually in the middle range of educational achievement: more than 40 percent have a high school diploma and/or some college.

Educational attainment varies a great deal in relation to immigrants’ regions of origin. Despite some national variations, Asians and Europeans are generally as highly educated or more highly educated than native-born Americans. Almost 50 percent of the foreign-born from Asia and 39.1 percent from Europe have a bachelor’s degree or higher, versus 27.9 percent of the U.S.-born population. But only 12.3 percent of Latin American immigrants have a bachelor’s degree, and immigrants from Mexico and

17 See http://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acs-19.pdf [May 2015].

Central America, in particular, are much more likely to have very low levels of education. However, there is evidence that second generation Latinos make great strides in education, despite their parents’ relatively low socioeconomic status. The panel discusses this further in Chapter 6 .

In addition to lower levels of education, European immigrants at the turn of the last century also earned less than their native-born counterparts ( Perlmann, 2005 ). Immigrants from southern, eastern, and central Europe in particular tended to work in low-skilled jobs where wages were particularly low. However, wage inequalities between immigrants and the native-born declined over time, and the second generation nearly closed the wage gap, earning within 10 percent of the children of native-born Americans ( Perlmann, 2005 ).

A similar pattern of intergenerational change over time occurs in earnings and household income when one examines changes between the first and second generation (see Chapter 6 ). Among the present-day first generation, the earnings of foreign-born workers are still generally lower than earnings of the native-born, and the gap is particularly large for men. The median income for full-time, year-round, native-born male workers is $50,534, compared to just $36,960 for foreign-born men (for comparisons for both men and women, see Figure 1-12 ). The income gap for foreign-born versus native-born is wider for men than for women. Nearly one-third of the foreign-born make less than $25,000 per year, compared to 19 percent of the native-born, and although almost 20 percent of immigrants make over $75,000, the native-born outpace them in every income category above $35,000 (see Figure 1-13 ).

Not surprisingly, native-born head of households also have higher incomes than those headed by the foreign-born. Overall, the average household income of the foreign-born was $48,137 in 2013, compared to $53,997 in native-born households. However, as with education, there is variation based on immigrants’ region of origin. As Figure 1-14 shows, the median household incomes for immigrants from Asia, Canada, Europe, and Oceania (the region including Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand) are higher than native-born median household income, while the median immigrant household from Latin America had a much lower income than the median native-born household. Part of the explanation for this variation is the bimodal nature of the labor market and different immigrant groups’ representation in particular types of occupations, as described below.

A common perception of immigrant labor force participation is the concentration of immigrants in occupational niches. In fact, immigrants do not dominate in any single occupation, although there is geographical variation in the extent to which they are represented among agricultural workers, for instance, or health care workers. There are important variations by region of origin, however. Asian immigrants, particularly those from China and India, are overrepresented in professional occupations, including those in health care, engineering, and information technology. Immigrants from Latin America, meanwhile, are more concentrated in lower-skilled, lower-paying occupations in construction and in the service and retail industries (see Chapter 6 for further discussion).

In recent decades, as immigration has been high, the U.S. poverty rate has also been stubbornly high. Rising income inequality and the declining wages of those with low education since the 1970s likely hit immigrants and their families particularly hard, as they are overrepresented among

lower-educated workers. Unlike earlier European immigrants and their descendants, who benefited from the decline in income inequality and the growth in wages among those at the bottom of the labor market in the period beginning in the 1930s, current immigrants are entering a U.S. economy that sees declining fortunes at the bottom of the income distribution. Real wages for those without a college degree have fallen 26 percent since 1970, and for males without a high school degree they have fallen a remarkable 38 percent ( Greenstone and Looney, 2011 ). Chapter 6 discusses intergenerational trends in poverty, which do show some progress over time. However, this progress begins at a low level, as the foreign-born are more likely than the native-born to be poor.

The poverty rate for immigrants is a cause for particular concern because many immigrants are barred from participation in social welfare programs that aid the impoverished. As Figure 1-15 illustrates, 18.7 percent of the foreign-born are impoverished, compared to 15.4 percent of the native-born, a difference of just over 3 percentage points, while the proportion of immigrants living within 200 percent of the poverty level is 6 percentage points higher than it is for the native-born. Considering that the poverty threshold for a family of four is $23,850 and 30 percent of immigrants make less than $25,000 a year, the higher proportion of immigrant households at or near poverty is unsurprising.

The differences in houshold income distribution relative to the poverty

level becomes even more alarming for families with children. While 1 in 10 native-born families are impoverished, almost 18 percent of foreign-born families live below the poverty level (see Figure 1-16 ). The differences are particularly stark for families in which a married couple has children. Only 4.4 percent of native-born families with two parents are impoverished, but over 13 percent of foreign-born two-parent families live in poverty. This means a much larger proportion of children of foreign-born parents are living in poverty, even in cases where there is an intact household and both parents may be working. Although many of these children are U.S. citizens themselves, and some social welfare programs for children are available regardless of nativity (e.g., the Women, Infants, and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program of the Food and Nutrition Service; free and reduced school meals), the fact that their parents are often prevented from accessing social welfare programs makes these families’ financial situations even more precarious ( Yoshikawa, 2011 ).

Legal Status

A key finding in this report is the importance of legal status and its impact on immigrants’ integration prospects. Although some distinctions

in status existed in the past, the complicated system of statuses that exists today is unprecedented in U.S. history.

As discussed in detail in Chapter 2 , an unintended consequence of the 1965 amendments to the INA and the immigration legislation that followed was to dramatically increase both legal and undocumented immigration to the United States. In response, rather than initiating overarching reform, the federal government has been reactive, creating piecemeal changes that grant certain groups or persons in specific situations various legal statuses. Some of these statuses provide clear pathways to lawful permanent residence and citizenship, but many are explicitly designed to be temporary and discourage permanent settlement in the United States. Meanwhile, federal, state, and local legislation has increasingly used legal status as a dividing line between those who can access various social services and those who are excluded from portions of the social safety net.

Chapter 3 outlines the current major legal statuses and examines how these statuses may aid or hinder immigrant integration. Legal status provides a continuum of integrative potential, with naturalized citizenship at one end and undocumented status at the other. However, many immigrants move back and forth along that continuum, gaining or losing statuses during the course of their residence in the United States. And despite the inherent uncertainty of temporary or undocumented statuses, it is important to understand that as long as immigrants reside in the United States, regardless of their legal status, immigrants are starting families, sending their children to schools, working in the labor market, paying taxes, attending churches, and participating in civic organizations. They interact on a daily basis across a variety of social environments with the native-born population. In effect, they are integrating into American society and culture.

Particularly important to the discussion of legal status and immigrant integration is the undocumented population. Between 1990 and 2007, the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States tripled (see Figure 1-17 ). Although unauthorized immigration declined somewhat after 2007 in response to the Great Recession, there are currently an estimated 11.3 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States ( Passel et al., 2014 ). As noted above, this situation is unprecedented because, during the last great wave of immigration, there were relatively few obstacles to entry. The social and legal challenges facing undocumented immigrants create significant barriers to integration, a consequence discussed in detail in Chapter 3 and referred to throughout this report.

DEMOGRAPHIC PROJECTIONS

The increase in immigration since 1970 has its primary impact on the growth of the foreign-born population. But immigration also has secondary

effects through the children and subsequent descendant of the foreign-born. The children of immigrants (or the second generation) are native-born and are American citizens at birth but can be considered as part of the broadly defined immigrant community. The second generation is generally reared within the culture and community of their immigrant parents, and their first language is often their parents’ mother tongue, even as they usually make great strides in integrating into the American mainstream.

In 1970, the second generation population was about twice the size of the foreign-born population—almost 24 million. The large second generation population in the 1960s and 1970s was the product of the early 20th century immigrant wave from eastern and southern Europe. Almost all were adults and many were elderly. By the first decade of the 21st century, there was a new second generation population: the children of the post-1965 wave of immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Currently about one-quarter of all U.S. children are first generation or second generation immigrants.

Recent immigrants and their descendants will continue to affect the demography of the United States for many years to come. In late 2014 and early 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau released a new update of population projections from 2015 to 2060, with a primary emphasis on the impact

of immigration on population growth, composition, and diversity ( U.S. Census Bureau 2014a ; Colby and Ortman, 2015 ). Historically, projections of net immigration to the United States were little more than conjectures based on recent trends and ad hoc assumptions. In recent years, the Census Bureau has adopted a new methodology based on a predictive model of future emigration rates from major sending countries and regions, informed by recent trends in immigration ( U.S. Census Bureau, 2014b ).

The Census Bureau projects that the number of foreign-born persons residing in the United States will increase from just over 41 million to more than 78 million between 2013 and 2060, with their population share rising from 13.1 percent to 18.8 percent (see Figure 1-18 ). Although the Census Bureau projects a slowing trend in the relative growth rate of the foreign-born population (from more than 2% to less than 1%) and a decline in absolute numbers of immigrants per year (from over 900,000 to less than 600,000), most of the growth of the U.S. population in the coming decades will be due to immigration, including both the increase from the immigrants themselves and the increase from their higher fertility rates. Fertility-related increase is projected to decline even faster as the population ages, and much of the projected natural increase of the native-born population is also due

to immigration. The Census Bureau projects that over 20 percent of the births in the United States between now and 2060 will be to foreign-born mothers ( Colby and Ortman, 2015 ). Without new immigrants and their children, the United States is projected to experience population decline in the coming years.

The most controversial aspects of the new population projections are the impact of immigration on population diversity and the prediction that the U.S. population will become a majority minority population; that is, non-Hispanic whites will be less than half of the total population by the middle of the 21st century ( Colby and Ortman, 2015 , Table 2). However, a significant share of this change is due to the changes in the measurement of race and ethnicity in recent years.

There is little doubt that the massive wave of immigration of recent decades has changed the composition of the American population. In 2010, almost 15 million Americans claimed an Asian American identity and over 50 million reported themselves to be Hispanic ( Humes et al., 2011 ). These numbers and future projections must be understood in light of a complex system of measurement of race and ethnicity in federal statistics, discussed above. As noted earlier, Hispanic ethnicity is measured on a separate census/survey question from race, so Hispanics may be of any race. In 2010, more than half (53%) of Hispanics reported that they were “white” on the race question, a little more than a third (36.7%) chose “Some Other Race” (many wrote in a Latin American national origin), and 6 percent chose multiracial (mostly “Some Other Race” and “white”). Multiple race reporting was only 2 to 3 percent in the 2000 and 2010 censuses, but it is projected to increase in the coming decades, perhaps to 6 percent, or 26 million Americans, in 2060 ( Colby and Ortman, 2015 , Table 2).

The Census Bureau projects that 28.6 percent of Americans will be Hispanic in 2060, 14.3 to 17.9 percent will be black, 9.3 to 11.7 percent will be Asian, 1.3 to 2.4 percent will be American Indian or Alaskan Native, and 0.3 to 0.7 percent will be Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. The range of uncertainty in these projections depends on how persons who claim multiple racial identities (“race alone or in combination” in census terminology) are counted. “One race” non-Hispanic whites are projected to be 43.6 percent of all Americans in 2060 ( Colby and Ortman 2015 , Table 2). However, all whites (including Hispanic whites and all multiracial persons who checked “white”) are projected to be 74.3 percent of the American population in 2060 ( Colby and Ortman 2015 , Table 2).

It is impossible to predict the future ethnoracial population of the United States with numerical precision, but general trends are foreseeable. There will be more persons with diverse heritage, including a very large number of persons with ancestry from Latin America: likely more than a quarter of all Americans in 2060. Among the less predictable consequences

are whether these ancestral origins will be important in terms of language, culture, residential location, or choice of marital partners.

AMERICAN ATTITUDES ABOUT IMMIGRATION

An important but misunderstood component of immigrant integration is native-born attitudes toward immigration and immigrants. Immigration has been hotly debated in American elections and in the media, and based on these debates, one might think that Americans are deeply concerned with the issue and that many, perhaps even the majority, are opposed to immigration. Polling data suggest that this is not the case: most Americans assess immigration positively. Figure 1-19 shows the results of a poll question, asked from 2001 to 2014, on Americans’ overall assessment about whether “Immigration is a good thing or a bad thing for this country today.” In every year of the polling period, a majority of Americans say that immigration is a good thing, reaching a high of 72 percent in 2013 before falling to 63 percent in 2014.

