Impact of Immigration on the U.S.
- Defining Admissibility and Inadmissibility
- Impact of Immigration on the U.S.
Categories of Non-Citizens (broadly): immigrants, and nonimmigrants (both groups are subject to passing § 212(a)grounds of inadmissibility, qualifying for admission)
Immigration Patterns: high immigration levels in 1990s → demographic effects in US
7 main source countries: Mexico, India, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, El Salvador, Cuba (45% of immigrants FY 2001)
Portes & Rumbaut: popular view of immigrants as “poor and huddled masses” inaccurate; modern immigration highly varied w/r/t source regions, education / economic status, patterns of return / assimilation
Self-selection: immigrants tend to be relatively well-educated and skilled, compared to the average in source nations
Types of immigrants: authors categorize immigrants according to occupation type
Labor migrants: more likely to be undocumented, also to return to home country; authors emphasize back-and-forth flow of manual labor immigration
Professional immigrants: whether able to practice own profession in US or turn to entrepreneurial activity instead, this group may be more affluent than US-born median; assimilation with conscious effort to retain ties to source nation / culture
Entrepreneurial immigrants: typically small-business owners, geographically dispersed in US → less visible “middlemen minorities”; generally enter US under preference categories unrelated to actual occupations (refugees, prof. workers)
Settlement patterns: development of ethnic networks → clusters in certain states
Martin & Midgley: immigration costs and benefits to US complex; economic value of an immigrant depends on factors such as age at entry to US, education level
Adult immigrants with high school education or less → net cost to US economy; more educated adult immigrants → significant net gain to US economy (in terms of services consumed vs. taxes paid)
Economic impact other than services / taxes: job growth / loss, consumer spending of immigrants → overall, immigration has a (slight) positive net economic effect on national level (costs of immigration tend to be concentrated at local / state levels)
