Several new studies released paint a mixed picture of immigrants and their impact on the US. One of the most widely publicized new studies was released by the Rand Corporation, a Santa Monica-based think tank. Rand’s study concluded that California cannot continue to absorb large numbers of illegal immigrants with poor job and language skills. The report called on Congress to cut the number of immigrants by hundreds of thousands each year and to set up a system that allow immigration to be cut during periods of high unemployment. The report also recommended adding educational and English proficiency requirements as admission criteria. Immigration advocates were quick to denounce the study for failing to consider that low skilled immigrants take jobs many US-born persons would not accept. David Friedman, of the Los Angeles Times, questioned the study’s assumption that low-skilled jobs are becoming a thing of the past and that the Rand study is guilty of wishful thinking if its relies on the assumption that the economy will soon only be high tech. Friedman also criticized the study’s assumption that if first-generation Latino-immigrant income and education levels are low, their children and grandchildren will be similarly disadvantaged. This actually contradicts previous Rand studies that suggest that by the third or fourth generation, US-born children of Mexican and Central American immigrants do achieve economic parity with others. For information on obtaining the Rand Study (cost $20), go to http://www.rand.org.
In a similar study, the Urban Institute will soon publish findings stating that
1. Immigration, mainly from Mexico, is causing rapid population and poverty growth and leading to massive public service demands in rural California;
2. Upward mobility of foreign agricultural workers is the exception, not the rule; and
3. the amount of public money available to assimilate the immigrants is declining even as the number of immigrants increases.
Another study released this past month by the Commerce Department Census Bureau reports that the home ownership rate for foreign-bon citizens was virtually identical to persons born in the US. The report also shows that 33% of non-citizens own their own homes. Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies, criticized the report for being too narrowly focused and not including the poorest immigrants who are less likely to become citizens. The study can be found on the Census Bureau’s web site at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/homeown.html.
The National Science Foundation has released another study showing that legal immigrants are more educated as a group than native-born US citizens. Legal immigrants receive an average of a full year more schooling than native born Americans. On the other hand, a greater percentage of legal immigrants were also likelier to have completed fewer than nine years of school.
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