Polling results also show that an increasing number of Americans (57% in 2005, up from 37% in 1993) think that immigrants contribute to the United States, and one-half feel that immigrants pay their fair share of taxes. Yet this is counterbalanced by the significant proportion, 42 percent, who think immigrants cost taxpayers too much ( Segovia and Defever, 2010 , pp. 380-381). The majority of Americans do not believe that recent immigrants take jobs away from U.S. citizens, and they believe that the jobs immigrants take are ones that Americans do not want ( Segovia and Defever, 2010 , p. 383). When asked specifically about immigration and whether

illegal or legal immigration is a bigger problem, respondents in a 2006 Pew survey were much more likely to say that it was illegal immigration (60%) than legal immigration (4%), with 22 percent saying both were of equal importance and 11 percent saying neither ( Pew Research Center, 2006 ; Segovia and Defever, 2010 , p. 379).

Opinion polls since 1964 have asked questions to solicit respondents’ assessment of their ideal level of immigration ( Segovia and Defever, 2010 ; Saad, 2014 ). For example, “Should immigration be kept at the present level, increased, or decreased?” These opinions do not necessarily match the actions that Congress takes. In 1964, for example, just before the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act that vastly increased immigration to the United States, almost one-half of respondents (48%) liked the present level of immigration and 38 percent wanted a reduction ( Lapinski et al., 1997 , pp. 360-361).

More recent polling data from 1999-2014 show that the dominant view of the public about the desired level of immigration is for a decrease, followed closely by maintaining it at current levels ( Saad, 2014 ). However, support for increasing immigration levels has been rising over the last 15 years. There has been a doubling of the percentage who said that the level should be increased, from 10 percent in 1999 to 22 percent in 2014. Not surprisingly, immigrants are more favorable toward maintaining current levels of immigration than are the native-born. Only 17 percent of the foreign-born, compared to 60 percent of the native-born, told pollsters in 2014 that immigrant levels should be decreased. Urban residents and the highly educated are more supportive of expanding immigration than are those in rural areas and those with less than a college education. ( Saad, 2014 , p. 5).

While Americans have generally preferred to decrease the number of immigrants coming to the United States, they have also tended to resist mass deportation as the solution to the problem of unauthorized immigration. For example, in the CBS/New York Times Poll in 2006 and 2007, the proportion favoring legalization was consistent at around 62 percent, 18 while the proportion favoring deportation was considerably lower, at around 33 percent. 19 In later years, the New York Times Poll split the legalization option into two possibilities: for immigrants to either (1) stay in the United States and eventually apply for citizenship or (2) stay but not qualify for

18 Support for legalization was 62 percent in May 2006, 60 percent in March 2007, 61 percent in May 2007, and 65 percent in June 2007. See http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/poll_bush_050906.pdf , http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/052407_immigration.pdf , and http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/062807_immigration.pdf [September 2015].

19 Support for deportation was 33 percent in May 2006, 36 percent in March 2007, 35 percent and 28 percent in May 2007. Sources: CBS News Poll webpages cited in the preceding footnote.

citizenship. 20 Less than a third of respondents preferred deportation over legalization, while nearly one-half supported legalization with a pathway to citizenship. Only about 19 percent favored legalization without the possibility of citizenship.

In general, most Americans do not think immigration is as important as many other issues facing the country. From 1994 to 2014, immigration is mentioned as the most important issue facing the country today by only about 1 percent to 3 percent of Americans. By contrast, the economy, unemployment, and health care consistently receive higher mentions. 21 Even at times when immigration reform is very much in the news and high on legislators’ agenda; it is not the top issue for the vast majority of Americans.

Attitudes on immigration have recently become decoupled from strictly economic concerns. While restrictive attitudes on immigration tended to go up significantly during recessions and periods of high unemployment in the 1980s and 1990s ( Lapinski et al., 1997 ), there is no clear relationship among aggregate economic output, unemployment, and immigration attitudes after 2001. Furthermore, observational and experimental studies of immigration opinion have found that personal economic circumstances bear little or no relationship to restrictive attitudes on immigration ( Citrin et al., 1997 ; Hainmuller and Hiscox, 2010 ). There also is not a fixed relationship between local demographic composition and concentration of immigrants and attitudes toward immigrants. Rather, the broader political context (whether immigration is nationally salient and being widely debated and reported on) interacts with local demographics. Hopkins (2010) found that when immigration is nationally salient, a growing population of immigrants is associated with more restrictionist views, but demography does not predict attitudes when immigration is not nationally salient.

So even though immigration is rarely mentioned as an important policy issue by the American public, and despite consistent majority support for legalization of the undocumented, immigration remains a contentious topic. As past research has shown, this level of heightened attention and polarization on immigration is evident more among party activists than among the general electorate ( Skocpol and Williamson, 2012 ; Parker and Barreto, 2014 ) and is often the result of agenda-setting and mobilization by key media personalities and political actors, rather than emerging from widespread popular sentiment ( Hopkins, 2010 ; Gulasekaram and Ramakrishnan, 2015 ).

Concern about immigration is also fueled by misconceptions about

20 See http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1302290/sept14b-politics-trn.pdf [September 2015].

21 Panel’s analysis of Gallup toplines obtained from Roper Center Public Opinion Archives, University of Connecticut, see http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/ [September 2015].

immigrants and the process of integration. Americans have been found to overestimate the size of the nonwhite population ( Wong, 2007 ), to erroneously believe that immigrants commit more crime than natives ( Simes and Waters, 2013 ), and to worry that immigrants and their children are not learning English ( Hopkins et al., 2014 ). A sense of cultural threat to national identity and culture, rooted in a worry about integration, therefore seems to underly many Americans’ worries about immigration ( Hainmueller and Hopkins, 2014 ).

IMPLICATIONS

The United States has witnessed major changes in the demographic make-up of immigrants since 1970. Prior to the passage of the 1965 amendments to the INA, the majority of immigration to the United States originated from Europe. After 1965, the United States witnessed a surge of immigration from Latin America and Asia, creating a much more racially and ethnically diverse society. This new wave of immigration is more balanced in terms of gender ratios but varies in terms of skills and education, both from earlier immigration patterns and by region of origin. Immigrants are more geographically dispersed throughout the country than ever before. And since 1990 in particular, the United States has witnessed an enormous influx of undocumented immigrants, a legal category that was barely recognized 100 years ago. 22

The demographic trends described above have broad implications for immigrant integration that cut across the various social dimensions discussed in this report. Just as in the past, American society is adjusting to the fact that a high proportion of the population is composed of immigrants and their descendants. But the differences between earlier waves of immigrants and more recent arrivals present new challenges to integration.

One key issue is the role of racial discrimination in the integration of immigrants and their descendants. Scholars debate how much racial and ethnic discrimination is directed toward immigrants and their children, whether immigration and the complexity it brings to our racial and ethnic classification system will ultimately lead to a blurring or hardening of the boundaries separating groups, what kinds of racial and ethnic distinctions that we see now will persist into the future, and what kinds will become less socially meaningful (for recent reviews, see Lee and Bean, 2012 ; Alba and Nee, 2009 ). Sometimes these questions are framed as a debate about

22 Many scholars have described Chinese immigrants who arrived after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 as the first “illegal aliens.” Ngai (2004) describes the evolution of the term as having roots in the experiences of these Chinese immigrants and then being more broadly applied after the 1920s.

where the “color line” will be drawn in the 21st century. Will immigrants and their children who are Asian and Latino remain distinct, or will their relatively high intermarriage rates with whites lead to a blurring of the line separating the groups, similar in many ways to what happened to groups of European origin, who developed optional or voluntary ethnicities that no longer affect their life chances ( Alba and Nee, 2003 ; Waters, 1990 )? This debate also focuses on African Americans and the historically durable line separating them from whites, one enforced until recently by the legal prohibition on intermarriage between blacks and whites and the norm of the one-drop rule, which defined any racially mixed person as black ( Lee and Bean, 2012 ).

There is evidence on both sides of this debate. High intermarriage rates of both Asians and Latinos with whites, as well as patterns of racial integration in some neighborhoods, point to possible future blurring of the boundaries separating these groups (see Chapter 8 ). The association between Latinos and undocumented immigration, however, may be leading to a pattern of heightened discrimination against Latinos. The negative framing of undocumented immigrants as illegal criminals, alien invaders, and terrorists, along with the conflation of undocumented and documented migrants in public discourse, contributes to the racialization of Latinos as a despised out-group. Discrimination against Hispanics may have been exacerbated by the criminalization of undocumented hiring and the imposition of employer sanctions under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which encouraged employers either to avoid Latino immigrants who “looked Hispanic” ( Lowell et al., 1995 ) or to pay lower wages to compensate themselves for the risk of hiring undocumented foreigners ( Lowell and Jing 1994 ; Sorensen and Bean 1994 ; Fry et al., 1995 ; Cobb-Clark et al., 1995 ).

To the extent that immigrants today are racialized, they can be expected to be subject to systematic discrimination and exclusion, thus compromising their integration into U.S. society. Immigrants with darker skin earn significantly less than those with lighter skin in U.S. labor markets ( Frank et al., 2010 ; Hersch, 2008 ; 2011 ). And stereotypical markers of Hispanic origin such as indigenous features and brown skin, have come to trigger discrimination and exclusion within American society ( Chavez, 2008 ; Lee and Fiske, 2006 ; Massey, 2007 , 2014 ; Massey and Denton, 1992 ; Massey and Sanchez, 2010 ; Turner et al., 2002 ).

Discrimination, skin color, and socioeconomic status may interact to particularly affect ethnoracial self-identification among Latin American immigrants, who come from a region where race is more often seen as a continuum than a dichotomy. For instance, upon arrival, many Latin American immigrants select “other” when asked about their race, corresponding to a racially mixed identity. However, with rising socioeconomic status, they

are more likely to become familiar with U.S. racial taxonomies and select “white” as their racial identity ( Duncan and Trejo, 2011 ; Pulido and Pastor, 2013 ). Investigators studying immigrant integration must therefore remember that self-identifications are both causes and consequences of integration and socioeconomic mobility, sometimes making it difficult to measure such mobility over time (discussed further in Chapter 6 ). Chapter 10 describes the kinds of longitudinal data on immigrants and their children that would enable much more accurate measurement of this change.

The ubiquity and the vagaries of racial and ethnic categorization in American society, along with the scarcity of data on immigration and especially on the second generation, means that there is often conceptual confusion in interpreting trends and statistics not only on racial and ethnic inequality but also on immigrant integration. For example, the gap between Hispanic and white graduation rates in the United States is sometimes interpreted to mean a deep crisis exists in our education system. But Latino graduation rates include about one-third of people who are foreign-born, many of whom completed their schooling in countries such as Mexico, with a much lower overall educational distribution. Throughout the report, the panel tries to specify the intersection between national origin and generation to analyze change over time among immigrants and their descendants. This careful attention to specifying the groups we are analyzing is made difficult by the scarcity of data sources containing the relevant variables. The most glaring problem is that the Decennial Census and American Community Survey do not contain a question on parental birthplace. We return to this issue in Chapter 10 when we discuss data recommendations.

The implications of this debate about the role of racial discrimination in limiting opportunities for immigrants and their children are profound. One out of four children today are the children of immigrants, and the question of whether their ethnoracial identity will hold them back from full and equal participation in our society is an open one. Throughout the report, the panel presents reasons for optimism about the ability of U.S. society to move beyond discrimination and prejudice, as well as particular reasons for concern that discrimination and prejudice will affect immigrants and their descendants negatively. While the panel cannot provide a definitive answer at this time, we do include the best evidence on both sides of this question.

REPORT ORGANIZATION

In the following chapters, the panel surveys the empirical evidence on how immigrant and generational status has been and continues to be predictive of integration into American society. In Chapter 2 , we review the legal and institutional context for immigrant integration, including the

historical construction of the U.S. immigration system, the emergence of the current system of legal statuses, and the tensions inherent in the uniquely American brand of “immigration federalism.” Chapter 3 discusses the central role legal status plays in the integration of both immigrants and their descendants and examines the largest and most important legal statuses in detail. Chapter 4 details the political and civic dimensions of integration with a focus on naturalization. Chapter 5 focuses on the spatial dimensions of integration at each level of geography, emphasizing the importance of place and contexts of reception. Chapter 6 examines the socioeconomic dimensions of immigrant integration, including education, income, and occupation. Chapter 7 discusses sociocultural aspects of integration, including language, religion, attitudes of both immigrants and the native-born, and crime. Family dimensions, including intermarriage, fertility, and family form, are the focus of Chapter 8 . Chapter 9 outlines the health dimensions of integration, including the apparent immigrant health paradox. Finally, in Chapter 10 the panel assesses the available data for studying immigrant integration and makes recommendations for improving available data sources.

