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From Newcomers To Americans: An Integration Policy For A Nation Of Immigrantsby Tomás R. Jiménez for the Immigration Policy Center
The United States long has been a nation of immigrants,
but its policies are out of step with this reality. Public
policies with regard to the foreign-born must go beyond
regulating who is admitted and under what circumstances.
The nation needs an immigrant-integration policy that effectively
addresses the challenges and harnesses the opportunities
created by today’s large immigrant population. It is not in
the best interests of the United States to make integration a
more difficult, uncertain, or lengthy process than it need be.
Facilitating the successful and rapid integration of immigrants
into U.S. society minimizes conflicts and tensions between
newcomers and the native-born, and enables immigrants to
more quickly secure better jobs, earn higher incomes, and
thus more fully contribute to the U.S. economy.
Immigrant integration has become a national issue as millions of America’s newcomers adapt to communities that must in turn adjust to the social, economic, and political changes resulting from the presence of these newcomers. Integration is an inevitable process wherein immigrants and the communities in which they settle mutually adapt to one another. But the inevitability of integration does not always guarantee positive outcomes. Integration may follow a path that leads to divisiveness between newcomers and their receiving communities—a more likely outcome when integration is left to chance. A sound immigrant-integration policy can facilitate a more positive, unifying form of integration that benefits immigrants, their receiving communities, and the nation as a whole. Political pundits and policymakers have done a good deal of hand-wringing about integration, but government policies are virtually silent on this issue. As congress and the white House look to overhaul what most agree is a broken immigration system, the debate revolves around the laws that govern who is admitted to the United States and under what circumstances, while giving at most a symbolic nod to questions of integration. However, the United States needs much more than an overhaul of its immigration policy. This nation of immigrants also needs an immigrant policy that takes a more active role in the integration of newcomers, thereby maximizing the economic, social, and cultural contributions that immigrants make to the United States. The Need For an Integration Policy Comparisons between contemporary and past waves of immigrants often lead to the conclusion that something is amiss with the way today’s immigrants are integrating. Fears about their lack of integration are largely exaggerated, however. Though there is variation among groups, today’s newcomers appear to be integrating into U.S. society in ways reminiscent of immigrants from previous eras, with the second-generation children and third-generation grandchildren of first-generation immigrants mastering English, improving their educational status, and joining the U.S. workforce.[1] Nearly all the children and grandchildren of immigrants speak English well, regardless of ethnic origin. For instance, according to the 2000 census, 91.1 percent of the children and 97.0 percent of the grandchildren of Mexican immigrants spoke English well. Similarly, 93.8 percent of the children and 98.4 percent of the grandchildren of Salvadoran immigrants spoke English well in 2000 {Figure 1}.[2] 
Patterns in educational attainment also evince intergenerational improvement. Calculations from the 2004 current Population Survey show, for example, that the share of Mexican immigrants without a high-school diploma was 58.0 percent, but only 16.9 percent of their children lacked a diploma {Figure 2}. Conversely, only 5.7 percent of Mexican immigrants had a college degree, compared to 14.1 percent of their children {Figure 3.}[3]  In addition, immigrants and their children are hardly idle when it comes to work. The 2004 current Population Survey shows that adult immigrant men from canada, Europe, and Australia had the lowest employment rate (83.4 percent), while those from mexico had the highest (87.3 percent). Immigrants actually tend to have somewhat higher rates of employment than their children. The employment rate of second-generation men from canada, Europe, and Australia was 82.6 percent, while that of second-generation Mexicans was 81.1 percent. Evidence of intergenerational improvement in employment rates is pronounced among women. For instance, only 45.3 percent of first-generation Mexican women were in the labor force, compared to 70.2 percent of their daughters {Figure 4}.[4]  Mexicans, by far the largest immigrant group at 31 percent of all foreign-born individuals, often are cited as an exception to these larger integration trends. But they too appear to be integrating over time, even if at a slower pace compared to other groups. Sociologist richard Alba finds that each new generation of Mexican-origin individuals born in the United States improves on their parents’ educational attainment by an average of 2.5 years, though the third generation still lags behind non-Hispanic whites by 1-1.5 years (the gap is smaller among women).[5] Similarly, a 2006 study by RAND corporation economist James P. Smith found that successive generations of Hispanics have experienced significant improvements in wages and education relative both to their fathers and grandfathers and to the native Anglos with whom they competed in the labor market.[6] These positive trends belie reactionary "solutions" to the "immigrant problem." But the big picture also tends to gloss over challenges that both immigrants and their receiving communities confront on the ground. If left unaddressed, cultural and linguistic barriers, distrust between immigrants and receiving populations and institutions, and the economic, political, and social marginalization of immigrants and their descendents may lead to a form of integration that results in mistrust and disunity. The United States simply cannot afford such an outcome. The imperative for adopting a policy that ensures positive integration becomes clearer when considering the following factors:
