The United States has been populated by many recurring waves of immigrants, each contributing a particular set of abilities and traits that helped shape the nation. By 1776, on the eve of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, about one million persons had already migrated to what would eventually become the United States. Immigration continued sporadically for the next century; sometimes the faucet was on, and sometimes it was just a trickle. Throughout much of the century, however, the immigrant flow was relatively small, averaging about 170,000 immigrants annually between 1820 and 1880.
The First Great Migration, which began around 1880 and ended abruptly in 1924, fundamentally changed how the United States viewed immigration and its contribution to American society. This historic movement of peoples from many countries brought almost twenty-six million persons to the United States, and altered the course of American social and economic history throughout the twentieth century.
The First Great Migration was — and remains — an exceptional event in human history. Never before had such large population movements occurred over such long distances and in such a short period. Remarkably, it took only a century for history to repeat itself. The Second Great Migration began at the end of the 1960s, and has yet to subside. By the time the twenty-first century begins, almost thirty million persons will have migrated to the United States as part of this flow.
The United States is only now beginning to observe the economic, cultural, and social consequences of the Second Great Migration. Regardless of how immigration policy changes in the future, the Second Great Migration has already set in motion a series of events that will alter the social and economic structure of the United States not only in our generation, but for our children and grandchildren as well.
For better or worse, economic issues often frame the immigration debate. And the weapons of choice in this debate are statistics produced by economic research, with all sides marshaling facts and evidence that support particular policy goals. Will the available evidence influence the direction of the immigration debate? And, perhaps more important, should it?
I believe that it will and that it should. Overall, the evidence suggests that Americans would be better off if the immigrant flow were more skilled. And it can be plausibly argued that a slightly smaller immigrant flow might be beneficial for the country.
But history suggests that major changes in immigration policy occur only sporadically in the United States. Therefore, the road ahead, as the political consensus crystallizes around a new and improved policy, is long and fraught with dangers.
The economic impact of immigration is essentially a distributional one. Immigration shifts wealth away from those who compete with the skills and abilities that immigrants bring into the country, and toward those who employ or use those immigrant resources. As with many redistribution schemes, the people who lose from immigration tend be quite diffused — there are many of them, they are dispersed geographically, and they are not well organized. In contrast, the winners are much more concentrated and better organized — many immigrants tend to be employed in a few industries, and employers in those industries probably gain substantially.
The political lines, therefore, are clearly drawn. But the dangers that lie ahead do not come only from those who call loudly and often for extreme immigration restrictions, such as a closing of the border. The dangers also arise because there are powerful interest groups that gain substantially from current immigration policy. And these groups seem unable — or are unwilling — to see the cost that immigration imposes on other segments of society, and have considerable financial incentives and resources to influence the course of the debate and to ensure that the current policy remains in place.
The adverse effects of the Second Great Migration will not go away simply because some people do not wish to see them. They will continue to accumulate. In the short run, these interest groups will likely succeed in delaying the day of reckoning. In the long run, their impact is much more perilous. For the longer the delay, the greater the chances that when immigration policy finally changes — as it surely must — it will undergo a seismic shift. That shift may, as in 1924, give those who advocate a closing of the border the victory that has long eluded them, and prevent many Americans from enjoying the many benefits that a well-designed immigration policy could bestow on the United States.
Such an outcome would be extremely unfortunate. Immigration has blessed the United States throughout much of its history. Every country is, if one goes back far enough into history, a nation of immigrants. But the United States is unique in this regard. No other nation has offered such a beacon of hope and aspirations to tens of millions of persons from around the world. And nowhere has this beacon shone on for so long. Without the dreams and toil of the millions of immigrants who tamed and harvested the land and helped build great cities "from sea to shining sea," the United States could not offer today such a wonderful and unrivaled mix of cultural and economic opportunities.
Unless the United States chooses a wise immigration policy in the future, there is a real chance that there simply will be no immigration at all. That would leave many people — the immigrants who could benefit greatly from the opportunity of sharing in the American dream and who could, in turn, benefit the American people — forever knocking on heaven's door.