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The United States prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, and the country has a long history of successfully absorbing people from across the globe. The integration of immigrants and their children contributes to our economic vitality and our vibrant and ever changing culture. We have offered opportunities to immigrants and their children to better themselves and to be fully incorporated into our society and in exchange immigrants have become Americans - embracing an American identity and citizenship, protecting our country through service in our military, fostering technological innovation, harvesting its crops, and enriching everything from the nation's cuisine to its universities, music, and art.

Today, the 41 million immigrants in the United States represent 13.1 percent of the U.S. population. The U.S.-born children of immigrants, the second generation, represent another 37.1 million people, or 12 percent of the population. Thus, together the first and second generations account for one out of four members of the U.S. population. Whether they are successfully integrating is therefore a pressing and important question. Are new immigrants and their children being well integrated into American society, within and across generations? Do current policies and practices facilitate their integration? How is American society being transformed by the millions of immigrants who have arrived in recent decades?

To answer these questions, this new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine summarizes what we know about how immigrants and their descendants are integrating into American society in a range of areas such as education, occupations, health, and language.

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Out of Many, One: Immigration, Identity and the American Dream

Knight Foundation asked four leading scholars and community leaders to consider this question: “What is the most important trend that will transform how Americans think about community over the next decade?” Ali Noorani, Executive Director, the National Immigration Forum , shares insights below. Click here to download and view all essays.

Unprecedented global migration, how it is perceived and how it is experienced, is the prism through which we will understand the 21st century American community. How we respond determines what kind of America future generations live in.

In just over 25 years the number of international migrants in the world increased approximately 70 percent to reach 257.7 million . In the same period, the U.S. foreign-born population more than doubled to reach 49.8 million immigrants in 2017. Along the way, America experienced the Great Recession and economic disruptions driven by technology and globalization that changed the way we work and the way we relate to one another.

Over the course of 2018, the National Immigration Forum convened 26 Living Room Conversations to better understand how Americans are grappling with these changes. What we heard, what we learned, offers a roadmap for civic leaders across the political spectrum to help communities grapple with the politics of immigration.

Over the last few years, stories of mass migration have found their way to our homes, filtered through our news feed of choice, bringing a level of urgency to the debate. For many of us, when we see the Central American child on the train or the Syrian family in the raft, we are led to believe by certain press and politicians that they will be our neighbor in a matter of weeks. As our communities diversify, through marriage or migration, our new neighbor reminds us of what we saw on our screen. Diversity brings to our communities new languages, new customs, new religions. Our divisive politics define our perception, creating unease and insularity.

The fragmentation of traditional media and the powerful influence of social media bring these changes into sharp focus. We don’t trust our institutions, so we turn to our friends and family for the information and influence that shapes our opinion. For Americans worried that their children will not be better off than they are, it feels like the movement of goods, people, commerce, and ideas presents future generations an overwhelming set of economic and social challenges.

In some cases, leaders respond with a hardened politics, the building of actual and metaphorical walls, legislation that seeks to exert greater control at the local and national level. Paralyzed by anger and fear, the politics and policies of these communities stymie growth. And that feeds into the sense of victimhood as neighboring communities that embrace the challenges and opportunities of immigration see greater economic growth.

The combination of a more diverse America and a rapidly-changing economy has exacerbated a perception that immigrants and immigration are a threat, not a benefit, to American communities.

Those policy makers looking to lead more inclusive communities, buoyed by the rule of law, thrive with growing, diverse populations. They do the hard work necessary to help communities understand the changes around and beyond them. Fears are acknowledged and addressed, not dismissed and ignored. Programs and policies are put into place to welcome immigrants and refugees into the community without displacing native born residents.

The combination of a more diverse America and a rapidly-changing economy has exacerbated a perception that immigrants and immigration are a threat, not a benefit, to American communities. In this new normal, there are two paths we can take. One leads to an expanded sense of community, positively influenced by a diversity of sights, sounds and relationships that come from global migration. The second, darker path is more insular, narrowed by fears of immigration.

These days, it feels like America has chosen the second path where leaders are quick to sow seeds of xenophobia and division. The seeds that lead to cultural, security and economic fears define the questions that polarize the nation’s immigration debate:

• Culture: Are immigrants and refugees isolating or integrating? Do they live in isolated enclaves, or are they immersed in the community, learning English and becoming American?
• Security: Are immigrants and refugees threats or protectors? Are they national security or public safety threats, or do they make positive contributions to communities, even serving in law enforcement and in the military?
• Economy: Are immigrants and refugees takers or givers? Are they taking jobs and benefits, or are they economic contributors?

Rather than help Americans understand and facilitate the cultural and economic changes around them, supporters of immigration ignore these questions, while anti-immigrant forces weaponize them. Yet, we observed that when Living Room Conversations participants were able to voice their fears and feel heard, the discussion migrated away from division towards solutions.

Changing course requires us to understand the broader context of demographic change, the fears Americans have, and, more importantly, how to acknowledge and address those fears. Only then can America live up to the ideal of e pluribus, unum – “out of many, one.”

A Changing Nation

In a historical context, what we’re experiencing is not new. In 1890 and again in 1910, U.S foreign-born residents and citizens made up at least 14.7 percent of the nation’s population. Decades of xenophobia and political backlash followed the 1910 crest, resulting in multiple laws restricting immigration. Today, with 13.7 percent of the United States’ current population being foreign born, we are at a similar inflection point . What lies ahead depends on how Americans think about and engage with community.

Today, more than 40 million U.S. residents and citizens were born in another country. And, while immigration of generations past diversified the ethnic makeup of the nation, modern day immigration has made today’s America more racially and ethnically diverse than ever before. The Pew Research Center paints a colorful statistical portrait of America in 2016 where Mexican immigrants accounted for 26 percent of the nation’s foreign born, with the next largest origin groups are those from China (6 percent), India (6 percent), and the Philippines (4 percent). And America will only become more diverse in the years ahead, with Asians as a whole projected to become the largest immigrant group by 2055.

The diversification of America’s communities is not wholly dependent on future immigration. In fact, new U.S. Census estimates found that for the first time, in 2013 over half of babies born in the U.S. were non-white. Which means, “non-Hispanic whites will cease to be the majority group by 2044.

The challenge is that the combination of demographic and economic changes is hard to unpack for Americans who see their community and their livelihood changing at the same time.

For recent generations of Americans, a diverse America is the reality they were born into. But, for the nation’s Baby Boomers — those born between 1946 and 1964 — these were tectonic shifts that rattled their economic and social framework. In 1960, 88.6 percent of the U.S. population was white, dropping to 72.4 percent in 2010. In 1970, 4.5 percent of the nation’s population was Hispanic. Just 40 years later the Hispanic population quadrupled to 16.3 percent.

In the 1990’s, as the nation’s immigrant population began to grow, the Baby Boomer generation peaked at 78.8 million. At this point, Baby Boomers were between 25 and 45 years old, and beginning to start their families, worrying about college tuition and job prospects for their children. And along comes immigration and globalization to fundamentally reshape their socioeconomic reality.

As American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin said in 2016 before the House Ways and Means Committee, from World War II to 2007, the economy grew fast enough that GDP per capita — a crude measure of the standard of living — doubled on average every 35 years, or one working career. Coming out of 2008’s Great Recession, projections indicated that it would double every 75 years. And, in 2016, those households that worked full-time for the full year saw zero increase in their real incomes. As Holtz-Eakin put it, “The American Dream is disappearing over the horizon.” For many Americans experiencing this new reality, particularly as their children came of working age, immigration was a source of competition, not of optimism.

It isn’t hard to see why Americans are feeling stress and anxiety about their future. Demographic, economic and cultural shifts lead them to question their sense of community and turn too quickly to blame immigrants as the source of their problems. Our politics track this anxiety as the generational and geographic divide between political parties grows. So much so that the difference in generational diversity is driving not only a competing sense of community, but divergent political priorities.

Our starting point in this case is the fact that nearly half of Americans under the age of 20 are minority, while over three-quarters of those 65 and older are non-Hispanic white. William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer, writes, “The rapid growth of minorities from the ‘bottom up’ of the age structure is creating a racial generation gap between the old and young that reflects the nation’s changing demography.” He finds that 75 percent of the population over age 55 is white, while 54 percent of those under age 35 are white – a “gap” of 21 percent, nationally. As a result, the lived experience of Baby Boomers is fundamentally different than Millennials; a difference that lays the foundation for very different perspectives on community.

Most importantly, Frey finds, “The gap is especially high in states that that have received recent waves of new minority residents to counter more established old whiter populations: Arizona leads all states with a gap of 33 percent.” Nevada, New Mexico, Florida and California round out the top five. With the exception of New Mexico, all five states have been the epicenter of heated immigration debates as older voters pressure lawmakers to clamp down on immigration through a range of local enforcement policies.

To state the obvious, our changing nation has changed our politics. The echo chamber nature of our political debate creates bubbles where perceptions of community are narrow and divisive. Driven by primary elections, policy makers have little incentive to explain these changes to their electorate, much less reach out beyond their base. As a result, a racial and geographic divide to our politics settles in.

Luzerne County, which includes and surrounds Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, provides a 2016 election example. The county’s diversity index — which measures the variance of the racial and origin-based composition of a given population — increased by 360 percent from 2000 to 2015. It was one of the counties that saw a dramatic swing from blue to red in 2016. President Barack Obama carried Luzerne County by nearly 5 percentage points in 2012. Four years later, based on a campaign defined by racial and geographic fearmongering, President Trump carried the county by more than 19 points.

The racial gap between the parties grew in 2018. While 54 percent of whites voted for Republicans, African Americans, Latinos and Asians voted for Democrats at 90 percent, 64 percent and 69 percent, respectively. And, geographically speaking, urban and suburban voters preferred Democratic candidates, while voters in small towns and rural places favored Republicans.

Estimates indicate that by 2040, approximately 70 percent of Americans will live in the 15 largest states. Even as New York City, Los Angeles and Houston continue to see population growth, 30 percent of the country’s population — living in smaller states without major metropolitan centers — will hold disproportionate electoral power. Unless political and civic leaders have strategies to help communities understanding the changes they see (or read about), political dysfunction will lead to national tension.

Coming of age in big cities that include a greater range of economic opportunities, many (mostly liberal) Americans are insulated from the demographic and cultural changes Americans in suburban or rural communities struggle with. Diverse, urban environments have been built over generations, and the changes there have been steady and gradual. While not perfect or easy, cities allow youth and families to familiarize themselves with the idea of diversity. Over time, it becomes the norm as institutions in urban areas shape, and were shaped by, the diversity of the populations they served or engaged.

Suburban and rural parts of the country, home to an older and white population, with less access to the spoils of the technology economy, experienced these demographic changes more recently, and more dramatically. The changes that took place were proportionately larger, faster, and more acute – and accompanied changes as the global economy shifted. Demographic changes became a proxy for economic disruption.

Unless we change course, the political divide between young and old, rural and urban, will only widen as migration pressures are exacerbated by continuing economic shifts. Needless to say, the need for a different understanding of the American community has a certain level of urgency.

With or without immigration, the American community is becoming more diverse. As Richard Longworth of the Chicago Council for Global Affairs put it, “You can’t build a wall against hormones.” Which means we are not going to return to the Baby Boomer definition of America.

So charting a viable path toward compromise and common purpose requires us to meet people where they are, understanding the origins of their hopes and fears and reactions to their fast-changing communities. Our current politics and politicians limit the opportunities to do this kind of work. Ultimately, we must work together to hold elected officials from both parties accountable for divisive rhetoric.

Understanding the Fears

Deepened understanding of these fears and anxieties starts with careful listening. The National Immigration Forum works to engage conservative and moderate faith, law enforcement and business leaders living in the Southeast, South Central, Midwest and Mountain West, regions that have experienced some of the fastest growth in the foreign-born population and are struggling with the political and cultural changes that come with it.

In the sprint of 2018, Forum staff traveled to dozens of rural and suburban communities in conservative regions of the country to convene “Living Room Conversations.” We tapped into our networks of faith, law enforcement and business leaders to recruit 10-15 participants per conversation in order to better understand how conservative leaning rural and suburban communities perceived a changing America. A discussion guide designed by a team of researchers helped us lead robust and open conversations that included themes of identity, community and polarization, and perceptions about immigrants.

