Too many immigrants?
Yesterday I linked to the Pew Hispanic Center's study about the number of immigrants and immigration flows. The figure of 12 million illegal immigrants obviously grabbed the headlines. Yet, the study also provides many other interesting tidbits.
Take for example the fact that the decade between 1991 and 2000 saw the estimated arrival of nearly 14 million immigrants (legal and illegal. That is 40% higher than the total for the previous decade and nearly three times higher than the total for the 1970´s.
This fact really jumps about because it does hint at why there's a growing backlash at immigration: most Americans who grew up in the 1950´s, 60´s and 70´s, precisely those who nowadays dominate politics and the media, had little contact with immigrants because....there were few of them. This has changed radically in a decade and a half. And change often makes people uneasy, specially since Hispanics, who make up the bulk of immigrants, have started to spread out to areas where they basically had never lived in (see this example).
Yet, the 1990´s were fairly tame in historical terms. The flow of immigrants that decade amounted to 5.6% of the total population of the U.S. as of 2000. Between 1901 and 1910, that flow reached an all-time high of 11.8% of the population.
Of course, after 1920 the U.S. drastically cut the flow of immigrants (in the 1930´s only half a million arrived) and many opponents of immigration want to the same thing today, arguing that the current wave of immigrants needs "time" to assimilate without the disruption of newer waves. This argument may or may not have merits, but even if it did, a shutdown like the one described is not warranted by the data.
Bottom line: In relative terms, the U.S. had nearly 100 years of proportionately higher immigrant flows than the one observed in the 1990´s and it did just fine.
Take for example the fact that the decade between 1991 and 2000 saw the estimated arrival of nearly 14 million immigrants (legal and illegal. That is 40% higher than the total for the previous decade and nearly three times higher than the total for the 1970´s.
This fact really jumps about because it does hint at why there's a growing backlash at immigration: most Americans who grew up in the 1950´s, 60´s and 70´s, precisely those who nowadays dominate politics and the media, had little contact with immigrants because....there were few of them. This has changed radically in a decade and a half. And change often makes people uneasy, specially since Hispanics, who make up the bulk of immigrants, have started to spread out to areas where they basically had never lived in (see this example).
Yet, the 1990´s were fairly tame in historical terms. The flow of immigrants that decade amounted to 5.6% of the total population of the U.S. as of 2000. Between 1901 and 1910, that flow reached an all-time high of 11.8% of the population.
Of course, after 1920 the U.S. drastically cut the flow of immigrants (in the 1930´s only half a million arrived) and many opponents of immigration want to the same thing today, arguing that the current wave of immigrants needs "time" to assimilate without the disruption of newer waves. This argument may or may not have merits, but even if it did, a shutdown like the one described is not warranted by the data.
Bottom line: In relative terms, the U.S. had nearly 100 years of proportionately higher immigrant flows than the one observed in the 1990´s and it did just fine.
posted by Andrés at 4:53 PM
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