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Contested Ground: Immigration in the United States by Michael Jones-Correa TRANSATLANTIC COUNCIL on MIGRATION

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Contested Ground: Immigration in the United States by Michael Jones-Correa TRANSATLANTIC COUNCIL on MIGRATION Contested Ground: ImmIGratIon In the unIted states By Michael Jones-Correa TRANSATLANTIC COUNCIL ON MIGRATION CONTESTED GROUND: Immigration in the United States By Michael Jones-Correa Cornell University July 2012 Acknowledgments This research was commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration, an initiative of the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), for its seventh plenary meeting, held November 2011 in Berlin. The meeting’s theme was “National Identity, Immigration, and Social Cohesion: (Re)building Community in an Ever-Globalizing World” and this paper was one of the reports that informed the Council’s discussions. The Council, an MPI initiative undertaken in cooperation with its policy partner the Bertelsmann Stiftung, is a unique deliberative body that examines vital policy issues and informs migration policy- making processes in North America and Europe. The Council’s work is generously supported by the following foundations and governments: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Open Society Foundations, Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Barrow Cad- bury Trust (UK Policy Partner), the Luso-American Development Foundation, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the govern- ments of Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. For more on the Transatlantic Council on Migration, please visit: www.migrationpolicy.org/transatlantic. © 2012 Migration Policy Institute. All Rights Reserved. Cover Design: Danielle Tinker, MPI Typesetting: April Siruno, MPI No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Migration Policy Institute. A full-text PDF of this document is available for free download from www.migrationpolicy.org. Information for reproducing excerpts from this report can be found at www.migrationpolicy.org/about/copy.php. Inquiries can also be directed to: Permissions Department, Migration Policy Institute, 1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20036, or by contacting [email protected]. Suggested citation: Jones-Correa, Michael. 2012. Contested Ground: Immigration in the United States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Table of Contents Executive Summary .........................................................................................................................1 I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................2 II. A Nation of Immigrants ......................................................................................................2 III. Anxieties about Immigration .........................................................................................5 IV. Developments in Immigration Policy .....................................................................8 A. Federal Enforcement .....................................................................................................................8 B. State and Local Responses .........................................................................................................11 C. The Real Policy Challenge: The New Americans .................................................................13 V. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................15 Works Cited .........................................................................................................................................16 About the Author .............................................................................................................................21 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Executive Summary Although the United States is historically a country of immigrants, its demographic landscape has been altered in new and important ways as a result of the changing nature of immigration flows. In recent decades, immigration has come increasingly from Latin America and significant numbers of immigrants toThe the increase United inStates immigration are unauthorized. from Latin America and its spread beyond traditional immigrant destinations to communities with little prior experience of migration have sparked anxiety among negatively impacts the economy, and is changing the social fabric of society, policies with a strong the American public. In response to concerns that much of the new immigration is unauthorized, enforcement focus have been the trend since the 1980s. These include expanded enforcement along the United States-Mexico border and the identification and removal of unauthorized immigrants in record numbers. Over the past decade, the total number of unauthorized migrants deported each year from the United States doubled. The real challenge ... lies in ensuring a future for the new generation born to immigrant parents. Meanwhile, efforts to agree on a comprehensive package of immigration policy reforms at the federal at those levels proliferating: the number of immigration-related bills introduced at the state level level have been unsuccessful. State and local governments have stepped into this void, with legislation illegal immigration, targeting immigrants’ ability to work and meet the basic requirements of daily life quadrupled between 2005 and 2010 alone. Most of these bills have been designed to discourage largest cities in the United States, have passed legislation to limit the role of local law enforcement in withoutapplying documentation federal immigration of legal laws status. within At thetheir same jurisdictions, time, several and dozen have passed localities, measures including that many support of the immigrants’While public ability and political to access debates public center benefits on andthe questioneducation. of illegal immigration, the real challenge (beyond achieving significant reform of an antiquated and dysfunctional immigration system) lies in ensuring a future for the new generation born to immigrant parents. Almost one-quarter of children in the United States are immigrants or have at least one immigrant parent. Integration efforts must focus on them: intrinsic to the social fabric of America, their success is the nation’s. Contested Ground: Immigration in the United States 1 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE I. Introduction has coincided with the nation’s transition from a manufacturing to a service economy, a rise in wage Theinequality, United1 Statesand the is overall in the midstaging ofof athe sustained population period as the of immigrationbaby-boomer that generation began in approaches the 1960s. This 2 million people to the US population, but also brought about unprecedented ethnic and racial diversity, retirement. Between 1960 and 2000, immigration (and immigrant fertility) not only added over 47 dramatically altering the demography of the country. The diversification of the migrant streams to the United States and the fact that a significant percentage of these flows are unauthorized have both contributed to the tenor of the immigration debate. However much immigrants are debated or deported, the demographic future of the country will be shaped by their children. This report outlines trends in recent immigration to the United States; the anxieties triggered by this immigration, complicated by the current economic downturn and demographic change; the policy response at the national and state levels; and the unexamined implications of the second generation —enforcement the children as ofthe immigrants primary response — and their overlooks role in a Americancentral fact: society. however As the much report immigrants looks at theare reasonsdebated for the current unease around US immigration, it points out that the fixation on state and federal or deported, the demographic future of the country will be shaped by their children. II. A Nation of Immigrants The United States The hasUnited a long States history currently of immigration grants legal and permanent is often described residence as to a morenation than of immigrants. 1 million In 2010, nearly3 40 million of the approximately 309 million residents of the United States were foreignmillion immigrantsborn. arrived to the United States;5 4 6 immigrantsHowever, the every United year States — more has sometimesthan any other been country ambivalent in the about world. immigration, During the and 1990s this alone, ambivalence over 14 is another 13 million arrived between 2000 and 2010. often more pronounced as immigrationMultiple flows Origins, peak, Uncertain as is Destinies: the case Hispanics today. and the American Future (Washington New Dollars and Dreams: American Incomes and Economic Change (New 1 Marta Tienda and Faith Mitchell, eds., Uneven Tides: Rising Inequality in America DC: National Academies Press, 2006); Frank Levy, 2 DowellYork: Russell Myers, Sage Immigrants Foundation, and Boomers:1998); Sheldon Forging Danziger a New Social and Peter Contract Gottschalk, for the Future of America (New York: Russell Sage (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1993). Foundation, 2007). 3 US Census Bureau, American Community Survey (ACS), “Selected Social CharacteristicsU.S. Legal Permanent in the United Residents: States,” 2011 (Washington, http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_10_1YR_DP02&prodType=table. 4 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Immigration Statistics, Immigration and America’s Future DC: DHS Office of Immigration
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