We launched this learning campaign to test our hypothesis that Americans grapple with three specific fears that lead to critical questions of our changing sense of community:

To complement our findings, we partnered with More in Common, an international initiative to build stronger and more resilient communities and societies, which had just completed an exhaustive quantitative survey of the American public. More in Common’s report, “Hidden Tribes : A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” provides greater texture to these issues. Rather than a typical conservative versus liberal categorization of the public, their research led to a segmentation of the American public into seven tribes. Four of the tribes, they concluded, are a part of the “Exhausted Majority.”

More in Common’s findings aligned with the results of our Living Room Conversations, “Unsettling changes in our economy and society have left many Americans feeling like strangers in their own land.” They defined the Exhausted Majority as being:

• Fed up with the polarization plaguing American government and society
• Feeling forgotten in the public discourse, overlooked because their voices are seldom heard
• Flexible in their views, willing to endorse different policies according to the precise situation rather than sticking ideologically to a single set of beliefs
• Believe we can find common ground

Just because the Exhausted Majority is, well, exhausted, it doesn’t mean they agree on the issues. Their views on issues range across the spectrum but they are turned off by polarization, feel disregarded in the public discourse, and are flexible in their views. So, while there are certainly a large number of Americans trying to find consensus on our nation’s changing communities, finding that consensus requires careful listening.

As the authors wrote, “It would be a mistake to think of the Exhausted Majority merely as a group of political centrists, at least in the way that term is traditionally understood. They do not simply represent a midpoint between the warring tribes of the left and right. They are frustrated with the status quo and the conduct of American politics and public debate.”

This mirrors what we saw in our 26 Living Room Conversations across the country in 2018. Participants wanted leaders to hear their concerns. They sought information they can trust. And there was an unambiguous desire to rise above polarization and divisiveness in order to build coalitions and advance overdue policy reforms.

Before specific fears or anxieties came to the fore, questions of identity undergirded the conversation.

Francis Fukuyama wrote that the nation’s identity crisis is exacerbated by the perception of invisibility. “The resentful citizens fearing the loss of their middle-class status point an accusatory finger upward to the elite, who they believe do not see them, but also downward to the poor, who they feel are unfairly favored.” Therefore, “Economic distress is often perceived by individuals more as a loss of identity than as a loss of resources.

The perception that one’s job is going to be taken by the Mexican next door, or the Mexican in Mexico, creates a deep distrust of demographic change and the elites who seem so comfortable with it. Again, perception melds into reality and our political leaders are ill equipped to navigate the changes – or, more often, exploit the changes to divide rather than unite the electorate.

Fukuyama goes on, “The rightward drift also reflects the failure of contemporary left-leaning parties to speak to people whose relative status has fallen as a result of globalization and technological change.” The nation’s changes are much bigger than demography.

The authors of a new book, Identity Crisis, define “racialized economics” as “the belief that undeserving groups are getting ahead while your group is left behind.” As Washington Post columnist Dan Balz explained, “Issues of identity — race, religion, gender and ethnicity — and not economics were the driving forces that determined how people voted, particularly white voters.” We know from recent data that 69 percent of Americans — including 56 percent of Republicans — believe immigrants are “an important part of American identity.” But what shines through in our work, whether it was the Living Room Conversations or our broader approach, is that the when you localize the concept of “identity,” the term speaks as much to people’s hopes as to their fears.

“You’re a little bit of everything, and that’s really what America is … and that is the beauty and some of the angst in America … that you don’t want to give up your heritage.”

In Corpus Christi, Texas, we heard about the loss of American identity, while in Memphis, Tennessee, we heard that the church can be a powerful entity that organizes efforts to build transformative and inclusive national identities. In Gainesville, Florida, a man told us that “we are tribal and can’t handle difference,” whereas up the road in Tallahassee, we heard, “One of America’s proudest and most beautiful things is that it is a melting pot of cultures.” In Bentonville, Arkansas, a participant remarked, “You’re a little bit of everything, and that’s really what America is … and that is the beauty and some of the angst in America … that you don’t want to give up your heritage.”

Identity also speaks to a person’s community; which, at times, is different from the idea of an American identity. Numerous participants told us their identities were tied to their local communities, their neighborhoods, their sense of place. In Texas, unsurprisingly, there was a strong affinity with the idea of being “a Texan.” And Bentonville had a deep sense of civic pride when participants talked about the community’s growing diversity. Overlooking people’s economic concerns would be an error, but so would underestimating the power of identity as it underlies broader fears and anxieties people have.

With change taking hold all around them, we watched law enforcement officers, small business owners, and pastors — in real time — soul-searching, exploring what these changes mean to their own identities. Those who were hopeful saw their identities connected to larger themes of values and ideals. Those who were fearful found themselves in the midst of “an identity crisis.” But if they felt heard, if their opinion mattered, the tension melted out of the room.

So, why does the imperative to help America reimagine a sense of community in this global environment feel so challenging?

We need to move past binary arguments that attempt to delineate between race and class concerns. As our work has demonstrated, Americans experience immigration in a much more complicated way; our explanation of immigration, and engagement of the public, has to be just as complex.

Culture: Are immigrants integrating or isolating?

While cultural concerns are linked to identity, participants spoke to them in the context of a changing country, not always how they identified within those changes. For some participants, issues of race and ethnicity were central. For others, language determined whether an immigrant was integrating into American culture. Diversity and inclusion were also a consistent theme; as one participant in Fresno, California, said, “We don’t celebrate diversity … and too often it’s been us and them.”

A participant in El Paso, Texas, captured the tension between cultural integration: “It’s just easy to be American, and that is what this country is about, that we assimilate and unite as Americans … and I see that as a problem with some immigrants that want to isolate themselves and try to continue their own cultural behaviors — styles and behaviors … while they want to take advantage of the privileges of America … ”

In Appleton, Wisconsin, we heard that immigration “grows our culture, makes us more educated, [and] better people.” In Lubbock, Texas, a participant remarked, “I think [immigrants] bring a lot to our community by way of service and family values.” But in Las Vegas, Nevada, we heard that although immigrants are viewed as patriotic and hardworking, there were anxieties around a loss of cultural and language unity.

The conversations echoed More in Common’s findings: that freedom, equality and the American Dream are beliefs that make someone American, and that the ability to speak English can be valued as an important marker of American identity.

Security: Are immigrants threats or protectors?

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, security and terrorism concerns have loomed large in the nation’s immigration debate. More recently, the administration’s enforcement actions at the border and in the interior, along with progressive efforts to “Abolish ICE” and create “sanctuary cities,” have further polarized the debate. As the Trump administration falsely conflates immigration, terrorism and crime in order to achieve political goals, voters are left looking for information they can trust.

Our conversations indicated that personal relationships mitigated fears that center on security. People were willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to the “good” immigrants they knew. But many participants indicated that portrayals of immigrants as security threats are pervasive throughout the media. Therefore, even if people believe that such portrayals are misleading, what they read in the newspaper or saw on the television influenced their opinions.

Some 65 percent of Americans, including 42 percent of Republicans, do not believe that undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit serious crimes, according to Pew Research. This maps to reports that show, “immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than the native-born.”

In the border town of El Paso, we observed a tension between some Americans wrestling with a desire to be compassionate as they fear threats posed by unauthorized immigration. The conversation in Mesa, Arizona, which included a handful of local law enforcement officers, revealed that although issues of legality and criminality continue to plague local residents’ perceptions and attitudes, participants generally agreed that immigrants do not pose an increased security threat. In Parker, Colorado, the sense among participants was that the broader community did believe immigrants posed a security threat.

Security fears are difficult to overcome. Even if someone feels immigrants are not a threat, one tragic incident, one hyperbolic headline, can plant a seed of doubt. All of which underscores the importance of local law enforcement in the conversation about the changing American community.

We often hear that immigrants have a bootstraps mentality — they work as hard as they can to build a better life. Data suggest that these participants are echoing national sentiment. A 2017 Gallup Poll found that 45 percent of Americans believe immigrants make the economy better overall, compared with 30 percent who believe immigrants make the economy worse overall. It’s a sentiment that lines up with the contributions immigrants make to the U.S. economy: According to New American Economy, immigrants paid $105 billion in state and local taxes, and around $224 billion in federal taxes, in 2014.

Participants in southern border communities, where the economy is closely tied to Mexico and to immigration, recognized the economic benefit of immigration. In San Marcos, California, participants saw that the economy is dependent on the ability of businesses to buy and sell in both the U.S. and Mexico. There was general agreement among participants in Corpus Christi that immigrants were an economic benefit. On the other hand, thousands of miles from the border in Spartanburg, South Carolina, participants remarked that some in the community invoked the economy as a reason to close borders and deport people here without authorization.

Fears related to the economy can be persistent. We can address questions of culture and security only to have questions about jobs and trade linger. Business leaders, at the national or local level, can help Americans understand a changing community when they partner with other civic leadership. Speaking to American competitiveness and growth in a fashion that serves all workers, American and immigrant, helps people understand the value of immigration to the nation. When the message is immigrant-centric, people feel left out of the conversation, believing elites are looking for cheaper workers.

Changing Hearts and Minds

More in Common concluded, “To bring Americans back together, we need to focus first on those things that we share, and this starts with our identity as Americans.” Questions of race, religion, and patriotism led to competing frames that pushed people apart. But, “One belief that brings Americans together is a sense that the country is special.”

We observed that when Living Room Conversations participants with different religious or political beliefs felt that their individual concerns were being heard, the tension in their voices dissipated, and their faces brightened. The discussions turned towards solutions, not divisions. In our conversations, we saw the same theme More in Common found in their data: a need for new approaches and a different conversation on immigration that helps people come together.

Taken together, the Living Room Conversations left us with a powerful realization: American identity is being reshaped as perceptions related to culture, security and the economy are shifting. Quickly changing demographics are not solely responsible; the industries of the past are giving way to the industries of the future, and the transition from a post-industrial to a knowledge-based economy is disruptive. New technologies, social norms and conventions are accentuating the way many Americans view issues such as immigration. When it comes to identity in the context of culture, security, and the economy, there is both optimism and concern.

“It’s very easy to hate from a distance,” one participant in Spartanburg said. But as people get to know the immigrant family next door, at their child’s Little League games, or one pew over at church, they come to understand them, appreciate them, love them and value their individual contributions to the larger American story. The challenge in front of us is whether we can bridge the personal relationships with a broader perception of immigrants.

Which leads to the foundational question: What actually changes people’s hearts and minds? It is easy to assume, and a lot of social change campaigns do, that if you can change someone’s attitude or emotion towards something, you can change behavior. But that isn’t really true, or, at least it’s not the whole picture.

From the Theory of Planned Behavior we learn that campaigns that focus solely on creating an emotional reaction, shifting an attitude or even creating empathy, don’t tend to have sustained and lasting effects on behavior. In other words, the emotionally gripping story of a mother seeking asylum or a successful immigrant business owner offers a fleeting sense of what is possible. And in this media environment, that moment is quickly replaced by the next headline.

Taking a step back to offer an audience an emotion, attitude or empathetic moment connected to an underlying belief or value, allows for a conversation about change that can be sustained. And when that value or belief is connected to a person’s self-perception and connected to the norms of their community, there is potential for behavioral change.

The new normal is a fast changing, fast moving world that impacts the way Americans see themselves and each other. And, at least for the foreseeable future, the fears of migration and immigration will continue to be exploited for political gain.

Few politicians can step into this fray unless they are willing to cross partisan lines. Which is hard to imagine these days.

But local leadership — the pastor, the police chief, the local business owner – have the potential to bridge the divide. These are the trusted messengers who can operate within the networks of friends and family that are some of the most trusted places in society.

They are the local leadership with the trust and the credibility to help Americans understand the shifting nature of community in the context of global migration. They are trusted leadership who can meet people where they are, but not leave them there.

About the Author

Ali Noorani

Ali Noorani is the Executive Director of the National Immigration Forum, a non-partisan advocacy organization working with faith, law enforcement and business leaders to promote the value of immigrants and immigration. Growing up in California as the son of Pakistani immigrants, Noorani quickly learned how to forge alliances among people of wide-ranging backgrounds, a skill that has served him extraordinarily well as one of the nation’s most innovative coalition builders. Noorani is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, holds a Master’s in Public Health from Boston University and is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley. Noorani is a regular contributor to Boston Public Radio, the author of “There Goes the Neighborhood: How Communities Overcome Prejudice and Meet the Challenge of American Immigration,” (Prometheus, April 2017) and host of “Only in America” podcast. He lives in Washington, D.C.

Click here to download essay and view full footnote references . The author’s views expressed in this essay are his own.

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417 Immigration Topics to Write about & Essay Examples

Welcome to our list of catchy immigration essay titles! Here, you will find a variety of immigration topics to write about as well as writing prompts and presentation ideas.

