Immigration In America's Future

Social Science Findings And The Policy Debate

David Heer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429979552
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Immigration policy is one of the most contentious issues facing the United States today. The bitter national debate over California's Proposition 187, the influx of Cuban refugees into Miami, and the continuous, often illegal, crossings over the Mexican border into Texas and California are just a few of the episodes that have created a furor on local, state, and federal levels.In this timely and informative book, David Heer invites readers to examine the data and the trends of immigration to the United States and, ultimately, make up their own minds about what our national immigration policy ought to be. He demonstrates how social science findings, together with a conscious recognition of our individual values, are necessary for the formation of a balanced policy for immigration.Some of the the nation's collective values that may be affected by U.S. immigration policy are the standard of living in this country, the preservation of existing American culture, ethnic and class conflict, and the power of the United States in international affairs. Heer examines the impact of these values on immigration policy and traces the history of U.S. immigration and immigration law and patterns of immigration to the United States. Finally, he offers proposals for change to existing immigration policy.

1 Overview

One of the most contentious issues facing the United States today is immigration policy. Two basic questions have emerged: What should be the number and characteristics of the immigrants to be admitted legally to the United States every year? And what should be done about illegal immigration to the United States? The two questions are obviously related. Suppose, in answer to the first, we decided to allow entry to anyone who wished to come to the United States as a permanent legal resident. In adopting this policy, we would also eliminate undocumented immigrants (i.e., persons whose arrival had been outside the law)—and so we would also have adopted a policy with respect to the second question. Conversely, if we decided to impose very tight restrictions on legal immigration and therefore decreed that most persons who wanted to immigrate to the United States would not be allowed a legal slot, we would magnify the problem of illegal immigration.

Why has immigration policy become such an important issue? A major reason is the tremendous increase in the volume of immigration. During the decade ending on September 30, 1992, the total number of persons granted the status of permanent legal immigrant was almost 9 million. During the previous decade the number had been less than 5 million, and in 1963–1972 it had been only around 3.5 million. Moreover, of the nearly 9 million persons who became permanent legal immigrants between 1983 and 1992, more than 2.7 million received that status only because the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 converted them from their status as undocumented immigrants.¹

Nevertheless, the 1990 census showed that only 7.9 percent of the total population of the United States was foreign-born (some 20 million persons out of a total of about 249 million).² Although this was the highest proportion of foreign-born since 1940, the number fell far short of the record: 14.8 percent in 1930.³

Perhaps another reason the salience of immigration policy has increased is the changing nationality composition of America's immigrants. As recently as 1951–1960, more than half of all immigrants to the United States were from Europe and only 6 percent from Asia. By 1981–1990 only 10 percent of all immigrants came from Europe and 37 percent from Asia. Moreover, there was an even greater shift in the composition of immigration from the two nations bordering the United States—Mexico and Canada. From 1951 to 1960 there were substantially more immigrants from Canada than from Mexico, but from 1981 to 1990 the number of immigrants from Mexico (including those legalized by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act) was more than ten times the number of immigrants from Canada.

The purpose of this book is to help readers consider our future national immigration legislation. The book will demonstrate how social science findings—together with a conscious recognition of the values that we esteem most highly—are necessary in this regard. The next chapter, "The Volume and Character of Future Immigration: The Values at Stake," is a necessary prerequisite to the rest of the book. In this chapter we examine five classes of values that may be affected by immigration policy: (1) the standard of living in the United States, (2) equity, (3) the preservation or modification of existing American culture, (4) ethnic and class conflict, and (5) the power of the United States in international affairs. A key point in Chapter 2 is that a policy that maximizes one value may work to the detriment of another. For example, an immigration policy that increases the power of the United States in international affairs may adversely affect the nation's standard of living.

In Chapter 3 we examine how the findings of social science influence the immigration debate. This chapter emphasizes that social science cannot resolve the immigration debate because different groups with different values within the society benefit differentially from any given immigration policy. Nevertheless, the teachings of social science may allow each interest group to find a policy most conducive to its values. An immigration policy adopted after consideration of certain studies may then be an intelligent compromise negotiated by the several differing interest groups, allowing each group to preserve the maximum amount of its own values.

