Immigration reality check
With immigration reform stalled in Congress, and the rest of the world fighting over Syrian migration, there’s no better time for the reality check in the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicines study on U.S. immigrant integration: It’s working.
“Across all measurable outcomes, integration increases over time,” write the report’s authors. They studied educational attainment, income, residential integration, language ability, and living above the poverty line.
Not only is integration working, but also even new arrivals are the type of people who more Americans should be happy to have in their communities.
“Increased prevalence of immigrants is associated with lower crime rates — the opposite of what many Americans fear,” write the authors of the report. The difference is significant: foreign-born men between the ages of 18 and 39 are incarcerated at a rate that’s one-fourth of the nativeborn rate.
About 86 percent of firstgeneration immigrant men are employed — a higher rate than native-born Americans. The foreign born also have lower rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births.
The study was conducted by the National Academies, a consortium of private nonprofit institutions that was originally chartered by Congress during the 19th century. Its Panel on the Integration of Immigrants notes that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Immigration Act, which abolished the U.S. quota system and opened our doors to a dramatic increase in immigration from Latin America, the Caribbean and — increasingly — Asia.
Despite the cheerful news, America still faces some challenges when it comes to integrating the 41 million immigrants within our borders.
“An immigrant’s legal status is a key factor in that individual’s integration trajectory,” the authors noted. In other words, keeping people trapped in the shadows of undocumented immigration doesn’t work. It’s something for Congress — and the rest of the world — to keep in mind as people continue leaving their home countries in pursuit of a better life.