Since the 1980s, large numbers of immigrants have entered the United States from countries in Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. This new wave of immigration has had important consequences for American social, economic, and political life (Dinnerstein & Reimers, 2009; Waters & Ueda, 2007).
One of the most important consequences is competition over jobs. The newcomers have tended to move into the large cities on the East and West Coasts and in the southwestern region of the country. At the same time, eastern and western cities were losing jobs as manufacturing and other industries moved South or overseas. The new immigrants thus began competing with native-born Americans for increasingly scarce jobs. Their increasing numbers also prompted native-born whites to move out of these cities in a search for all-white neighborhoods. As they did so, they left behind them neighborhoods that were increasingly segregated among ethnic lines.
Many Americans take a dim view of immigration. In a 2009 Gallup Poll, 50% of Americans thought that immigration should be decreased, 32% thought it should stay at its present level, and only 14% thought it should be increased (Morales, 2009). As the text notes, fear of job competition is a primary reason for the concern that Americans show about immigration. Yet another reason might be their fear that immigration raises the crime rate. A 2007 Gallup Poll asked whether immigrants are making “the situation in the country better or worse, or not having much effect” for the following dimensions of our national life: food, music and the arts; the economy; social and moral values; job opportunities; taxes; and the crime situation. The percentage of respondents saying “worse” was higher for the crime situation (58%) than for any other dimension. Only 4% of respondents said that immigration has made the crime situation better (Newport, 2007).
However, research conducted by sociologists and criminologists finds that these 4% are in fact correct: immigrants have lower crime rates than native-born Americans, and immigration has apparently helped lower the U.S. crime rate (Immigration Policy Center, 2008; Sampson, 2008;Vélez, 2006). What accounts for this surprising consequence? One reason is that immigrant neighborhoods tend to have many small businesses, churches, and other social institutions that help ensure neighborhood stability and, in turn, lower crime rates. A second reason is that the bulk of recent immigrants are Latinos, who tend to have high marriage rates and strong family ties, both of which again help ensure lower crime rates (Vélez, 2006). A final reason may be that undocumented immigrants hardly want to be deported and thus take extra care to obey the law by not committing street crime (Immigration Research Library, 2008).
Reinforcing the immigration-lower crime conclusion, other research also finds that immigrants’ crime rates rise as they stay in the United States longer. Apparently, as the children of immigrants become more “Americanized,” their criminality increases. As one report concluded, “The children and grandchildren of many immigrants—as well as many immigrants themselves the longer they live in the United States—become subject to economic and social forces that increase the likelihood of criminal behavior” (Rumbaut & Ewing, 2007, p. 11).
As the United States continues to address immigration policy, it is important that the public and elected officials have the best information possible about the effects of immigration. The findings by sociologists and other social scientists that immigrants have lower crime rates and that immigration has apparently helped lower the U.S. crime rate add an important dimension to the ongoing debate over immigration policy.
One other impact of the new wave of immigration has been increased prejudice and discrimination against the new immigrants. As noted earlier, the history of the United States is filled with examples of prejudice and discrimination against immigrants. Such problems seem to escalate as the number of immigrants increases. The past two decades have been no exception to this pattern. As the large numbers of immigrants moved into the United States, blogs and other media became filled with anti-immigrant comments, and hate crimes against immigrants increased. As one report summarized this trend,
There’s no doubt that the tone of the raging national debate over immigration is growing uglier by the day. Once limited to hard-core white supremacists and a handful of border-state extremists, vicious public denunciations of undocumented brown-skinned immigrants are increasingly common among supposedly mainstream anti-immigration activists, radio hosts, and politicians. Most notably, President Trump's platform during his campaign to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico. While their dehumanizing rhetoric typically stops short of openly sanctioning bloodshed, much of it implicitly encourages or even endorses violence by characterizing immigrants from Mexico and Central America as “invaders,” “criminal aliens,” and “cockroaches.”
The results are no less tragic for being predictable: although hate crime statistics are highly unreliable, numbers that are available strongly suggest a marked upswing in racially motivated violence against all Latinos, regardless of immigration status (Mock, 2007).
Meanwhile, the new immigrants have included thousands who are undocumented. Many are detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in local jails, federal prisons, and other detention facilities. Immigrants who are in the United States legally but then get arrested for minor infractions are often also detained in these facilities to await deportation. It is estimated that ICE detains about 300,000 immigrants of both kinds every year. Human rights organizations say that all of these immigrants suffer from lack of food, inadequate medical care, and beatings; that many are being detained indefinitely; and that their detention proceedings lack due process.
Moving forward, immigration policy is proving to be an important priority for President Biden. While the Trump presidency was characterized by the building of the wall on the southern border, the Muslim ban, caged families at the border, a dramatic decline in accepting refugees and asylees, and a general anti-immigration/America First stance, the Biden presidency is entertaining a comprehensive immigration reform bill to provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented individuals, strengthen labor protections, prioritize smart border controls, and address root causes of migration (The White House, 2021). This reform bill would be the first of its kind since the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, discussed earlier in Chapter 3.5 and Chapter 8.5. Critics of Biden's plan argue it will increase the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country and reward individuals who have not followed immigration laws. As the Pew Research Center study authored by Colby & Ortman (2015) predicts that the growth rate of the foreign born will reach 19% of the U.S. population in 2060, up from 13% in 2014, the question will be: what type of rights and experiences will these immigrants have in the United States?
Colby, S.L. & Ortman, J.M. (2015). Projections of the size and composition of the u.s. population: 2014 to 2060. U.S. Census.
Dinnerstein, L., & Reimers, D.M. (2009). Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Immigration Policy Center. (2008, September 10). From anecdotes to evidence: Setting the record straight on immigrants and crime. Immigration Research Library.
Mock, B. (2007). Immigration backlash: Hate crimes against Latinos flourish. Immigration Research Library.
Morales, L. (2009, August 5). Americans return to tougher immigration stance. Gallup.com.
Newport, F. (2007, July 13). Americans have become more negative on impact of immigrants. Gallup.com.
Rumbaut, R.G., & Ewing, W.A. (2007). The myth of immigrant criminality and the paradox of assimilation: Incarceration rates among native and foreign-born men. American Immigration Council.
The White House. (2021, January 20). Fact Sheet: President Biden Sends Immigration Bill to Congress as Part of His Commitment to Modernize our Immigration System.
Vélez, M.B. (2006). Toward an understanding of the lower rates of homicide in Latino versus Black neighborhoods: A look at Chicago. In J. Hagen, R. Peterson, & L. Krivo (Eds.), The Many Colors of Crime: Inequalities of Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America (pp. 91-107), New York: New York University Press.
Waters, M.C., & Ueda, R. (Eds.). (2007). The New Americans: A Guide to Immigration since 1965. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
