Immigration to the United States

by Philip Martin and Elizabeth Midgley

Population Bulletin, Vol. 54, No. 2 June 1999

Table of Contents

Introduction
Patterns and Policies
Four Waves of Immigration
U.S. Immigration Policies
Immigration and U.S. Population
Economic Effects
Naturalization and Politics
Immigrants in American Society
Journey to an Unfinished Nation
References

This Population Bulletin, published in June 1999, examines current immigration patterns and policies in the United States, reviews the peaks and troughs of immigration flows, and provides a historical perspective on contemporary trends. The nation's approach to controlling the number and characteristics of newcomers has seen many changes throughout its history. In the past, as in the present, immigration laws have often produced dramatic consequences, some of which were unintended. Resolving the fundamental economic, social, and political issues raised by immigration requires weighing the choices or trade-offs between widely shared but competing goals in American society.

Introduction

Nearly 70,000 foreigners arrive in the United States every day. Most of these travelers are visitors, not settlers. More than 60,000 are tourists, business people, students, or foreign workers who are welcomed at airports and border crossings. About 2,200 daily arrivals are immigrants or refugees who have been invited to become permanent residents of the United States. Finally, about 5,000 foreigners make unauthorized entries each day. About 4,000 of them are apprehended just after they cross the U.S.-Mexico border. But nearly 1,000 elude detection, or slip from legal to illegal status by violating the terms of their visas. Many will remain, while others will return to their home countries.

Is the arrival of so many people in the United States to be welcomed or feared? There is no single answer, which helps explain why Americans are ambivalent about immigration. The United States has always celebrated its immigrant heritage. Americans tell and retell stories of courageous and energetic settlers from abroad. But Americans also have worried since the country's founding about potential economic, political, and cultural disruption caused by immigrant communities.

In the 1880s, as immigration numbers surged, public concern that too many "undesirable" people were entering the country led the U.S. Congress to place limits on who could immigrate. Prostitutes, low-skilled contract workers, and Chinese � among others � were barred from entry. At the turn of the century, more than 1 million immigrants entered each year, primarily from southern and eastern Europe. The American populace, which came primarily from northern and western European stock, felt that there were too many immigrants and that they were coming from the "wrong" countries. These concerns led to quantitative as well as qualitative restrictions on immigration in the 1920s to try to preserve and perpetuate the northern and western European majority.

In 1965, at the height of the U.S. civil rights movement, Congress passed a law that transformed the basis for selecting immigrants. The new law abolished national quotas and replaced them with a complex system that grants priority to three categories of foreigners: those with relatives living in the United States, people needed to fill vacant U.S. jobs, and refugees. The 1965 law had unexpected consequences. The main countries of origin for U.S. immigrants shifted from Europe to Latin America and Asia. In addition, changes in the U.S. economy and society in the 1970s and 1980s and growing emigration pressures in Mexico and Central America made controlling unauthorized migration a major political issue.

At the end of the 20th century, immigration is as contentious an issue as it was at the century's beginning. Opinions about immigration generally lie between two extreme views: "no immigrants" and "open borders." The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), for example, favors severely reducing U.S. immigration. FAIR charges that immigration contributes to excessive population growth and environmental degradation, displaces low-skilled American workers, depresses average wage levels, and threatens the cultural bonds that hold Americans together. FAIR calls for a stop to most immigration for several years to allow recent arrivals and Americans time to adjust to one another. Minimal immigration of 200,000 to 300,000 a year would be allowed during the adjustment period.

The Wall Street Journal, the leading U.S. newspaper for the business world, exemplifies the other side of the immigration debate. The Journal advocated a five-word constitutional amendment: "there shall be open borders" � in a 1990 editorial.¹ Wall Street Journal editorials often cite the benefits of immigration for the U.S. economy and labor force � more people mean more consumers and more workers, which helps the economy grow.

Groups such as the Organization of Chinese Americans and the Emerald Isle Immigration Center favor immigration from particular countries or regions. The Catholic Church and some other religious organizations oppose immigration controls because they believe that national borders artificially divide humanity.² Other people and groups support continued immigration as a defining part of the American national identity.

