Highly skilled temporary and permanent immigrants in the United States now outnumber lower-skilled ones, marking a dramatic shift in the foreign-born workforce that could have profound political and economic implications in the national debate over immigration. This shift in America’s immigration population, based on census data, is summarized in a report released Thursday by the Brookings Institution. It found that 30 percent of the country’s working-age immigrants, regardless of legal status, have at least a bachelor’s degree, while 28 percent lack a high school diploma.
The trend reflects a fundamental change in the structure and demands of the U.S. economy, which in the past decades transformed from an economy driven by manufacturing to one driven by information and technology.
The report also offers a new perspective on the national immigration discourse, which tends to fixate on low-skilled, and often illegal, workers.“Too often the immigration debate is driven by images on television of people jumping over fences,” said Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy organization. “The debate has been stuck in the idea that it’s all about illegal and low-skilled workers.”
Steven Camarota, director of research at the
Center for Immigration Studies, an organization that advocates for tighter immigration restrictions, said the report raises other concerns. “It seems, based on this and other studies, that we’ve got an oversupply of highly skilled workers coming into this country,” he said, adding that the study’s findings were not surprising. “New college graduates are faring very poorly on the labor market, and what the report is telling us is that we’re bringing in a high number of workers to compete with them.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/report-documents-dramatic-shift-in-immigrant-workforces-skill-level/2011/06/08/AGHqthMH_story.html