As the United States begins the twenty-first century, it remains the
world's leading immigration country. In 2000 (the latest year for
which migration data are available on a global basis) the United States
was home to almost 35 million legal and unauthorized migrants, or 2.7
times as many as any other country. Although other nations have higher
proportions of foreign-born residents (e.g., nearly 25 percent in
Australia and 20 percent in Canada), the globally dominant position of the
United States in regard to numbers of new immigrants reinforces its
self-image as a “nation of immigrants,” as does the fact that
immigration is generally seen as contributing to the country's
economic and demographic strength. However, over the past three decades,
more and more new arrivals with non-European origins have come to the
country (more than four-fifths are Latino and Asian), many with very low
levels of education and illegal status at entry. These changes have fueled
public concerns and led to heated debates over whether U.S. admissions and
settlement-related policies ought to be modified.Frank D. Bean is Professor of Sociology (fbean@uci.edu), Susan
K. Brown is Assistant Professor of Sociology (skbrown@uci.edu),and
Rubén G. Rumbaut is Professor of Sociology at University of
California, Irvine (rrumbaut@uci.edu). Some of the research results
reported in this paper come from a research project entitled
“Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los
Angeles” and supported by a grant from the Russell Sage
Foundation.