The other data in the table reflect how well different groups are faring in the U.S.  Here what is striking is that the differences between immigrants and natives are very modest.  

• Among non-Hispanic whites, for example, the only appreciable difference is in the percent below poverty, but immigrants are within 0.1 year of having the same education level, within $1000 in median income, and within 0.2% of the same unemployment level.  White immigrants are very successful compared to blacks or Hispanics, and only slightly below white natives.

• Among blacks, immigrants have a surprising edge over those born in the U.S. – higher education and income, and a substantially lower percentage unemployed or below the poverty line.

• Among Hispanics, immigrants have substantially lower education than natives (this is measured for persons aged 25 and over).  But the differences in income and poverty rate are negligible, and immigrants are less likely to be unemployed.

• Asian immigrants have remarkably high income and education, as well as low poverty rates, but nonetheless they are not doing as well as Asians born in the U.S. in these dimensions.  However, like Hispanic immigrants they are less likely to be unemployed than their U.S.-born counterparts.

In short there are substantial effects of immigration on citizenship and language use, but relatively small and inconsistent differences in education and economic standing.  While it is true that a majority of immigrants in this country are less educated and less affluent than the national average, this results from the large share of Hispanics among immigrants.  Within ethnic categories, immigration has smaller effects than one would expect. 

The uneven growth of the immigrant population in metropolitan America 

Today the story of immigration is primarily about cities and suburbs – especially suburbs.  Some immigrants are also found in rural America, but unlike the middle of the 19^th Century, when farming communities were a primary destination for immigrants, only about 10% of foreign-born Americans now live in rural areas.  And unlike the early 20^th Century, when they clustered in enclaves in the central cities, the major growth now is in the suburbs. 

The growth of the immigrant population in metropolitan areas is enumerated in Table 2.  The sources of data here and in subsequent tables are the summary files for Census 1990 and 2000. The table shows the number of U.S.-born and foreign-born persons in each major racial/ethnic category who lived within a metropolitan region in both 1990 and 2000.  The percentage of residents born abroad increased from 9.5% in 1990 to 13.0% in 2000.  More than 40% of Hispanics and about two-thirds of Asians are immigrants.