Immigration to the United States in the 2000s

The process of traveling to live permanently in a country other than an individual’s native country; the processes and procedures required to obtain legal residence in a foreign country

Immigration was one of the most politically contentious issues of the 2000s after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States created widespread concern over the potential for immigrant involvement in terrorist activities. Immigration forms an important source of labor for many US industries and plays a major role in patterns of population growth and diversification. In addition, immigration became a major economic issue in the 2000s, especially in terms of the ongoing debate over the cost of immigration control programs and the economic impact of immigrants on native employment.

Immigration and Population

Immigration to the United States reached its highest levels during the decade from 1990 to 2000, peaking in 1999 with 1.5 million immigrants arriving in the country. According to Brookings Institution research, more than 8.8 million immigrants arrived in the United States between 2000 and 2010. The Census Bureau estimated the foreign born population in 2010 at over 39.95 million, constituting roughly 12.9 percent of the more than 308 million people in the United States as a whole. Immigration has decreased substantially from peak levels in the 1990s, when the foreign born population constituted more than 14 percent of the populace. More than eleven million immigrants, many of whom arrived in the country in the 1990s, obtained permanent legal residence during the 2000s.

Fertility rates in the United States have decreased from their peak in the 1950s of 3.7 children per woman to approximately 2.0 children per woman in 2010. Despite falling fertility levels, analysts believe that the US population will continue to increase even without the annual influx of immigrants. However, population growth has slowed overall from a peak in the 1990s of 13 percent per year, to a 2010 estimate of 9.7 percent annually.

While the foreign-born population was distributed across the United States, more than 50 percent of foreign-born residents lived in one of four US states at the end of the decade: California, New York, Texas, and Florida. More than one in four residents of California were foreign-born and more than 25 percent of arriving immigrants settled in California during the decade. More than 20 percent of New York residents were foreign born, though New York City, the historic primary hub for US immigration, experienced significant reductions in immigrant arrivals during the decade.

Changes in Immigration Patterns during the 2000s

Immigration patterns changed substantially in post–September 11 America, due in part to more stringent restrictions and requirements placed on potential immigrants. The Patriot Act of 2001 and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 restructured the governmental processes involved in immigration policy and substantially altered the process of applying for and obtaining legal entry to the United States. The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act of 2002 placed further restrictions on immigrants and required certain classes of immigrants to submit to investigation and to commit to annual renewals of visitor permits. The last major attempt to reform immigration policy came with the REAL ID act of 2005, which placed additional requirements on the identification needed to get a state-issued identification card or a driver’s license.

Post–September 11 immigration reform and restructuring played an important role in declining levels of legal immigration throughout the rest of the decade. More stringent guidelines for citizenship requests and policy changes to application procedures were among the factors affecting this aspect of the immigration process. Legal immigration was reduced more sharply than illegal migration and by 2010 the greatest reduction to immigration numbers came from fewer legal immigrants obtaining entrance to the country.

In 2010, the Pew Research Center released data suggesting that illegal immigration had decreased by one- to two-thirds between 2005 and 2009, largely due to increased border regulations and the economic recession in the United States from 2007 to 2009. In March of 2009, the number of illegal immigrants living in the nation was estimated at 11.1 million. Further, the Pew report indicated that the most significant reductions in illegal immigration affected immigrants from Latin American countries other than Mexico. Mexico remained the largest source of illegal migrants to the United States, contributing an average of seven million illegal migrants annually.

Another notable change in immigration during the decade was the tendency for immigrants to settle in areas other than the nation’s primary metropolitan regions. New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Houston, and Chicago housed 43 percent of the nation’s immigrants in 2000, but only housed 38 percent of immigrants in 2010. In addition, more immigrants decided to settle in suburban rather than metropolitan areas. The number of immigrants living in the suburbs of major metropolitan areas increased from 48 percent in 2000 to 51 percent in 2010.

Characteristics of the Foreign-Born Population

Legal permanent residents are individuals that have received permission to live and work in the United States on a permanent basis. The permanent legal resident card is often informally known as a “green card,” because the resident cards were green in color from the 1940s to the mid-1960s.