In looking ahead to an integration policy for immigrants to the United States, it is worth examining and learning from past efforts. The nation historically has taken two broad approaches to immigrant integration. The first sees a role for policies that actively encourage integration. This more proactive approach first appeared on a large scale with the Americanization movement of the 1910s and 1920s. Faced with large numbers of immigrants arriving primarily from Eastern and Southern Europe, communities throughout the country engaged in a massive effort to integrate and, in some instances, forcibly turn immigrants into "Americans." Programs coordinated by public- and privatesector organizations provided English-language training, civics classes, and symbolic displays of patriotism—all aimed at expediting the removal of "old world ways" and the adoption of a singular American identity.[12] The ideological underpinnings of the Americanization movement resonate in many of today’s policy initiatives. English-only campaigns at the state and national levels, efforts to limit immigrants’ access to public resources, and bills that propose tightening citizenship requirements are all present-day policy cousins of the Americanization movement that aim to preserve an un-changed ideal of American identity. The problem with this approach to integration is that it often achieves outcomes that contradict those which policymakers intend. Americanization-style initiatives become a significant basis for division. Instead of turning their allegiances towards an American mainstream, immigrants and their children may begin to turn their backs on a country that they believe has rejected them. Efforts to strip immigrants and their children of their ethnic allegiances altogether can also have deleterious academic and psychological outcomes that further inhibit positive integration.[13] A more thoughtful, but equally active approach to integration is apparent in U.S. refugee policy. Refugees to the United States are greeted by an expansive web of government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) tasked with facilitating their integration into U.S. society. Established under the refugee Act of 1980, the Office of refugee resettlement (ORR) in the Department of Health and Human Services heads refugee integration by providing funds for, "among other benefits and services, cash and medical assistance, employment preparation and job placement, skills training, English-language training, social adjustment and aid for victims of torture."[14] ORR’s efforts appear to be successful, but the reach of their programs is limited to the 5 percent of the immigrant population annually admitted as refugees or asylees. The other 95 percent have no access to assistance aside from a small amount of funding for Englishlanguage acquisition and some workforce training provided by a patchwork of programs that together do not constitute a coherent integration policy. A second and more predominant approach to immigrant integration involves virtually no policy intervention. This laissez faire method relies on a combination of immigrants’ remarkable motivation and the ability of the labor market to provide jobs and incomes that, over time, facilitate the entrance of newcomers into the American economic, political, and social mainstream. However, the stakes are too high to rely on a laissez faire approach. The extent to which the prosperity of the United States depends on immigrants and their children, the national nature of immigration, and the sweeping changes that would result from enactment of comprehensive immigration legislation make an immigrant-integration policy essential. Principles of an Immigrant-Integration Policy The principles on which a national immigrant-integration policy might be based can be gleaned from successful local-level integration initiatives in places like Santa Clara county, California,[15] and the state of Illinois,[16] as well as experimental efforts spearheaded by a coalition of government agencies and NGOs in Lowell, massachusetts; Nashville, Tennessee; and Portland, Oregon.[17]
Endnotes 1 Frank D. Bean & Gillian Stevens, America’s Newcomers and the Dynamics of Diversity. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2003; Alejandro Portes & Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait. Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2006, chaps. 7 & 8. 2 Richard Alba, Language Assimilation Today: Bilingualism Persists More Than in the Past, But English Still Dominates (Working paper 111). La Jolla, CA: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, University of California-San Diego, November 2004, Table 1 {Calculations based on 5-Percent Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) from the 2000 Census.} 3 Roger Waldinger & Renee Reichl, "Today’s Second Generation: Getting Ahead or Falling Behind?" in Michael Fix, ed., Securing the Future: U.S. Immigrant Integration Policy, A Reader. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2007, p. 29-30. 4 ibid., p. 33. 5 Richard Alba, "Mexican Americans and the American Dream," Perspectives on Politics 4(2), June 2006: 289-296. 6 James P. Smith, "Immigrants and the Labor Market," Journal of Labor Economics 24(2), April 2006: 203-233. 7 Alejandro Portes & Rubén G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America: A Portrait, 2006, p. 246-47. 8 Dowell Myers, Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007. 9 Dowell Myers, John Pitkin & Julie Park, California Demographic Futures: Projections to 2030, by Immigrant Generations, Nativity, and Time of Arrival in U.S. Los Angeles, CA: Population Dynamics Research Group, School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, February 2005, p. 18. 10 Author’s calculations based on U.S. Decennial Census and 2005 American Community Survey data compiled by the Migration Policy Institute. 11 Jeffrey S. Passel, Size and Characteristics of the Unauthorized Migrant Population in the U.S.: Estimates Based on the March 2005 Current Population Survey. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center, 2006, p. 8-9. 12 John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of American Nativism, 1860-1925. New York, NY: Atheneum, 1963 [1955], chap. 9. 13 Alejandro Portes & Rubén G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2001, chaps. 6-9. 14 Office of Refugee Resettlement, "Eligibility for Refugee Assistance and Services through the Office of Refugee Resettlement," http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/geninfo/index.htm. 15 See ImmigrantInfo.org, sponsored by the Santa Clara County Office of Human Relations and IRIS (Immigrant Relations and Integration Services), http://www.immigrantinfo.org. 16 See immigrantIntegration.org, website of the New Americans Executive Order of the state of Illinois, http://www.immigrantintegration.org. 17 The Building the New American Community Initiative, which included the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the Migration Policy Institute, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Immigration Forum, the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC), and the Urban Institute. See www.migrationpolicy.org/news/2004_12_9.php for more information. 18 Alejandro Portes & Rubén G. Rumbaut, Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation, 2001, chap. 6. 19 Irene Bloemraad, Becoming a Citizen: Incorporating Immigrants and Refugees in the United States and Canada. Berkeley & Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2006. Copyright: The material above was originally produced by the American Immigration Law Foundation. Reproduced with Permission.
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