🔝 Top 10 Immigration Titles for Essays

📝 key points to use to write an outstanding immigration essay, 🏆 best immigration topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on immigration, 🎓 simple & easy immigration essay titles, 🥇 most interesting immigration topics to write about, 📌 immigration writing prompts, ✅ good research topics about immigration, ❓ immigration essay questions, ✨ creative titles for immigration essays, 🚀 immigration topics for presentation.

• How Migration Shapes Identities
• Assimilation vs. Multiculturalism
• Immigration Policies and Their Effects
• Global Responses the Refugee Crisis
• Immigration and Crime: Fact vs. Fiction
• Immigration’s Impact on Social Integration
• Educational Challenges and Opportunities for immigrants
• What Are the Health Impacts of Immigration?
• The Effects of Immigration on Family Separation
• What’s the Role of Immigrants in Entrepreneurship?

Immigration essay is a popular type of assignment in various topics, including politics and social sciences. In a globalized world, people can migrate from one country to another for work, study, and other reasons.

This post will discuss some points that you could include in your essay on immigration to earn a high mark!

First of all, you should provide some background information on the subject. For example, if you are writing an essay about immigration in the United States, describe and discuss the key periods when immigration was high. Try to think about the following questions:

• What motivates people to immigrate a certain country?
• Why is immigration higher in developed countries than in developing ones?
• What are some examples of government policies promoting or reducing immigration?

Secondly, you should cover the key pro/con immigration arguments. Whether your essay is argumentative, persuasive, or informative, you need to acknowledge that immigration has both advantages and disadvantages. Here is a list of questions that you might want to ask yourself while writing the paper:

• What influence does immigration have on the economy?
• Does immigration make it easier or harder for people to find employment?
• Why are some people against immigration, even when it’s legal?

The third point you should address in your essay is illegal immigration.

This is a significant topic in many countries, including the United States. To make sure that your paper receives an excellent mark, answer the following questions:

• What are the reasons that make people immigrate illegally?
• What are your country’s policies with regards to illegal immigrants?
• What impact do illegal aliens have on the economy and society?
• Why are some countries targeted by illegal immigrants more often than others?
• What can governments do to prevent illegal migration without violating human rights and freedoms?

One of the most important immigration essay topics is the immigrant experience. While many students write about immigration, they often fail to present a comprehensive view of the concept.

To avoid this mistake, consider what immigrants feel and experience when they decide to come to a different country. If you have a friend who is an immigrant, you can interview them. Here are a few ideas to think about:

• What are the most widespread challenges faced by immigrants?
• How do people plan their life in a different country?
• Do language barriers affect their relationships with other people, access to medical care, and education?
• How do immigrants adjust to a new culture?
• Can an immigrant integrate fully into the community?

Lastly, when thinking of essay topics about immigration, it is impossible to ignore the impact of immigration on society. Indeed, most essay titles in this area are focused on positive and negative social consequences of immigration. To cover this point in your paper, you may try to answer these questions:

• Does immigration facilitate social division and can this effect be prevented?
• Why do some people oppose cultural and racial diversity? What is cultural assimilation, and is it helpful to modern societies?
• How can cultural pluralism and multiculturalism influence communities in immigrant-rich countries?
• What can we do to ensure that immigration benefits all people, including native citizens?

Hopefully, this post has provided you with some things to talk about in your future immigration essays. Make sure to check sample papers and free essay titles about immigration on our website!

