A brief narrative description of the journal article, document,
or resource.This report contains economic and demographic facts
related to immigration, but it does not advocate any position or
ideology nor make any judgments about whether immigrants should
receive government services. When possible, data are presented as
graphs. A review of the facts makes it apparent that the rate of
U.S. immigration in the 1990s is about one-third of the rate of
immigration at the beginning of the century, although the total
number of immigrants, including illegals, is about the same or less
than the number then. The foreign-born population of the United
States is 8.5% of the total population, significantly lower than
the 13% or higher of the period from 1860 to 1930. It is also
evident that immigrants do not increase the rate of unemployment
among native Americans, even for minority, female, and low-skill
groups. The effect of immigration on wages may be negative on some
special groups, and positive on others, but overall it is small.
Total per capita government expenditures on immigrants are much
lower than on the native-born population, no matter how immigrants
are classified. It is true that narrowly defined welfare
expenditures for immigrants are slightly more than for natives, but
these are only a fraction of total government expenditures on
immigrants and natives.