During the 2000s, more than eleven million individuals became permanent residents of the United States. Of those obtaining permanent residency, 4.4 million were from the Americas (Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America), 3.4 million were from Asia, 1.3 million were from Europe, and more than 759,000 were from Africa. More than one million individuals achieve permanent resident status each year, with the exception of 2003 and 2004, which were the two years of the decade with the lowest number of individuals achieving resident status. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 and an overall restructuring of immigration guidelines reduced the numbers of individuals achieving legal permanent resident status for this two-year period.

In 1970, nearly 80 percent of immigrants were non-Hispanic whites from Canada and Europe and only 6 percent were Asian or Hispanic/Latino. This trend has seen a complete reversal during the 1990s and 2000s. During these two decades, most of the immigrants arriving in the United States came from Asia, Mexico, and Central America. Between 2000 and 2009, more than 34 percent of immigrants were from Asia and 41 percent were from Latin American countries.

A number of groups opposed to immigration have expressed concern that rising numbers of foreign-born residents may threaten the status of English as the primary language of the United States. Census Bureau research indicates that more than 50 percent of foreign-born individuals speak English as a primary language or speak English “very well.” Approximately 10 percent of the foreign born population did not speak English at all.

Census Bureau analyses also indicate that the foreign-born population were more likely than the native-born population to remain employed and to work in the labor force. More than 67 percent of foreign-born individuals participated in the labor force, as opposed to 63 percent of the native-born. However, despite high employment rates, foreign-born individuals are less likely to achieve financial stability. Foreign-born individuals earn less than half of native-born individuals in terms of median income and only 66 percent of foreign-born individuals received some form of health insurance, as compared to 83 percent of the native-born population. In addition, more than 19 percent of foreign-born individuals lived below the poverty line, as compared with 15 percent of the native-born population.

Economic Impact of Immigration

A variety of studies have attempted to investigate the overall economic impact of immigration in the United States. Some contend that adding immigrant laborers to the workforce should depress wages for American workers, or at least reduce the rate at which wage increases are distributed. Analyses of employment and wage rates have failed to demonstrate clear evidence that immigration contributes to wage depression, however. In a 1995 report published by the Cato Institute, researchers contend that wage increases and reductions appear to be unrelated to immigration and that immigration has no overall impact on economic well being for the native-born workforce.

A variety of studies have shown that in some cases, foreign-born workers may cause depressions in local job availability, while in other cases, foreign-born workers may increase productivity and wages within an industry because the influx of workers increases demand and availability of new projects. Economic analyses from a variety of sources indicate that immigration boosts economic prosperity in the long term, though it may lead to wage reductions for some workers over the short term.

Impact

Overall, immigration during the 2000s was lower than in previous decades, though it still played an important role in the 2.7 percent growth recorded for the US population as a whole. Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, immigration and immigrant rights became a major issue in American politics and the many changes implemented to immigration policy during the decade resulted in reduced rates of both legal and illegal immigration.

The primary legislative change to immigration policy developed during the decade was the REAL ID Act of 2005, which sought to impose mandatory requirements on the documentation needed to obtain state-issued identification. The REAL ID Act was controversial and was approved partially because the legislation was linked to other high priority economic initiatives. By 2012, the federal government had not yet begun enforcing the statutes contained within the REAL ID Act. Some political analysts have opposed the act on the basis that the federally mandated identification requirements could allegedly be used to restrict certain rights, including the right to vote.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Nina. “Study Finds Immigration in U.S. Peaked in 2000.” New York Times. New York Times, 28 Sept. 2005. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.

Martin, Philip, and Elizabeth Midgley. “Population Bulletin Update: Immigration in America 2010.” Population Reference Bureau. Population Reference Bureau, June 2010. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.

Varsanyi, Monica. Taking Local Control: Immigration Policy Activism in U.S. Cities and States. Palo Alto: Stanford UP, 2010. Print. Overview of the legal actions regarding immigration leading up to the 2000s and the response from the populace in terms of activism and organized protest.

West, Darrel M. Brain Gain: Rethinking U.S. Immigration Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Inst., 2010. Print.

Wilson, Jill H., and Audrey Singer. “Immigrants in 2010 Metropolitan America: A Decade of Change.” Brookings. Brookings Inst., 13 Oct. 2011. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.