The United States is a nation of immigrants, as reflected in its motto e pluribus unum � "from many, one." U.S. presidents frequently remind native-born Americans that their forebears left another country to begin anew in the United States. Immigration permits individuals to better themselves financially. Many believe that it also strengthens the United States. The Commission on Immigration Reform, established by Congress, reflected a widely shared American opinion when it asserted in 1997 that "a properly regulated system of legal immigration is in the national interest of the United States."³

Yet immigration changes society, and it raises fundamental questions for Americans. Who are we? What kind of a society have we built, and whom shall we welcome to it? What should we do to encourage the integration of newcomers? How should we deal with those who arrive uninvited?

Patterns and Policies

• Figure 1: U.S. Immigrants By Region of Birth, 1960s to 1990s

More than 8 million immigrants were admitted to the United States between 1990 and 1997-an average of about 1 million a year. The volume of immigration flows has been increasing since the 1950s. The average annual inflow brought about 330,000 people in the 1960s, 450,000 people in the 1970s, and 600,000 people in the 1980s. The origins of immigrants have changed. During the 1960s, most immigrants were from Europe; now they are mostly from Latin America and Asia (see Figure 1)

At least half of the people who become immigrants each year are already living in the United States under a temporary visa or under some other legal status, or as undocumented aliens. Changes in legislation sometimes skew immigration statistics for certain years. More than 1.8 million foreigners were granted immigrant status in one year, 1991, although many of these people had lived in the United States for years. The year 1991 marked their change to legal immigrant status under legalization programs in 1987 and 1988. Under U.S. law, immigrants are foreigners who are entitled to live and work permanently in the United States and, after five years, to become naturalized U.S. citizens. Legal immigration is sometimes described as �entering the United States through the front door.� There are four types of front-door entrants. The largest category by far is relatives of U.S. residents. In 1997, two-thirds of immigrants were granted entry because family members who already lived in the United States formally petitioned the U.S. government to admit them (see Table 1).

The second-largest category of immigrants is that of refugees and asylees: 14 percent of all immigrants in 1997 were foreigners who had been granted safe haven. The third-largest group consists of immigrants and their family members who were admitted for economic or employment reasons. Employment-based immigration includes priority workers with �extraordinary ability� in the arts or sciences, multinational executives, workers holding professional or advanced degrees, clergy, wealthy investors, and low-skilled and unskilled workers.

Americans worry that immigration is increasing the size and changing the characteristics of the population. Polls conducted between 1965 and 1993 consistently showed that only about 7 percent of Americans favored more immigration and that a majority wanted immigration reduced.⁴ A 1997 public opinion poll found a slightly lower percentage, 46 percent, wanted immigration reduced or stopped.⁵ But 79 percent of respondents were concerned that immigrants were overburdening the welfare system and pushing up taxes. Sixty-three percent were concerned about immigrants taking jobs from Americans or causing racial conflict.

Recent polls reveal continued ambivalence toward immigration among Americans. In a Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll conducted in December 1998, 72 percent of respondents agreed that the United States �should not increase immigration because it will cost U.S. jobs and increase unemployment.� Twenty percent of respondents agreed that the United States �should increase immigration to all jobs companies have trouble filling.� The poll showed that, despite the booming U.S. economy, most Americans were generally opposed to reducing restrictions on trade and to allowing more immigration.

About one-fourth of the immigrants arriving in the United States today are from Mexico, the country that shares a long land border and a close relationship with the United States. Parts of Mexico were annexed to the United States during the 19th century, and Mexican residents of what is now the southwestern United States became Americans. But their ties with Mexico remained strong, and there has always been considerable movement between the two countries. A more defined migration stream from rural Mexico to the United States was created when the United States recruited Mexican temporary workers during World War II. U.S. farmers argued that they faced a labor shortage because of the war and the Mexican government agreed to send farm workers to the United States to contribute to the war effort. The U.S. and Mexican governments established the Bracero program, which brought more than 4.5 million Mexican farm workers to the United States between 1942 and 1964. The higher wages available in the United States made Mexicans eager to move there. They continued to come north for jobs after the program was terminated in 1964. What began as a government-authorized recruitment of Mexican workers evolved into a complex migration relationship, moving rural Mexicans into farm jobs and eventually into new industries, occupations, and areas of the United States.

