At Odds Over Immigrant Assimilation

Thirty percent of immigrants are here illegally, about double the rate 15 years ago. Illegal status limits economic mobility and public benefits. Fear of being deported -- particularly as tensions boil over illegal immigration -- means "you're not likely to go out and integrate much beyond what you must," said Michael Fix, co-director of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute's National Center on Immigrant Integration Policy.

Drawn by demand for low-skill labor, immigrants are increasingly settling in smaller cities and rural areas, and those doing so are more likely to be poor, non-English-speaking and illegal. It is unclear whether that quickens integration by forcing contact with U.S. natives at the local park or slows it because the receiving communities have little experience bringing immigrants into the fold, Fix said.

Communications and travel revolutions have enabled immigrants to keep closer ties to their homelands, perhaps creating more transnational identities. Unlike in the 1920s, when foreigners were all but prevented from immigrating to the United States, today's immigrants keep coming, and most speak one language: Spanish. That means generations can maintain contact with ancestral cultures and tongues.

And the institutions that prompted assimilation in the early 20th century -- labor unions, a manufacturing economy, the military draft and political parties that once held sway in many cities -- are weakened or gone, researchers say. Today's labor economy fills some, but not all, of the void.

"Historically, certain institutions have been very important in terms of bringing immigrants into American life around issues of politics, American democracy and jobs," said Gary Gerstle, a Vanderbilt University history professor. "Immersion in American culture [alone] doesn't bring you those things."

What these trends mean is unclear. Some researchers say assimilation will occur anyway; others sound alarms.

"We are dramatically less able to digest immigrants successfully and turn them into Americans" than before, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced immigration levels. "The consequences are a kind of balkanization."

John Fonte, director of the Center for American Common Culture at the right-leaning Hudson Institute, predicts a "long-term decay" of American identity.

Fix said the trends do not indicate that the nation is on "the threshold of a culture war." But the possibility of a permanent underclass -- if immigrants' descendants do not advance economically or educationally -- is too great to leave to chance, especially in an economy that increasingly demands higher skills, he said.

For that reason, he and other scholars say, assimilation policy should be as much a part of the immigration debate as rules on who comes and goes -- and the federal government should get far more involved. They call for a national integration office to set and measure goals and serve as a liaison for local governments and organizations that do the bulk of work with immigrants. Aggressive, professional English programs also are a key, Fix said.

So is more money, Jimenez said. According to the Migration Policy Institute, the federal government spent about $2.5 billion on major initiatives directed at the nation's 35 million immigrants in fiscal 2005, most of which went to refugee and migrant worker programs. In 1986, the government gave $4 billion to states to offset costs associated with legalizing 2.8 million immigrants in 1986. The federal task force has spent $1.5 million, officials said.

"A lot of people will see any government involvement as a sort of cultural engineering. Folks on the left won't like it because of that, and folks on the right won't like it because it's spending money on immigrants," Jimenez said. "To the folks on the left, I'd say this is about creating economic opportunity. And to folks on the right, this is about securing the future of the United States."