Immigrants Assimilate as Much as Ever

From the Center for American Progress:

New Evidence Shows the Latest Immigrants to America Are Following in Our History’s Footsteps
By Dowell Myers, John Pitkin

A new study shows that immigrants to the U.S. are assimilating at high rates, most notably by becoming citizens and homeowners in the first 18 years of residency. Among the findings:

-Only 9.3 percent of Latinos who were recently arrived owned homes in 1990, but the number surged to 58 percent by 2008.
-High school completion and earnings also are rising. The share of foreign-born men earning above low income, for example, rose since 1990 from 35 percent, when they were recently arrived, to 66 percent in 2008, when they were longer settled.
-Immigrant children—especially among Latinos—have higher rates of attainment in education and occupation than adult immigrants, who have less access to education as newly-arrived workers.

Ultimately, the longer immigrants are in the U.S., the more integrated they become, a fact that remains consistent across the nation, regardless of whether they came from Mexico and Central America or from other countries. Click here to the the full study based on numbers from the most recent U.S. Census, including an in-depth analysis of nine states.

Download “fast facts” on America’s lastest immigrants (pdf).

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