Are there ways to break the migration networks between Mexico and the United States that will benefit both countries? The U.S. Commission for the Study of International Migration and Cooperative Economic Development examined this question in 1990. It concluded, �expanded trade between the sending countries and the United States is the single most important remedy� for unauthorized migration from Mexico and elsewhere. The commission's advice was put into place on Jan. 1, 1994, when NAFTA went into effect. The purpose of NAFTA is to reduce trade and investment barriers, thereby stimulating economic and job growth in Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Trade theory predicts that, because of more competition and economies of scale, NAFTA member countries should have faster-growing economies, more jobs, and higher wages, which should reduce migration.

Four Waves of Immigration

The first wave of immigrants arrived before entries were recorded in 1820. The English made up 60 percent of the population in 1790, but there were also Scots, Scots-Irish, Germans, and people from the Netherlands, France, and Spain. These migrations were motivated by a mixture of religious, political, and economic factors. German sectarians sought religious freedom in Pennsylvania; Spaniards looked for Christian converts in Florida and the southwest; and the Puritans in Massachusetts sought to establish a community restricted to members of their faith. Religious freedom was made possible by political and economic freedom � the absence of coercion by overlords and the chance to prosper in a new land.

The second wave of immigrants, who arrived between 1820 and 1860, fit well with America's eagerness for people to help push back the frontier. Peasants displaced from agriculture and artisans made jobless by the Industrial Revolution were desperate to escape from Europe. New arrivals sent what came to be called "American letters" back to Europe, encouraging friends and relatives to join them. Steamship and railroad companies sent agents around Europe recruiting customers to fill their ships and trains.

The third wave of immigrants began to arrive in 1880, when almost 460,000 entered the country, and ended with the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914, when 1.2 million immigrants entered. During the third wave, more than 20 million southern and eastern Europeans came, mostly to the eastern and midwestern states. Several hundred thousand Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian laborers settled in the western states.

An immigration pause occurred between 1915 and 1964. Immigration ceased as World War I erupted in Europe. When the war ended and immigrants began to arrive again in the 1920s, their entry was curtailed by the introduction of numerical limits, or "quotas." Then the severe economic depression of the 1930s discouraged more foreigners from moving to the United States. As another war threatened to break out in Europe, some people called on the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration to grant generous treatment to those fleeing Nazi Germany. But the United States did not admit large numbers of refugees until after World War II, when the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 led to the entry of more than 400,000 Europeans. The Refugee Relief Act of 1953 permitted the admission of another 190,000 refugees, primarily from Europe. Including the refugee flows, an average of 250,000 immigrants entered per year through the 1950s.

Fourth-wave immigrants began arriving in the United States after 1965, when the preference system changed. Instead of giving priority to immigrants based on their national origins, with preference to those from northern and western Europe, the new preference system gave priority to people with U.S. relatives and to a small number of people with outstanding accomplishments or skills. These changes, coupled with prosperity in Europe, altered the composition of the immigrant population. During the 1970s, the first decade that the law was in effect, less than 20 percent of U.S. immigrants were Europeans.

There are many similarities between immigration at the beginning and at the end of the 20th century. The number of immigrants arriving annually during the peak years � over 1 million � is about the same, although the foreign-born accounted for more of the U.S. population in 1900 (15 percent) than in 1998 (10 percent). During both time periods, the national economy was undergoing fundamental restructuring � from agriculture to industry at the beginning of the century and from services to information at the end of the century. Both waves brought people from countries that had not previously sent large numbers of immigrants, raising questions about language, religion, and culture.

U.S. Immigration Policies

• Table 2: Immigration Limits, FY1996

During its first hundred years, the United States had a laissez-faire policy toward immigration. Federal, state, and local governments, private employers, shipping companies, railroads, and churches were free to promote immigration to the United States. Some policies of the federal government indirectly encouraged immigration.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 established the principle that an immigrant could become a citizen after a minimum number of years of residence in the United States.⁶ No fees or admissions tests were imposed on immigrants, but after 1819, the federal government required ship captains to collect and report data on the immigrants they brought to U.S. ports.

After the civil war, public attention turned again to immigration. The growing numbers of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe aroused concerns and fears among the overwhelmingly Protestant and rural American populace.

With the aim of reducing the stream of immigrants, especially from southern and eastern Europe, Congress tried to require that all prospective immigrants were literate. In 1897, and several succeeding years, Congress approved legislation that would have required immigrants to be able to read and write. Three U.S. presidents vetoed literacy tests.