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• Immigration: Social Issue Feeling Analysis From the global perspective, the most influencing countries in the world use visa and other conditions of entering the country as a migration regulating tool.
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• Immigration: Life Chances and Difficulties Other factors are unsuitable weather conditions, persecution, threats to life or health, poverty in the country, risks of disease, and infection. Therefore, immigrants want to find a better place to live in order to improve […]
• The Crisis of Cultural Identity of Luxembourg Due to Massive Immigration The possibility of a city-wide display exhibiting the workmanship and specialties of Luxembourg could be a method for opening the secret of the nation’s way of life. There is an incredible blend of individuals who […]
• Resolving Mexico’s Immigration Crisis A stable rate of immigrants and refugees, particularly traveling in so ‘caravans’ coming from South and Central Americas into Mexico with the hopes of reaching the U.S.or finding permanent residence in Mexico at the least.
• Immigration, Cultural Encounters, and Cultural Clashes He also obeyed the religious traditions of his country by avoiding beef in his food, opting for milk and cornflakes as a meal.
• The Birth of Illegal Immigration In addition, Americans blamed Chinese immigrants for low wages and the unemployment rate, which further influenced the ban on Asians to move to the U.S.
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• Biden Ends Workplace Immigration Raids, Reversing Trump Policy Firstly, the announcement will contribute immensely towards the integrity of most employers in the sense that it is going to push employers to pursue only documented immigrants for labor without putting excessive pressure on the […]
• Immigration: The Costs and Benefits According to the author, due to the prevailing ethnocentrism and the division of society into “us” and “outsiders,” the community often treats immigrants with prejudice.
• Analysis of DACA and Immigration Illegal immigration and its handling has always been a hot button topic in the US, especially after the events of 9/11 and the creation of the department of homeland security.
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• Analysis of Immigration Issues The lack of protection for the work of immigrants demands compared to people born in this country and who had the opportunity to get a job because the state protects them.
• US Immigration Policy and Its Correlation to Structural Racism That may create breaches in the immigration policy and cause social instability that could endanger the status of immigrants and even negatively affect the lives of the nationals.
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• Impacts of Immigration and Urbanization Urbanization is a special term that describes the decreasing proportion of people who live in rural areas, the population shift from rural to urban areas, and the possible ways of societies’ adaption to these changes. […]
• The Implications of Immigration When considering the results of the process, both the sender and the receiver country must be discussed, as well as the implications for the migrants themselves.
• Aspects of Immigration Reform Creating a fair, legal, and humane immigration system requires the legalization of almost 11 million immigrants already staying in the country and the simplification of obtaining citizenship in the country.
• COVID-19 and Immigration Issues On March 20th, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the US Department of Health and Human Services issued a special order to curb the spread of COVID-19.
• Homeland Security Analysis: The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services The mission and duties of this agency are closely related to the September 11 events not to face similar losses and threats in the future.
• Immigration Policy in Germany and the United States Germany and the United States contrast each other in resolving the public issue of immigration. The immigration policies of Germany and the United States cater to specific key stakeholders.
• Immigration and Naturalization Service Officer Career For the present paper, I have selected to profile the careers of Custom Officer and Immigration and Naturalization Service Officer. However, the entry-level position for customs is often administrative assistant, who works mainly with documents […]
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• Immigration and Multiculturalism: Flow of Workers This paper aims to address the question of whether the flow of workers makes a positive impact on the host country in the context of society and business.
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• Immigrant Adaptation Patterns Generally, the main difference of this form of adaptation is in the fact that immigrants may continue having their own cultural perceptions as their connections with the motherland are still strong due to family ties, […]
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• Immigration Of Mexicans Into The United States In The Early 20th Century In the book, “Becoming Mexican American: ethnicity, culture, and identity in Chicano Los Angeles 1900-1945”, the author, Sanchez, addresses various issues that led to the immigration of Mexican into the United States. Community crisis is […]
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• Failure of Immigration Laws in Pakistan and Its Influence on American Economy The military death and announcement of the Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden by the president of the United States of America have raised eyebrows on the immigration policies of Pakistan as a sovereign nation.
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• Immigration: The Ethical Side So, in order to make it clear, the essay will touch upon ethical advantages and disadvantages of immigration for the countries of origin and for the US.
• Mexican-US Immigration: Causes and Effects The drift of Mexicans or Latinos into the US is begging for increased concerns recently, especially among Republicans and the concern around decision tables is to itemize and resolve causes and effects that are directly […]
• Current Immigration Patterns in Canada The refugee population is made up of the populace who come to seek refuge in Canada as well as the populace made up of persons brought to Canada by churches, private sponsors as well as […]
• Arizona’s 2010 Immigration Law and US Economy A challenge is thrown to this clause by the 2010 Arizona immigration Law in America. It is this very thing that the founding fathers of the American Constitution had feared and thus took steps to […]
• The American Immigration Debate In the context of the present discussion of the immigrant debate in the US, one should turn to the work of Brimelow who has offered a rather radical solution to the problem of immigration.
• Immigration Issues in the USA The USA is the country that was built up of immigrants at the period of British colonization about three centuries ago; people who could not find their happiness and welfare in the Old Land came […]
• Causes and Consequences of Immigration to Canada The Chinese and Japanese still kept their oriental culture while the rest of the immigrants adapted to the new way of living in Canada.
• Ellis Island as an Immigration Station The minority of the un-admitted immigrants who had spent time and energy on the long journey to the Island led to the Island being referred to as “The Heartbreak Island” or the “The Island of […]
• Race Relations in Britain. Immigration Situation This was the first large-scale migration of colored immigrants as compared to the minimal migrations that Britain had gotten used to.
• Saenz’ Opinion on Comprehensive Legislation on Immigration In addition to this is the fact that, it would be in accordance with the respect for human rights that the country stands for.
• Russian Immigration to America after 1945 The first wave of migration of the Russians was in the second half of the nineteenth century and during the early 20th Century before the First World War.
• Social Issues in Kuwait: Immigration Workforce Among the frequently highlighted issues in the country, one is the low productivity among the local workforce due to the high influence of favoritism and nepotism in promotions and merits.
• Immigration in California: “Moving Still” by Francisco Jimenez The atmosphere of fear and poverty forced the families to break the rules and to overcome the frontier in the pursuit of welfare.
• US Immigration in Late 19th Century In the late 19th century, following the stream of the “Gold Rush”, millions of immigrants entered the United States, most of them attracted by the opportunity to earn “easy money” and to escape the hardships […]
• Humanities. Immigration Issues in the United States The scope of the problem of illegal immigration in the United States has remained undefined due to the vagueness of the immigration policies.
• The Effects of Immigration in Texas The period between 200 and 2006 saw the population of the foreign-born in the Texas state increase by twenty-four percent and it was during this same period that the state gained over 650,000 immigrants bringing […]
• Jobs and the American Economy: The Issue of Immigration The issues of immigration to the USA, either legal or illegal are of great significance for the US government. Since the 1990s, lots of academic researches have tried to charge the extent to which immigration […]
• Catholic and Jewish Immigration in the United States The experiences and challenges of starting a new life in America were very different for both the Catholics and the Jews primarily because of their different social cultural and social economic disparities.
• The History of Canadian Immigration and Innovative Federal Immigration Policy Though this phenomenon has outlined in positive financial growth in Canada there are lots of fundamental complexities that immigrants usually have to challenge when immigrating to Canada comprising the underdevelopment of community services, difficulties in […]
• French Immigration: Rights of Foreign-Born Citizens An analysis of the impact of immigrants on the average level and distribution of income among the native population shows that immigrants with higher levels of skill are more likely to raise the average level […]
• Women Study: Immigration and Mothering One of the most essential areas of such studies is immigration in relation to gender and specifically mothering.”Immigration and Mothering; Case Studies from Two Generations of Korean Immigrant Women” by Seungsook Moon is an attempt […]
• Illegal Immigration: Difference in Covering the Matter The aim of the paper is to discover the difference in covering the matter of illegal migration to Canary Islands from sub-Saharan including periodical issues, radio broadcasts, and a photo, in order not only to […]
• Amending Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 The arguments for the former side include the following: first is that there is an unprecedented increase in the inflow of illegal workers in the United States.
• Why Immigration Is a Problem When Amir came to rescue him, he is beaten by Assef and Sohrab hits Assef with a stone from the sling in the eye and it is when they manage to escape and go back […]
• Necessity of Immigration Reform in America Basically, immigration reform pertains to policies and programs that aim to improve the development of the quality of life that will aid in the adjustments of the immigrants.
• Open Immigration Borders Migration: Effects of Muslim Ideologically, the presence of the Muslim religion has affected the lives of the people of France in one way or the other.
• Immigration Asian Indians in America For American immigration history, it means that it coincides with the settlement of the country: the settlement of America was influenced more by the immigration processes rather than by the natural increase of the citizens.
• Immigration, Hispanics, and Mass Incarceration in the U.S. This article evaluates the effect of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, that led to the legalization of approximately 3 million immigrants had on the crime rates in the U.S.
• Immigration and Labor Law The majority of research findings suggest that despite the active work of the legislative branch on the improvement of immigration policies, the lives of both documented and undocumented foreigners are obstructed with multiple limitations and […]
• Immigration as a Source of Community Problems In order to address the immigration concern, one will have to create a more welcoming and inviting economic and social environment for immigrants, reducing the propensity toward a cross-cultural conflict and engaging the members of […]
• How Immigration Affects Global Business The purpose of this paper is to apply different case studies and thoughts to describe how immigration continues to affect global business.
• Federal Immigration Policy: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals It allowed people who came to the U.S.as minors to be in the U.S.legally. Hence, my perspective is that one needs to be educated and well-informed on the ongoing situation, as it concerns every person […]
• Immigration History of New York City: The Most Significant Center for New Arrivals This essay addresses the immigration history of New York City through the examination of the general history of American immigration, the city’s background, and its contemporary state from the perspective of newcomers.
• The Migrant and Immigration Issues in the US Society Reading John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Helena Mar a Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus altered my understanding of the problems related to migration and immigration.
• The History of Korean American Immigration Experience Firstly, the documentary by Coffman displays the urge of the Korean people to avoid the Japanese imperialism that was developing on the Korean territory at that time.
• Immigration Issues in the United States It was built on the labor, ideas, and cultural melting pot of immigrants coming to the US in the hopes of achieving the American dream, finding a new life, and establishing a home for their […]
• New Waves of Immigration to the United States The author specifies that, with the U.S.quickly becoming a crucial political power in the global arena, people from the countries that were either colonized by the U.S.or suffered economic issues because of the economic expansion […]
• Immigration and Crime Rates in the United States The paper evaluates the effects of immigration on crime in America and discusses the hidden dangers of America’s political asylum opportunities. There ought to be a law that limits the number of political asylum seekers […]
• Labor Economy and Immigration A particular way to measure discrimination in the context of labor is to calculate mean earnings indicators for groups of people of different gender and age and to come from different ethnic backgrounds; in case […]
• The Immigration Museum: Cultural Diversity in Australia The Immigration Museum is an exhibition center that was opened in 1998, with the aim of exhibiting the cultural diversity and the Indigenous history of Australia.
• International Immigration Flows: Economic Pressure Therefore, these countries experience economic integration and diversification, a factor that attract immigrants to new destinations due to favorable terms of trade.
• Social Issues of the Immigration Journal The authors studied the impacts of multiculturalism of the period 1980s to 1990s on institutional forms of immigrants in the Netherlands.
• Irish and German Immigration to the 19th-Century US In the middle of the 19th century, half of the Irish and German population immigrated to America. One of the main reasons that made Irish and Germans immigrate was the presence of large land in […]
• Employment Law: Immigration Reform and Control Act Due to this fact, Patricia and other employers are expected to follow the specifications of this law. There are several procedures that Patricia is expected to follow in the process of employment.
• Ethics of Illegal Immigration Effects on the US As such, the Immigration Act of 1924 was established, which promoted the immigration of foreign citizens into the US to meet these requirements, and also created several objective preconditions for foreigners to consider entering America […]
• Immigration Influence on Israeli Residents’ Personality Traits The research problem of the present study is how immigration, the following acculturation, and multilingualism influence the personality traits of Israeli residents.
• Current International Interest: Immigration in the US The regulations will defend the economic well-being of the legitimate immigrants who have already settled in the US while restricting the admission of foreign workers illegally.
• Changes in Immigration Policy Nevertheless, there are a lot of issues surrounding the policy that is connected both to the reaction of the community and the possible negative outcomes of its implementation.
• Fiscal Concerns and Public Attitude towards Immigration In the past few years, immigration has changed the demographic composition of a majority of the developed countries. The political economy approach considers the economic impacts of immigration that lead to native people rejecting or […]
• Illegal Immigration Issue in the USA The secure border could also be considered one of the possible solutions to the problem of illegal immigration as it will help to control this very aspect.
• Muslim Immigration to European Countries This popularity has been because of the high number of immigrants that have been witnessed in the preceding years in France, Germany, and Britain experiencing the largest influx of immigrants from different countries.
• Women’s Immigration and Its High Price However, these women and children must meet their daily needs, which implies that they have to seek employment from the host regions and countries.
• The New Immigration Laws Creating a New Realty The main advantage of this new policy is that it empowers the customs and immigration officials to deport anyone that they arrest for being in the country illegally.
• Donald Trump’s Immigration Speech The audience consisted mostly of his electorate and, judging from the reaction of the crowd observed in the video, the majority of the listeners were sympathetic with the content as they reacted positively to the […]
• Immigration Pros and Cons for the Immigrants Themselves This paper will evaluate the economic consequences of immigration to immigrants and will give a summary of how this is going to outweigh its negative social-economic consequences to the unskilled immigrants.
• Immigration in Britain and Social Cohesion In this regard, the surge in the number of immigrants in Britain is of political, social, and economic concern. The rising rate of immigration in Britain has elicited concerns that ethnic and racial diversity could […]
• Immigration as the Positive Economic Consequences in the USA
• Immigration and Urban Change in the USA
• Open Immigration, Its Benefits and Morality
• Illegal Immigration, Its Causes, Methods, Effects
• Current Immigration Issues in the United States
• Immigration in Trump’s Candidate Speech
• Immigration and Healthcare in the United States
• Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for Women
• Illegal Immigration Crisis: Problems and Solutions
• The Economics of Immigration
• Immigration Pros and Cons for the United States
• The Problems of Immigration: Muneera Qahtani Views
• A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life
• Identity, Immigration and American Public Opinion
• New York Times: Obama Vows to Push Immigration Changes
• Media View in Shaping Immigration
• Immigrants’ Human Rights in America: The Issue of Immigration as Old as the Country
• Immigration Effects in Patrick Buchanan’s The Death of the West
• How Immigration Relates to Post-Human and Globalization?
• Immigration in America: the Current Understanding
• Justice of Immigration in the United States
• Ontario Immigration Rates Growth
• Immigration, Voting and Naturalization Laws
• Reasons of Immigration Literature Growth
• Operation Jump Start in Immigration Issues: Pros and Cons
• Immigration and Its Effects to the Middle East
• Relationship of Immigration and Median Household
• Sheriff Joe’s Illegal Immigration in Arizona
• Immigration Laws in Arizona State
• UK Immigration in 2015
• Ethnic Groups in the US Immigration History
• Political Sciences: American Immigration
• Immigration Debate in the US
• Waves of Immigration to the United States
• Immigration Issues in Different Spheres
• Illegal Immigration in the United States
• Illegal Immigration Problem in the United States
• Immigration and Deportation Processes
• Is the Legalization of Illegal Aliens a Good Solution to Illegal Immigration in America?
• Middle Eastern Immigrants in Australia
• Immigration as Social Issue in Australia
• The Aspects of Immigration into Australia
• Role of Frontex in Combating Illegal Immigration in the European Union Territory
• Illegal Immigration in the United States as an Economic Burden
• The Issue of Muslims’ Immigration to Australia
• Stopping Illegal Immigration: Border Security
• Analysis of Race and Ethnicity in U.S. Immigration History
• History of Immigration to the United States
• Arab Immigration in USA
• U.S. Immigration Reform Policy Circa 2001 to Present
• Domestic and Immigration Policies
• Immigration and Changes in British Society around the Time Period the Novel is Set
• Bridging People Together: When Immigration Issue Comes to the Forth
• Immigration and Multiculturalism in Australia
• Economics and Immigration in Japan
• Immigration and Illegal Foreigners in Japan
• Legal Mexican Immigration Wave Since 1965
• Immigration to Australia (Arabic Case)
• Impact of the DREAM Act on Immigration in America
• Immigration of Filipino Nurses to the United States
• History of Immigration in the United States
• Immigration to the US After the Second World War
• Women and Immigration Challenges
• Immigration Reform in the United States
• Immigration Admission and Control Polices
• Immigration Policies and Economy
• Types of Diasporas: Articles Analysis
• Public Opinion on Immigration and Ethnic Relations in the US
• Effects of illegal immigration on the economy of the United States and the measures that be taken to minimize the effect
• Is Immigration an Economic benefit to the Host Country?
• Controversy Surrounding Immigration
• How Has Immigration Transformed the Life and Culture of London Over the Past 150 Years?
• Canadian Immigration Policies: Points-Based System
• U.S. Immigration Encouragement
• Errors Made by the United States Citizen and Immigration Service When Processing Immigration Forms
• Socio-Economic Benefits of Immigrant Population in the US and Canada
• Immigration in the Film ‘The Guest worker’
• Economic advantages and disadvantages of immigration into the U.S.
• Sweden and Denmark: Immigration policies
• Age at Immigration and Second Language Proficiency Among Foreign-born Adults by Gillian Stevens
• Immigration Specificity of ELLs in Canada and the USA
• Immigration Reform and the Economic Impact
• Immigration Reform in US Government
• Justice Theories and American Immigration System
• Political Immigration as Addressed in City on the Edge: The Transformation of Miami
• Impact of Immigration on the Geography of Canada
• Immigration: “City on the Edge” and “Friends or Strangers”
• The Political Affairs and Strategies of Immigration Laws in the State of North Carolina
• Immigration Bill in US
• Immigration bias on Hispanics in North Carolina
• Myths About Immigration in the U.S.
• Immigration, Socioeconomic and Upward Mobility and Cultural Assimilation
• United States Immigration History
• Concept of Race and Ethnicity in U.S. Immigration History
• The Root Cause of Racism and Ethnic Stratification in the US
• A Speech Touching on Immigration Reforms
• Women Immigration to US
• American Immigration History
• History of Immigration and Its Timeline in the United States
• History of Immigration – United States
• Rights of Immigrants and Immigration Policy
• Globalisation, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity in Vancouver
• Immigration and Discrimination in the Workplace
• Immigration Debate: Romney & Obama
• Immigration’s Influence on the USA
• Economic Consequences of Immigration
• Economic Consequences of Immigration on Socioeconomic Activities
• Immigration in the Contemporary American Society
• Factor that Cause Immigration
• Consequences of Immigration
• The Issue of Illegal Immigration
• Coming to America: An Exploration of Immigration
• Annotation of Immigration Effects on Homicide Offending for Total and Race/Ethnicity-Disaggregated Populations
• Anti-Anti Immigration: Principles to Make Migration Work
• Immigration as Political Issue in the USA
• Immigration Policy: Government Approach and Solutions
• Effect of Immigration on American Economy
• Migration, Immigration, and Emigration, and their Effects on Religion, Women, and Minorities in Egypt
• Illegal Immigration: Views of Policy Makers, Media and General Public
• The Impact of Immigration on the Economy of the USA
• The Chief Tool of the “White Australian Policy” was the Immigration Restriction Act, 1901
• The Immigration History in the United States
• Argument for Measures to Control Illegal Immigration
• The Immigration Status for Students
• Free-rider Problem and Illegal Immigration
• History of the Illegal Immigration into the U.S.
• The History of Canada, Its Position on Immigration
• Economic Contribution of Slaves and Present Day Legal and Illegal Immigration
• Legal Immigration versus Illegal Immigration in America
• Crossing Borders: Immigration Issue
• Immigration and Crime Rate
• Pros and Cons of Immigration for the Immigrants
• Implications of Illegal Immigration in the US
• Immigration Admissions and Control Policies
• Immigration Policies Challenges
• Analyzing the Issue of Illegal Immigration in the US
• Immigration and Ethnic Relations
• World Publics Welcome Global Trade – But Not Immigration
• Arizona Immigration Law Reform
• The Fact of Immigration in the US and Media Reaction
• Arizona Immigration Law: What For?
• Maria Full of Grace and De Nadie: Immigration in Terms of Shots and Angles
• Are Attitudes Towards Immigration Changing in Europe?
• Should Anti Immigration Measures Between the Us and Mexico Be?
• Are There Valid Economic Grounds for Restricting Immigration?
• Can Illegal Immigration Ever Be Solved?
• Does Education Affect Attitudes Towards Immigration?
• Should Nations Restrict Immigration?
• Why Do Americans Think Immigration Hurts the Economy?
• Can Illegal Immigration Lead to Terrorism?
• Can Immigration Alleviate the Demographic Burden?
• Does Immigration Affect Demand for Redistribution?
• Should America Encourage Immigration?
• Can Immigration Compensate for Europe’s Low Fertility?
• Are Concerns Over Immigration to Do With Culture of Economic Reasons?
• Can Immigration Reduce Imbalances Among Labor Markets?
• Does Immigration Affect the American Economy?
• Can Immigration Slow U.S. Population Aging?
• Can Old Immigration Theories Be Applied to New Immigrants?
• How Unification and Immigration Affected the German Income Distribution?
• Can Selective Immigration Policies Reduce Migrants’ Quality?
• Can Immigration Mitigate the Rising Pension Burden in Europe?
• Does Border Enforcement Protect U.S. Workers From Illegal Immigration?
• How Was Immigration Throughout the 1960s?
• Does Educational Choice Erode the Immigration Surplus?
• Should Countries Implement Immigration Quotas?
• Does Europe Need Mass Immigration?
• Can Immigration Save Our Social Protection System?
• Does Immigration Affect Public Education Expenditures?
• How Should the United States Treat the Present Day Immigrants?
• Should Immigration Standards Tougher?
• Who Has the Most Impact on Illegal Immigration Policy?
• Immigrant Stories: A Visual Journey
• How Cultural Identity is Redefined in Modern Immigration
• How Immigration Transforms Culinary Traditions
• Symbolism of Borders, Walls, and Bridges in Immigration Narratives
• Analysis of Science Fiction Works on Alien Immigration
• Does Language Unite or Divide Communities?
• Ways to Depict the Emotions of Immigrant Experience
• Immigration Stories in Song Form
• How Digital Technology Impacted Immigration
• The Possibility of Extraterrestrial Immigration
• Global Migration Patterns Throughout the 20th Century
• Immigration Policies Around the World: Comparison
• Push and Pull Factors of Immigration.
• The Impact of Immigration on Host Country’s Language.
• Approaches to Immigrant Inclusion.
• Challenges Faced by Refugees and Asylum Seekers
• The Role of Migrant Workers in a Country’s Economy
• Educational Opportunities for Immigrant Youth
• Myths and Reality of Undocumented Immigration
• How Immigration Detention Relates to Human Rights Concerns?
• Border Security and Migration Management Strategies
• How Do Migrants Negotiate Their Sense of Belonging?
• Humanitarian Issue of Family Separation
• Immigration Biases and Stereotypes in Media Representation
• Celebrating Diversity of Immigrants in Host Countries
• Social Problems Essay Ideas
• Social Responsibility Topics
• Colonization Essay Ideas
• Segregation Research Topics
• Immigration Reform Topics
• Human Trafficking Titles
• Cultural Identity Research Topics
• Demography Paper Topics
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, February 25). 417 Immigration Topics to Write about & Essay Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/immigration-essay-examples/