My argument for the importance of social science findings, however, assumes that such findings are valid. Accordingly, we need to examine the meaning and validity of such data. In Chapter 3 we consider two types of findings, inductive and deductive, and review the famous essay by the leading German social scientist, Max Weber, advocating a valuefree social science. We then look at a well-known essay by Alvin Gouldner that attacks the concept of a value-free sociology. Finally, we review the ideas of the famous Swedish sociologist Gunnar Myrdal on the relationship between facts and valuations in social science. In Chapter 3 I emphasize that whereas social scientists cannot be free from values, the findings of social science may indeed be value-free, as scholars with disparate values can accept the same set of findings. Obviously, some criteria are needed to determine which findings should be accepted and which should not. These criteria are the canons of the scientific method.

Many so-called findings may not meet these criteria and accordingly may not be accepted by all parties to a value or policy dispute. In such cases a particular interest group will seize upon "evidence" that makes its own policy position more attractive to outsiders and rejects contradictory findings. Opposing interest groups will denounce as mere myth the data that diminish their credibility but proclaim the veracity of other findings whose validity is equally in doubt.

Chapter 4 looks at the history of U.S. immigration and immigration law. In each section we pay close attention to the role that presumed proof from social science played in the policy debates important during each historical period. The first part of the chapter considers the long interval from 1789 to 1875 when the United States experienced a large flow of immigrants but in which there were no federal laws of any sort restricting the volume or characteristics of immigrants (with the arguable exception of the abolition of the slave trade in 1808). The policy of unrestricted immigration was not without its severe critics, and we examine that criticism, especially that of the Know-Nothing movement of the 1850s. The second period covered in Chapter 4 begins in 1875 and ends in April 1917, when the United States entered World War I. During this time the volume of immigration to the United States was unprecedented, and the government took its first steps to restrict the flow, particularly from Asia. The third period, from the beginning of U.S. participation in World War I to the beginning of its participation in World War II, was marked by the most restrictive immigration laws in American history and by very low levels of immigration. The fourth period, from 1941 through 1980, involved more liberal immigration policy and consequently a much higher level of immigration. During this war and subsequent cold war, the impact of U.S. immigration policy on the standing of the United States in the international arena assumed great prominence. This led to the end of policy favoring immigration from northwest Europe at the expense of southeast Europe and Asia; it also led to the salience of refugee immigration. At the end of this period, the problem of illegal immigration, predominantly from Mexico, had become an exceedingly controversial issue. In the final period, after 1980, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 wrought major change with respect to undocumented immigrants, and the Immigration Act of 1990 created the most liberal set of immigration regulations in the United States since before 1921.

Chapter 5 is concerned with the patterns of immigration to and from the United States. The first section examines the current patterns of legal immigration, including data on immigration by main category of admission, country of birth, intended metropolitan area of residence, and age and sex distribution. The second section discusses the available data concerning the number, country of origin, geographic distribution, and other characteristics of undocumented immigrants. The third section contains a description from 1990 census data of the characteristics of foreign-born persons from each major nation of origin as compared to all foreign-born persons and U.S. natives. The fourth section concerns sojourners and permanent settlers, examining data on emigration from the United States to other nations, with a particular focus on the phenomenon of return migration among foreign-born persons who have immigrated to the United States. The fifth section looks at the extent to which the immigration of the foreign-born population contributes to current and future population change in the United States. The sixth section concerns the different receptions given to refugees, regular legal immigrants, and undocumented immigrants and describes the legal privileges and handicaps of these three types of immigrants. The seventh section looks at naturalization: how many immigrants become naturalized citizens and the characteristics of naturalized citizens versus immigrants who have not become naturalized citizens. The final section of the chapter treats the phenomenon of ethnic enclaves, sections of a city where most of the inhabitants are immigrants from a particular area of the world. This phenomenon is important because it is debatable whether enclaves hasten or retard the assimilation of immigrants.

Chapter 6 examines the determinants of immigration to and from the United States. The first part of the chapter introduces a conceptual scheme used to analyze the individual decision to migrate. The second part examines the structural determinants of immigration patterns from a macroperspective. The final section explores the place of the United States within the world immigration market, focusing on why immigrants choose to immigrate to the United States rather than to other immigrant-receiving nations such as Canada and Australia.