In 1921, Congress imposed restrictions on the annual number of immigrants allowed into the United States. In 1924, it set an annual limit of 150,000 immigrants, plus accompanying wives and children. The immigration legislation of the 1920s also established a quota system for immigrants that aimed to maintain the current ethnic and racial make-up of the United States; that is, people of northern and western European heritage. The Immigration Act of May 26, 1924, prescribed that the maximum number of immigrants from any country in the Eastern Hemisphere would be "a number which bears the same ratio to 150,000 as the number of inhabitants in the United States in 1920 having that national origin bears to the number of white inhabitants of the United States."⁷

During the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, over 80 percent of all immigrant visas went to people from northern and western Europe, 14 percent to eastern and southern Europeans, and 4 percent to people from Eastern Hemisphere countries. The limits specified in the 1924 law did not apply to immigration from Western Hemisphere countries such as Mexico.

After World War II, President Harry S. Truman and some congressional reformers sought to abolish the discriminatory national origins system, but their efforts failed.

Until the 1980s, U.S. immigration law could accurately be described as a complex system that changed once each generation. The accelerating pace of global change affected migration patterns, however, and Congress responded with three major changes in immigration laws between 1980 and 1990, and then three more in 1996.

The first change during the 1980s was an expansion of the definition of refugees. From the 1950s until 1980, the United States defined as refugees persons fleeing a communist government or political violence in the Middle East, and offered these refugees the chance to settle in the United States. The UN defined a refugee as a person living outside his or her country of citizenship who was unwilling to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. With the Refugee Act of 1980, the United States adopted the UN definition both for certain foreigners outside their countries of citizenship who hope to resettle and for foreigners seeking asylum in the United States.

The second major policy change involved illegal immigration. During the 1970s, Congress, federal commissions, and the press reported on the increasing number of foreigners, mostly Mexicans, who were entering the United States and remaining here illegally. Presidents Ford and Carter appointed commissions to study the effects of illegal immigration. These commissions concluded that illegal migrants adversely affected unskilled American workers and undermined the rule of law, and that the federal government should undertake new efforts to reduce such migration.⁸ The best way to deal with illegal immigrants who had put down roots, they said, was to legalize their status by granting them amnesty. The best way to discourage future illegal immigration was to impose penalties, or "employer sanctions," on U.S. employers who hired illegal immigrants.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) embodied this historic bargain. It legalized 2.7 million unauthorized aliens and for the first time made it unlawful for U.S. employers to knowingly hire foreign workers who do not have legal documentation. The legalization program succeeded in that most eligible aliens became legal immigrants.

By the late 1980s, the hope that illegal immigration had been reduced by IRCA, and the belief that immigration of skilled workers was vital to American competitiveness in global markets, provided the basis for the Immigration Act of 1990 (IMMACT). The 1990 law raised the previous annual ceiling on immigration from 270,000 plus immediate relatives of U.S. citizens to 675,000 including relatives plus refugees. The proportion of these visas allowed under the family-sponsored or the employment-based preference categories is determined annually (see Table 2). IMMACT also added new immigration slots � "diversity" visas � to increase immigration from Ireland and other countries that had sent few immigrants in recent times.

In the early 1990s, there was much debate about immigration, but little significant new legislation.⁹ But pressure for reform intensified and 1996 proved to be a watershed year for immigration legislation. Congress approved three major immigration-related laws in 1996: The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA).

These laws were motivated by concern about terrorism, especially because of the role of asylum applicants in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; the desire to balance the federal budget and to end perceived abuses of U.S. welfare by immigrants; and frustration with continued illegal immigration.

The new welfare law radically changed the way all low-income residents, especially new legal immigrants, receive benefits. Until fall 1997, when PRWORA came into force, immigrants generally received the same benefits from the federal government as did citizens. PRWORA made most legal immigrants who entered the United States after Aug. 22, 1996, ineligible for federal welfare benefits unless they were refugees, veterans of the U.S. Armed Services, or had worked at least 10 years in the United States.

The third 1996 law, IIRIRA, included three sets of measures to reduce illegal immigration and tighten the access of legal immigrants to welfare. First, it called for 1,000 more border patrol agents each year for five years, bringing the total from 5,175 in 1996 to almost 10,000 by 2000. Second, IIRIRA introduced a pilot telephone verification program to enable employers to verify the status of newly hired workers, and for social service agencies to determine the legal status of applicants for benefits. Social service agencies must verify applicants' legal status, but employer participation in the verification program is voluntary.

