Is the New Immigration Really so Bad?

This article reviews the recent evidence on US immigration, focusing on two key questions: (1) Does immigration reduce the labour market opportunities of less skilled natives? (2) Have immigrants who arrived after the 1965 Immigration Reform Act been successfully assimilated? Overall, evidence that immigrants have harmed the opportunities of less educated natives is scant. On the question of assimilation, the success of the US-born children of immigrants is a key yardstick. By this metric, post-1965 immigrants are doing reasonably well. Even children of the least educated immigrant origin groups have closed most of the education gap with the children of natives. Copyright 2005 Royal Economic Society.