Chapter 7 concentrates on immigration-law enforcement. The first section discusses the work of the Bureau of Consular Affairs of the U.S. Department of State in issuing visas for permanent and temporary residence in the United States. The second section looks at the activities of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, including its border patrol. The third section treats the effectiveness of immigration-law enforcement as well as the side effects resulting from that enforcement. In the fourth section we examine how under current circumstances undocumented immigration is an aid to eventual legal immigration, and in the final section we consider to what extent granting certain rights to undocumented immigrants may encourage illegal immigration.

Chapter 8 attempts to summarize social science findings concerning the impact of immigration on American values. The first section deals with the standard of living in the United States, the second with equity, the third the preservation or modification of existing American culture, the fourth ethnic and class conflict, and the fifth the power of the United States in world affairs.

The final chapter considers proposals for change in U.S. immigration law. The first section provides data on the attitude of the American population toward immigration as revealed in recent public opinion polls. The second section presents a nutshell summary of my own proposals for change in immigration law. In the final sections I discuss in more detail my own and alternative proposals concerning the proper volume of immigration and the status of legal entrant; ways of dealing with undocumented immigrants, refugees, and asylees; and the criteria by which nonrefugee immigrants and legal entrants should be admitted.

Notes

1. U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1992 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993), pp. 30–32.

2. U.S. Bureau of the Census, "One in Four of Nation's Foreign Born Arrived Since 1985," Census and You, Vol. 28, No. 2 (February 1993), p. 1.

3. John Higham, Send These to Me: Immigrants in Urban America, rev. ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984), p. 15.

2 The Volume and Character of Future Immigration: The Values at Stake

As the dawn of the twenty-first century approaches, the problems of international immigration have assumed greater salience for most high-income nations of the world, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and most West European states. The population of these nations forms only a small proportion of the world's total, about 15 percent, whereas around 85 percent of the world's population lives in one of the economically less developed nations. The contrast in per capita income between the highincome and less-developed nations is staggering. In China and India, the nations with the largest populations, per capita income is less than 10 percent of that in the United States, Germany, or Japan.¹ The large income differences between the high-income and the economically less developed nations, coupled with the much larger populations in the latter, create strong pressure for migration into the former nations from the latter. Augmenting this pressure are revolutions in transportation and communication. The revolution in transportation has greatly reduced the cost of international travel, whereas the revolution in communications, particularly the advent of television, has brought the great wealth of the rich nations into the consciousness of the poor ones. Adding fuel to this fire is the civil unrest in so many of the less-developed nations, which frequently erupts into bloody conflict between differing ethnic groups or simply between haves and have-nots. This civic conflict in turn creates a flood of people seeking status as refugees or asylees, who may flee to a neighboring nation but then often seek entry into whichever high-income nation may be willing to accept them. Others use the airlines to reach one of these nations and there make claim for political asylum. In summary, the pressure for immigration from the poor nations to the rich has reached an unprecedented level—and this pressure is exerted upon all rich nations of the world, not just the United States.

Nevertheless, among even the economically developed nations, the United States is particularly favored. It has the world's highest gross domestic product (GDP) and the highest standard of living.² It is therefore not surprising that at present many more people desire to immigrate to the United States than legislation legally allows.

Currently, there is sharp debate in the United States with respect to immigration policy. Opinions vary dramatically concerning what legal limits should be set on the number and characteristics of immigrants to the United States and what should be done to discourage illegal immigration. In a democracy such as that of the United States, citizens can influence affairs by advocating policies that are enacted into legislation. The purpose of this chapter is to list and briefly discuss the values many or all American citizens hold dear that may be affected either positively or negatively by policies intended to control the volume and character of immigration to the United States.

Policies are mechanisms designed to ensure that a value or series of values is achieved given constraints inherent in a real situation. It is relatively easy to formulate policy when there is only one value or even more than one value, provided that all values are mutually compatible. Dilemmas occur when we wish to uphold several values that cannot simultaneously be maximized. In such a case policy must be designed to advance the sum of all values as much as possible, or at least as much as is necessary to achieve majority support among legislators. In most instan...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Overview
• 2 The Volume and Character of Future Immigration: The Values at Stake
• 3 The Influence of Social Science Findings
• 4 The History of U.S. Immigration Law
• 5 Patterns of Immigration to and from the United States
• 6 Determinants of Immigration
• 7 Enforcement of Immigration Law
• 8 The Impact of Immigration
• 9 Proposals for Change in U.S. Immigration Law
• Bibliography
• About the Book and Author
• Index