Third, in an attempt to make sure that future immigrants will not need public assistance, IIRIRA required U.S. residents who sponsor immigrants for admission to have higher incomes than were previously required, and to sign legally binding pledges that they would support the immigrants they sponsor.

Immigration and U.S. Population

• Figure 2: U.S. Population by Race and Ethnic Group, 2000, 2025, and 2050

In 2000, the United States will have an estimated 275 million residents. About 72 percent of the population will be non-Hispanic white, 12 percent African American, 11 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Asian and Pacific Islander, and 1 percent American Indian, Aleut, and Eskimo. The U.S. Census Bureau projects the U.S. population will reach 394 million in 2050, and will be 53 percent non-Hispanic white, 14 percent African American, 24 percent Hispanic, 8 percent Asian and Pacific Islander, and 1 percent American Indian (see Figure 2). The U.S. Census Bureau's projections assumed a net influx of 820,000 legal and illegal immigrants annually and continuation of recent trends in fertility and mortality.¹⁰

Assuming 820,000 newcomers per year, the number of foreign-born persons (the first generation) is projected to rise from 26 million in 1998 to 42 million in 2025, and the foreign-born share of the U.S. population is projected to increase from 10 percent to about 14 percent. The demographic impacts of immigration include immigrants' U.S.-born children, who are in the United States because their parents immigrated. In 1995, first- and second-generation Americans were about 20 percent of the U.S. population. If net legal and illegal immigration averages 820,000 per year, first- and second-generation Americans are projected to be about one-third of the U.S. population in 2025.¹¹

The Census Bureau projected that the U.S. median age will rise from 34.3 years in 1995 to 38.1 years by 2050, assuming immigration of 820,000 people per year. Even under the Census Bureau's high immigration scenario of 1.4 million a year, the median age would reach 37.6 years by 2050. If immigration had ceased after 1995, the U.S. median age would be only a few years older in 2050 � 40.4 years.

Because most immigrants are Asians and Hispanics, immigration will slow the aging of the U.S. Hispanic and Asian populations but will have little effect on the non-Hispanic white or black population. In 1995, the median age was 37 years for non-Hispanic whites, 29 years for blacks, 26 years for Hispanics, and 31 years for Asians. With no further immigration, Hispanics would have a median age of 31 in 2025; with immigration, the median age would be 28 years. The median age of Asians would be 39 years without and 36 years with immigration. The median age of non-Hispanics whites is projected to rise to 43 years under either immigration scenario.

Economic Effects

• Figure 3: Educational Levels of U.S.-Born Americans and Foreign-Born Americans Who Arrived Between 1990 and 1997

Most immigrants come to the United States for higher wages and more opportunities, and their work has significant effects on the U.S. economy and labor market. Like U.S. citizens, most working-age immigrants seek jobs, earn wages, pay taxes, and consume public services. Recent research shows a small but positive net economic benefit for the United States. In 1997, the National Research Council (NRC) concluded that legal and illegal immigration add $1 billion to $10 billion per year to the U.S. gross domestic product, largely because immigration holds down wages for some jobs, and thus prices, and increases the efficiency of the economy.¹² Immigration has a positive net contribution, but it is a small factor in an $8 trillion economy that is expanding by almost $400 billion a year.

Immigrants tend to be grouped in the top and bottom educational levels. Among recent arrivals, 30 percent of the foreign-born adults over age 24 had an undergraduate, professional, or graduate degree in 1997, compared with 24 percent of U.S.-born Americans of the same age (see Figure 3). At the other end of the distribution, about 34 percent of the immigrants did not finish high school, versus 16 percent of the U.S.-born. Because education is the best predictor of a person's earnings, these percentages help explain the growing inequality between foreign-born and U.S.-born Americans and within the foreign-born population. Immigration is contributing to this inequality.

One of the most debated questions of the early 1990s was whether immigrants "pay their way" in the United States. Do the taxes immigrants pay cover the cost of the public services they use, including schools, welfare, health care, and transportation systems? The answers are complex and depend in part on how well we can measure both the short-term and long-term fiscal effects of immigrants. The answers may also depend on the point of view of the investigator.