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About 500K undocumented immigrants will benefit from this executive order. How to apply

President Joe Biden's executive order Keeping Families Together went into effect Monday, initiating a process that could allow over half a million family members of U.S. citizens to stay in the country legally, the Department of Homeland Security announced.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services will begin accepting requests as of Aug. 19 to grant parole-in-place to eligible noncitizen spouses and stepchildren of U.S. citizens who are present in the country without lawful immigration status.

The notice follows Biden’s June directive to expand lawful pathways to keep families together and address "our broken immigration system."

“This is something that will help members of a community, people who have been working, contributing (to) and building their families in this country,” said Ben Monterroso, co-founder and senior advisor at Poder Latinx, a nationwide civic and social justice organization dedicated to building and strengthening Latino political power.

The Department of Homeland Security estimates that more than two-thirds of noncitizens who are married to U.S. citizens are present in the country without due admission or parole, which makes them ineligible for status adjustment. Under the Keeping Families Together process, 500,000 noncitizen spouses and 50,000 noncitizen stepchildren may qualify for parole-in-place.

“Too often, noncitizen spouses of U.S. citizens — many of them mothers and fathers — live with uncertainty due to undue barriers in our immigration system,” said Ur M. Jaddou, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, in a statement. “This process to keep U.S. families together will remove these undue barriers for those who would otherwise qualify to live and work lawfully in the U.S., while also creating greater efficiencies in the immigration system, conducting effective screening and vetting, and focusing on noncitizens who contribute to and have longstanding connections within American communities across the country.”

Applicants who are granted parole through this process and are eligible could then apply for lawful permanent residence without having to leave the country.

“We have an opportunity to start coming out of the shadows of society and to continue contributing and living lives in this country, especially the half a million eligible to become legal permanent residents, to move on and to become U.S. citizens,” Monterroso said, adding he encourages everyone with the opportunity to apply to do so as soon as possible even amidst the current political climate, which may spook some potential applicants.

“I was legalized through the amnesty of the 80s,” he said, referring to the Simpson-Mazzoli Act of 1986 enacted by President Ronald Reagan that offered legalization and prospective naturalization to undocumented migrants and farm workers who entered the country prior to 1982.

Birthright citizenship in the U.S.: GOP candidates want to end it. Here's what to know

Besides the immigration reform in the 80s, Monterroso said a similar process occurred during the enactment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program established by President Barack Obama in 2012 that prompted fear among eligible individuals to put their names in official papers saying they were present in this country.

“The bottom line is we are here, we cannot (remain) invisible and afraid of being known. We have an opportunity to benefit and move forward with a legalized process in the U.S.,” he said.

Monterroso said Poder Latinx will continue its efforts to educate the community on the process and their rights, keeping in mind that the biggest opportunity citizens of this country have will come in November. 

“This is a step in the right direction, but it’s by no means the solution we need. We cannot ignore the fact that we have millions of others who also deserve an opportunity to come out of the shadows,” he said, adding that this is a problem that cannot be fixed solely through executive orders but through proper legislation.

“Those who are families, (those) married to a citizen should be able to participate in the elections to make sure elected officials do the right thing for everyone in this country,” Monterroso said.

Who is eligible to apply for the parole-in-place program?

Eligibility requirements for noncitizen spouses include having been continuously physically present in the country since June 17, 2014, and marriage to a U.S. citizen on or before June 17, 2024.

Applying noncitizen stepchildren must have been under the age of 21 and unmarried on June 17, 2024, and continuously physically present in the country since at least that date. Stepchildren must have a noncitizen parent married to a U.S. citizen on or before June 17, 2024, and before their 18th birthday.

Both noncitizen spouses and stepchildren must be in the country without admission or parole and have no disqualifying criminal history.

How to apply for the parole-in-place program

Interested and eligible individuals must file an Application for Parole in Place for Certain Noncitizen Spouses and Stepchildren of U.S. Citizens, or Form I-131F , by creating an account online and paying a $580 fee.

No fee waiver requests are accepted for this process, according to the USCIS website.

Immigration resources in Arizona

Many organizations in Arizona currently offer services that can assist immigrant community members and may assist in filing this form:

Poder Latinx  hosts workshops throughout the year that help immigrants apply for residency and become naturalized citizens. Find them at 1616 E. Indian School Road, Suite 480, Phoenix, [email protected],  https://poderlatinx.org/ .

Latinos United for Change in Arizona  offers help with DACA applications, residency renewals and the naturalization process. Find them at 5716 N. 19th Ave., Phoenix, 602-388-9745,  https://www.luchaaz.org/ .

Phoenix Legal Action Network  offers legal support for non-detained immigrants in Arizona by representing them before court in immigration cases. Find them at 602-730-1726, [email protected],  https://planphx.org/ .

The Florence Project  offers legal representation for detained immigrants and education services related to immigration processes in Arizona. Find them at Phoenix line 602-307-1008, Tucson line 520-777-5600, [email protected],  https://firrp.org/ .

La Voz reporter Erick Treviño contributed to this article.

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• The Religious Composition of the World’s Migrants

2. Global migration change, 1990-2020

Table of contents.

• Asia and the Pacific
• Latin America and the Caribbean
• Middle East and North Africa
• North America
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Distance traveled by migrants
• Growth of migrants among each religious group, 1990-2020
• Regional patterns over time
• Destinations
• Country pairs
• Change since 1990
• Spotlight on Europe
• Spotlight on the Gulf Cooperation Council countries
• Spotlight on India
• Spotlight on the United States
• Acknowledgments
• UN migrant estimates
• Pew Research Center religious composition estimates
• Estimating religious compositions when no census or survey data is available
• Religious compositions of overall populations
• Study period
• Distance analysis
• ‘Faith on the Move’
• Asia-Pacific
• Latin America-Caribbean
• Middle East-North Africa
• Appendix B: Sources for the religious distribution of migrants, by destination country

The United Nations counts international migrants as people of any age who live outside their country (or in some cases, territory) of birth – regardless of their motives for migrating, their length of residence or their legal status.

In addition to naturalized citizens and permanent residents, the UN’s international migrant numbers include asylum-seekers and refugees, as well as people without official residence documents. The UN also includes some people who live in a country temporarily – like some students and guest workers – but it does not include short-term visitors like tourists, nor does it typically include military forces deployed abroad. 

For brevity, this report refers to international migrants simply as migrants. Occasionally, we use the term immigrants to differentiate migrants living in a destination country from emigrants who have left an origin country . Every person who is living outside of his or her country of birth is all three – a migrant, an immigrant and an emigrant.

The analysis in this report focuses on existing stocks of international migrants – all people who now live outside their birth country, no matter when they left. We do not estimate migration flows – how many people move across borders in any single year.

The number of people living outside their country of birth rose by 83% between 1990 and 2020, from 153 million to 281 million. Migration during this timespan outpaced growth in the global population, which rose by 47% to 7.8 billion people.

The number of Buddhist and Muslim migrants more than doubled during this period. Other groups of migrants grew more modestly – Christians by 80%, the religiously unaffiliated by 67%, Hindus by 48% and Jews by 28%.

However, the religious composition of the global migrant population has not changed dramatically from a few decades ago. This is largely because the sizes of each migrant stock were so unequal in 1990. Even though the migrant populations have grown at different rates in recent decades, their mix in 2020 still reflects the large differences in their initial sizes in 1990.

Several major political and economic events in recent decades had big impacts on the migration patterns of individual religious groups.

For example, the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 caused a surge of Jewish migrants to Israel and the United States. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that took effect in 1994 contributed to agricultural unemployment in Mexico that sent millions of Christian migrants to the U.S. 7 The Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, pushed millions of Muslims into countries including Turkey, Germany and Lebanon .

Historic events that happened before 1990 also played a role in shaping the patterns described in this report.

For example, during India’s 1947 Partition , millions of Muslims migrated north to the newly created country of Pakistan (which at the time included modern-day Bangladesh). Between 1990 and 2020, many of these migrants reached the ends of their lives, bringing down Pakistan’s foreign-born population.

• Christian migrants grew from 72.7 million in 1990 to 130.9 million in 2020 – an 80% increase. Over the decades, the share of migrants worldwide who are Christian has ranged from 47% to 49%.
• Muslim migrants increased from 39.9 million to 80.4 million (up 102%). During this time, Muslims have always made up between 24% and 29% of migrants globally.
• Religiously unaffiliated migrants grew from 21.8 million to 36.4 million (up 67%). Since 1990, an estimated 13% to 15% of international migrants have been unaffiliated.
• Hindu migrants increased from 9.1 million to 13.5 million (up 48%). Hindus have consistently made up between 5% and 6% of the world’s migrant population.
• Buddhist migrants grew from 4.6 million to 10.9 million (up 137%). Buddhists have made up a stable 3% to 4% of the international migrant population over the past few decades.
• Jewish migrants grew from 2.3 million to 3.0 million (up 28%). Jews have consistently represented between 1% and 2% of migrants globally.

Since 1990, the migrant populations in each destination region have grown at different rates.

The rate of growth since 1990 has been greatest in the Middle East-North Africa region (up 185%). The Asia-Pacific region has had the smallest increase (up 38%).

Most major religions have seen their migrant numbers rise in every region. But some groups have seen a decline in their migrant shares (the percentage their religion makes up of all migrants in the region).

As in other parts of this report, migrants are defined here as people who are living outside their country (or in some cases, territory) of birth, regardless of when they moved or how far. Many have stayed in the region in which they were born.

The total number of international migrants living in the Asia-Pacific region grew by 38% between 1990 and 2020, reaching 55 million in 2020.

The region’s overall population – which in 1990 was already the world’s largest – grew 43% in this period, to 4.5 billion.

Migrants made up 1% of the region’s population in both 1990 and in 2020. Growth was concentrated between 2005 and 2020, driven by large increases from Syria, Myanmar (also called Burma) and China.

Hindus were the only major religious group with a migrant population that declined in absolute numbers.

Muslims were the largest migrant group in Asia both in 1990 and in 2020. Between these years, the number of Muslim migrants living in the region grew by 28% to 19.1 million.

However, there was an initial decrease in the Muslim migrant population between 1990 and 1995, as Afghanistan-born Muslims returned home after the Soviet occupation ended in 1989 . Many Muslims who moved due to India’s 1947 Partition also died over the years. Since 2010, there has been sharp growth in Muslim migrants in the region, as new conflicts have unfolded in Syria and Myanmar.

