Do Immigrants “Drain” Society?

Two of the most common canards about immigrant families are that they don’t really want to become American and that they’re a drag on the rest of us. But a fascinating new Pew report gives lie to both fears. In the process, it reminds us why immigration matters.

The study shows first of all that Americanization is proceeding as inevitably now as during previous great waves of migration. Yes, today’s immigrants are Hispanic and Asian rather than European. But that hasn’t made a difference. Today’s 20 million adult sons and daughters of immigrants have learned English, advanced economically, and intermarried far more than their parents did and no more slowly than the Italians or Irish or Poles did a century ago. Nearly six in ten — almost double the percentage of their parents — consider themselves “typical Americans.”

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