Analysts inclined to look at the positive effects of immigration have argued that immigrants generally provide a fiscal surplus because most immigrants are young. They work, pay taxes, and do not draw social security or health benefits.¹³

State and local governments have not been reassured by this reasoning. Facing budget shortfalls in the early 1990s, California and Florida sued the federal government to recover the cost of providing public services to unauthorized foreigners.

In California, households headed by U.S.-born persons paid, on average, $2,700 more in federal taxes than they received in federal benefits in 1996. Immigrant households, in contrast, received $2,700 more in federal benefits than they paid in federal taxes. This deficit accrued largely because immigrant households had below-average incomes and thus paid lower taxes than the average household, but they had more children attending public schools than households headed by U.S.-born Californians. The average native-born household paid $1,200 more in taxes to cover the deficit in California.¹⁴

The "immigrant deficit" is less in states where immigrants make up a smaller proportion of the population. In New Jersey, households headed by U.S.-born residents paid about $200 more annually in 1996 to cover the extra costs of immigrant households. Researchers applied these state estimates to the total U.S. population and calculated that the 89 million households headed by a U.S.-born person paid an extra $200 each in 1996 to cover the gap between taxes paid and services used by 9 million immigrant-headed households. The 1996 national immigrant deficit was $15 billion to $20 billion.

Naturalization and Politics

• Figure 4: 1995 Citizenship Status of Immigrants From Selected Countries Admitted in 1977

U.S. laws have always made few distinctions between citizens and noncitizens who are legal residents. Legal immigrants have been able to live where they please; seek any job (except for government jobs); and buy a house, land, or business without restriction. The basic constitutional rights, including the right of free speech and the free exercise of religion, are extended to both legal and unauthorized immigrants. Citizens of other countries cannot vote in public elections, but they can vote and hold office in U.S. labor unions and in private organizations such as churches, foundations, and fraternal groups.

Historically, less than one-half of the immigrants to the United States have naturalized, although the proportions vary substantially by country of origin. Most of the immigrants admitted in 1977 became eligible to naturalize in 1982; by 1995, about 46 percent were citizens (see Figure 4). Most immigrants admitted in 1982 became eligible for citizenship in 1987, and just 42 percent had naturalized by 1995.¹⁵

Among the leading countries of origin, immigrants from China, the former Soviet Union, and the Philippines were most likely to become citizens, while those from Mexico and Canada were least likely.

One reason naturalization rates have been low is the large share of U.S. immigrants from Mexico. Many Mexicans in the United States expect to return to Mexico someday. Before recent changes in Mexican law, these returnees would be denied certain rights granted only to Mexican citizens � such as the right to own and inherit land in Mexico � if they became citizens of the United States. In general, the probability that an immigrant in the United States will naturalize increases with age, education, income, and English-language ability. The fact that Mexican immigrants are younger, poorer, and less likely to speak English than are immigrants from some other countries also helps explain why relatively few Mexicans naturalize.

Some observers complain that the United States has granted too many rights to foreign residents and that foreigners see no need to become U.S. citizens. The surge in naturalizations that began in the mid-1990s has many causes, including:

• The INS' Green Card Replacement Program, launched in 1993.
• The approval of Proposition 187 in California in November 1994.
• Rising levels of immigration in the 1980s.
• Enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.
• Mexico's approval of dual nationality in 1996, which removed a legal disincentive for Mexicans to seek U.S. citizenship.

Immigrants in American Society

There is always a tension between the newcomers' desires to keep alive the culture and language of the community they left behind, and their need and wish to adapt to new surroundings and a different society. The balance between these competing forces changed over time, but three principles guided what is now called integration:

• America was generally open to all kinds of immigrants.
• No ethnic group should establish a formally recognized political identity. Nothing bars the formation of a Mexican-American political party, but the two-party tradition and the belief that Americans act politically as individuals, not as members of ethnic groups, has discouraged such political parties.
• No ethnic or national origin group would be required to give up its character and distinctive qualities.

In the 1990s, the integration of newcomers is still problematic. The Changing Relations study, which investigated immigrant communities in six cities in the 1980s, found that, despite segregation in jobs and housing, and communication impeded by lack of a common language, newcomers and natives in a number of U.S. cities were cooperating to achieve local goals, such as obtaining government benefits or improving their neighborhoods.¹⁶ The report also noted that immigrants in these cities were not integrating into the broader community. And, economic restructuring had created fears in many communities that the immigrants are a threat to jobs of longer-term residents.