Christians, the region’s second-largest group of migrants, have grown by 36% over the decades, to 12.9 million in 2020. About 3 million Christian migrants living in Asia were born in Russia, down from 3.6 million in 1990.  

Religiously unaffiliated migrants in the Asia-Pacific region increased by 80% between 1990 and 2020, to nearly 8 million.

Buddhists are the second-largest group of migrants – behind religiously unaffiliated migrants – living in Asia-Pacific countries. Buddhist migrants grew by 146% from 1990 to 2020. This makes Buddhists the fastest-growing migrant group in the region, even though their total count (7.8 million in 2020) is much smaller than Muslim migrants’ numbers. Buddhists born in Myanmar were particularly likely to have migrated during this period, with their population increasing seven times to roughly 2 million in 2020.

While other migrant groups were growing, the Hindu figure dropped by 16%, to 6 million. This decline was due in part to the gradual death of Hindu migrants who had moved around the time of India’s 1947 Partition.

Since 1990, Jews have been the smallest migrant group in the Asia-Pacific region. While the Jewish migrant population grew by 69%, it remained tiny at an estimated 130,000 in 2020.

The total number of international migrants living in Europe has risen by 74% since 1990, approaching 87 million in 2020. The region’s overall population grew by just 3% over this period, to nearly 750 million.

As a result, migrants jumped from 7% of the region’s total population in 1990 to 12% in 2020. And migrants from every major religious group increased in number.

Christians were by far the largest migrant group across the decades. Since 1990, the number of Christian migrants has grown by 71% to nearly 49 million in 2020.

Christian migrants from Russia and Ukraine were most numerous in both 1990 and 2020. But the largest growth in numbers came from Poland and Romania.

Since 1990, the number of religiously unaffiliated migrants increased by 53% – the least of any group – to more than 17 million in 2020. During this time, much of Europe’s native-born population has been secularizing , and the relatively moderate growth of unaffiliated migrants has dampened that shift.

Muslims make up the third-largest migrant group in Europe. Their number doubled to almost 16 million in 2020, as many Muslims came to Europe from Morocco, Syria, Turkey and Pakistan. 8

All other religious groups accounted for far fewer people over these years, never totaling much more than 2% of the migrant population each.

Still, the number of Buddhist migrants in Europe more than doubled to 1.3 million, and Hindus grew at a similar rate to 1.1 million. Many Buddhists arrived from China and Thailand during these decades, while Hindus tended to arrive from India.

People in the “other religions” category, including many Sikhs and Jains from India, experienced the largest growth in percentage terms, nearly tripling from an estimated 530,000 in 1990 to almost 1.5 million in 2020.

The Jewish migrant population in Europe increased by 60% from 1990 to 2020, bringing their total to 630,000. Jews were the smallest major religious group among the region’s migrants in both 1990 and 2020.

International migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean have more than doubled over the past three decades, reaching nearly 15 million in 2020 (up 107%). During this time, the region’s overall population increased by 47% to 652 million.

Still, migrants made up just 2% of residents in the Latin America-Caribbean region in 2020, about the same as in 1990. 

Much of the growth in the migrant population occurred between 2015 and 2020, as many Venezuelans escaped economic and political instability at home to settle in nearby countries.

The surge in migrants since 2015 is most apparent in the Christian population, partly because migrants from Venezuela are predominantly Christian.

The number of Christian migrants in the region has more than doubled since 1990, topping 12 million in 2020. Most were born in the region, and 9% were born in the U.S.

Religiously unaffiliated migrants living in Latin America increased by 81% since 1990 to reach a population of 1.7 million. Again, this growth was mostly the result of people leaving Venezuela.

Jews are the next-largest single group among migrants in the region, having grown by 52% between 1990 and 2020.

Since 1990, Buddhist migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean have grown by 39% to 140,000, Muslims by 90% to 130,000 and Hindus by 44% to 30,000.

International migrants in the Middle East and North Africa have nearly tripled since 1990 (up 185%), reaching 43 million in 2020, while the region’s overall population almost doubled to 436 million (up 97%).

Migrants made up 7% of the region’s population in 1990 and 10% in 2020.

Roughly a quarter of the region’s migrants were born in India – the top origin country for several religious groups coming to the region.

Millions of others came from the Palestinian territories, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Syria. 9 Some migration in the region is circular, with migrants moving back and forth to work and return home.

Most migrants living in the Middle East-North Africa region are Muslim. Since 1990, their number has nearly tripled, to about 32 million. India is the top country of origin for the region’s Muslim migrants, followed by the Palestinian territories and Bangladesh.

While India’s population is only 15% Muslim, migrants who leave India are disproportionately of minority religions, and most Indian migrants to the Middle East and North Africa are Muslim.

Christians make up the second-largest group of migrants in the Middle East-North Africa region. Since 1990, the region’s Christian migrant population has more than tripled, approaching 5.0 million.

As of 2020, almost a third of all Christians in the region live outside their country (or in some cases, territory) of birth. India is the largest source of migrant Christians in the region.

Hindus are the third-largest religious group among migrants in the region, having surpassed Jews by 2010. Hindus saw the largest percentage increase, multiplying almost five times since 1990, to over 3 million. The vast majority of Hindu migrants in the Middle East and North Africa have come from India, which is one of only two Hindu-majority countries in the world. (The other is Nepal, which was also a top origin country of Hindu migrants in the region.)

The stock of Jewish migrants in the Middle East-North Africa region increased by 11% to 1.6 million between 1990 and 2020. Israel is home to all but 60,000 of the region’s Jewish migrants. There was rapid Jewish migration to the area before and after Israel’s independence in 1948 , and another major spurt took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union. More than 1 million people moved to Israel from the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 2017. But migration to Israel has slowed over time. Many of the migrants who came to Israel in recent decades are no longer living in the country due to death or subsequent migration to another country.

Religiously unaffiliated migrants in the region have grown by 60% over the decades, reaching an estimated 510,000 in 2020. Buddhist migrants have grown by 250%, yet total only about 70,000.

International migrants in North America have more than doubled since 1990 (up 113%), approaching 59 million in 2020.

Overall, 374 million people lived in the region as of 2020, up 36% since 1990.

Migrants made up 10% of North America’s population in 1990 and 16% in 2020.

Most of these migrants live in the U.S. and Canada, which, when combined, have more migrants than all of Asia and the Pacific.

Nearly 12 million migrants living in North America were born in Mexico. That’s roughly triple the number from the next-largest origin country, India.

Christians make up around two-thirds of migrants in the region, down slightly from 72% in 1990. Yet the absolute number of Christian migrants living in North America has doubled since 1990, approaching 40 million in 2020.

More than a quarter of North America’s Christian migrants in 2020 – over 11 million – came from Mexico, up from 4.7 million in 1990. The region also saw sizable increases in Christian residents who were born in the Philippines, Guatemala and El Salvador – all Christian-majority countries.  

The religiously unaffiliated make up the second-largest share of migrants in the region, as they do in the overall population. Religiously unaffiliated migrants grew by 89% to more than 8 million in 2020. Over 2 million unaffiliated migrants came to the region from China.

The stock of Muslim migrants in North America has risen by 260% to nearly 4.7 million as of 2020. Almost 600,000 of them came from Pakistan, while 490,000 came from Iran and 350,000 were born in Iraq.

In percentage terms, there has been a similar increase among Hindu migrants, who grew by 267% between 1990 and 2010 to just over 3 million. More than 2 million were born in India.

Buddhist migrants have more than doubled to roughly 1.6 million. More than 760,000 Buddhists living in North America were born in Vietnam, and 400,000 were born in China.

The stock of Jewish migrants in North America has increased the least, up 40% since 1990 to an estimated 470,000. There was a sizable wave of Jewish migration from the former Soviet Union to the U.S. and Canada from the 1970s through the 1990s, but it has been partially offset by deaths among prior generations of Jewish migrants from Europe, including many who lived in North America after escaping the Holocaust .

The migrant population in sub-Saharan Africa increased by 67% between 1990 and 2020 and now comprises more than 22 million individuals. Over the past three decades, the region’s overall population more than doubled to 1.1 billion, making it the second-most populous region in the world.

Migrants made up 3% of the regional population in 1990 and 2% in 2020.

Movement in sub-Saharan Africa has been driven by people fleeing armed conflicts and other forms of strife, particularly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan . But there has also been return migration to some countries. For example, the number of Rwandan and Mozambiquan migrants has declined after civil wars there ended in the early 1990s. 10

Since 1990, the religious composition of migrants living in sub-Saharan Africa has been fairly stable. As in most broad geographic regions in this study, Christians are the largest religious group among migrants in sub-Saharan Africa. The stock of Christian migrants in the region grew by an estimated 62% to more than 12 million between 1990 and 2020. The most common origin countries for Christian migrants in the region are the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.

Muslims are the second-largest religious group among migrants in the region, having grown by 77% to over 8 million in the decades since 1990. More than 2 million Muslims have left Burkina Faso and Mali, places where civilians are often the victims of fighting between government forces and Islamic insurgents .

Migrants in the “other religions” category have grown in sub-Saharan Africa by two-thirds since 1990, reaching 1 million in 2020. In this region, the “other religions” category includes many people who identify with traditional African religions. Burkina Faso is the most common origin country of migrants who identify with an “other religion.”

Hindu migrants are a small population in sub-Saharan Africa – constituting less than 0.5% of all migrants – but they have grown the most in percentage terms, rising 172% to 70,000.

Sub-Saharan African countries also host small populations of Buddhist and Jewish migrants. The Buddhist population has doubled since 1990 to reach 20,000, and Jewish migrants increased by 65% (though their numbers rounded to 10,000 in both years). While Buddhist migrants tend to come from Asian countries like China, Sri Lanka and Thailand, a large share of the Jewish migrant population came from Israel, and most now reside in South Africa.

Refer to our “ Geographic spotlights ” section for in-depth analyses of migration in Europe, GCC countries, India and the United States.

• In 1994, Mexico already had high unemployment due to a demographic bulge that saw more people enter the job market than there were jobs available. Economists have argued that NAFTA exacerbated the labor surplus by depressing Mexico’s agricultural sector. For example, read Polaski, Sandra. 2003. “ Jobs, Wages, and Household Income .” In “NAFTA’s Promise and Reality: Lessons From Mexico For The Hemisphere.” ↩
• In this analysis, Turkey is included in the Asia-Pacific region. Read Appendix A for a full list of countries by region. ↩
• The United Nations includes in this count migrants who were born in the Palestinian territories as well as their descendants, some of whom were born in refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon . ↩
• Many refugees of the Mozambique civil war returned voluntarily and with minimal reintegration issues, with help from the UN. Others were forcibly returned to Mozambique from Tanzania and other countries. ↩

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Guest Essay

Europe’s Crackdown on Environmental Dissent Is Silencing Voices the World Needs to Hear

By Christopher Ketcham

Mr. Ketcham is writing a book about direct climate action and citizen rebellion in defense of nature. He is the author of “This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption Are Ruining the American West.”

A British court last month issued extraordinarily harsh prison sentences to five climate activists convicted of helping to plan a series of road blockades in London. One of the activists, Roger Hallam, 58, a co-founder of the direct action groups Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, got five years. The others were each sentenced to four years.

Mr. Hallam’s crime wasn’t that he participated in the protest, which snarled London’s major beltway, the M25, during four days in November 2022. He merely gave a 20-minute talk on Zoom, a few days before the event, to explain the tactics of civil disobedience and emphasize its value as society’s failure to curb carbon emissions is increasing the chance of catastrophe within our lifetimes. He also stated during the Zoom call that he thought the action should go forward.

This is only the latest example of a wave of repressive government measures against climate protesters across Europe. The crackdown has come in response to a rise in demonstrations and disruptive tactics such as blocking roads and access to airports, defacing art in museums and interrupting sporting events.

Reflecting growing public frustration with such tactics, Rishi Sunak, the former British prime minister, endorsed this tough approach last year after two climate protesters were sentenced to prison terms of three years and two years and seven months for creating a public nuisance by climbing Queen Elizabeth II bridge in Kent. Forty hours of traffic gridlock followed after authorities closed the crossing.

“Those who break the law should feel the full force of it,” Mr. Sunak asserted , writing on X. “It’s entirely right that selfish protesters intent on causing misery to the hard-working majority face tough sentences. It’s what the public expects and it’s what we’ve delivered.”

But Michel Forst, the United Nations special rapporteur on environmental defenders, sees this crackdown as “a major threat to democracy and human rights,” as he put it in a report in February.

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