Journey to an Unfinished Nation

The United States is a nation of immigrants that first welcomed all newcomers, later excluded certain types, and since the 1920s has limited the number of immigrants through an annual ceiling. Immigrants and refugees arrive through America's front door, which opened wider in 1990 to accommodate more relatives of U.S. residents and more professionals. But the fastest growth in entries over the past decade has been through side and back doors � including, for example, greater numbers of asylum applicants whose requests for refugee status have been denied but who nonetheless remain.

U.S. immigrants are often isolated from native-born Americans, as they were in previous periods of mass immigration. Their isolation is reinforced by housing and job segregation and language barriers. There are many examples of cooperation between natives and immigrants, however, and some signs that immigrant children may be acquiring English faster than did previous immigrants.

The United States is not alone in its concern about immigration. As the world economy integrates, tourists and business visitors flock from one industrial country to another � from Japan to the United States, for example. Immigrants make more permanent moves, usually from poorer to richer countries � from Mexico to the United States, for example.

For the foreseeable future, the United States is likely to remain the world's major destination for immigrants. Our history and traditions suggest that, within a few decades, most of today's immigrants will be an integral part of the American community, albeit a changed community. But there is no guarantee that history will repeat itself. There are concerns about the size and nature of today's immigrant population, especially about arrivals through the side and back doors. As the nation searches for an immigration policy for the 21st century, the United States � and the immigrants who are on their way here � has embarked on a journey to an uncertain destination.

References

1. An editorial on July 3, 1986, first made this proposal, which was repeated in an editorial on July 3, 1990.
2. Archbishop Roger Mahoney of Los Angeles has been quoted as saying: "The right to immigrate is more fundamental than that of nations to control their borders." Nicholas Capaldi, ed., Immigration: Debating the Issues (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1997): 17.
3. U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, Becoming an American: Immigration and Immigrant Policy (Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, 1997).
4. In 1953, for the only time in the past 70 years, did more than 10 percent of the public favor increasing immigration. Julian Simon, The Economic Consequences of Immigration (New York: Blackwell, 1989): 350.
5. This poll of 800 adults, conducted from July 31 to Aug. 17, 1997, for the PBS TV show, "State of the Union," was reported in Susan Page, "Fear of Immigration Eases," USA Today, Oct. 13, 1997, online edition: p. 1A.
6. The 1790 Act established the first uniform rules for acquiring U.S. citizenship. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Statistical Yearbook, 1996: A.1-1.
7. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, House Report 1365, 82d Congress, 2d Session, Feb. 14, 1952: 37.
8. Select Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy (SCIRP), U.S. Immigration Policy and the National Interest (Washington, DC: SCIRP, 1981).
9. Significant legislation in the early 1990s included the Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992, which permitted Chinese nationals living the United States in 1989�1990 to adjust to permanent resident status, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which permitted some Canadian and Mexican professionals to enter the United States for employment. See Immigration and Naturalization Service, Statistical Yearbook, 1996: A.1-21-22.
10. U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports P25-1130 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1996).
11. James P. Smith and Barry Edmonston, eds., The New Americans: Economic, Demographic, and Fiscal Effects of Immigration (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997): 76-134.
12. Smith and Edmonston, The New Americans: 3-50.
13. Smith and Edmonston, The New Americans: 52-61.
14. Smith and Edmonston, The New Americans: Table 6.3.
15. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Statistical Yearbook, 1996: 143-44.
16. Robert Bach, Changing Relations: Newcomers and Established Residents in U.S. Communities (New York: The Ford Foundation, 1992): 49.

Philip Martin is a professor of agricultural economics at the University of California-Davis (UCD), chair of the University of California's Comparative Immigration and Integration Program, and editor of Migration News. Dr. Martin has published extensively on labor, economic development, and immigration issues. He advises federal, state, local, and international governments on these issues, for which he was awarded UCD's Distinguished Public Service Award in 1994.

Elizabeth Midgley is a long-time observer and analyst of U.S. immigration trends and policy formation. She is president of Working English, a foundation that helps newcomers learn English. She was involved with immigration issues while she was a television news producer for CBS News from 1970 to 1988.