SignOnSanDiego Special Reports -- America's immigration dilemma

America's immigration dilemma


	MICHAEL D. WINOKUR / Copley News Service
	Tight squeeze: Among the difficulties facing many struggling immigrants is finding affordable and adequate housing. Kitty Lau, 10, does her homework in bed while her brothers Danny, 9, left, and Tony, 6, play in their New York apartment.

Crowding out hope

The largest wave of immigrants in U.S. history is under way, and there' s no end in sight. Recent research raises troubling questions about what this means for the immigrants -- and what it means for America.

First of three parts

NEW YORK -- In a roach-infested hall cluttered with the shoes of seven adults, Song Tian Zhong stuffs his hands in his pockets and recalls the day his father introduced him to his new home after he arrived from China.

He cried.

The urine-smelling apartment was the first of many disappointments about his new country. There were the long hours working in a Brooklyn grocery store. The thin paycheck. Rent that ate more than three of every four dollars his family earned.

More . . .

SACRAMENTO
The brunt of immigration wave pounds California: As they enter the country, immigrants today are unlikely to glimpse the Statue of Liberty.

WASHINGTON
1965 act's effect reverberates to this day: When Congress passed the 1965 law that triggered America' s greatest wave of immigration, it did so only after assurances from proponents that immigration would remain at its 1964 level of 292,248.

Part Two

HURON, Calif.
Withering wages: They arrive dreaming of riches. But many immigrants lack the skills demanded by the new economy and fall further behind the longer they' re here. Many are stuck at the bottom.

PRINCE GEORGES COUNTY, Md.
Immigrants tell of toils: Maria del Carmen Reyes Cruz lives outside Washington, D.C., in the suburban Maryland town of Hyattsville.

WASHINGTON
Life grew harsher in '96: In 1996, Congress debated limiting legal immigration. Lawmakers invoked America's immigrant tradition, paid tribute to their own immigrant ancestors, and talked passionately about how immigrants take jobs nobody else wants.

Part Three

CHICAGO
Future at risk: Second- and third-generation Americans are the great hope for today's immigrants. But astronomical dropout rates, gangs, drugs and dead-end jobs cloud their future. And government seems indifferent to their plight.

HURON, Calif.
Future of town's youth withers in the fields: To the tune of "Quinceañera," six gown-and-tuxedo-clad teen-age couples slowly perform a dance around Mayra Millan, who stands in the middle trying to contain her smile and then her tears of joy. Mayra is celebrating her 15th birthday in traditional Mexican fashion.

CHICAGO
Chicago school provides immigrant students chance to learn in safety: Salvador Lopez's parents had been ready to send him and his brother back to their native Mexico to avoid the violence and chaos at the public high school.

WASHINGTON
Points of View: Experts advocate widely ranging solutions to the problem.

America's immigration dilemma

August 22, 1999

Nearly two years ago, a team of Copley News Service reporters began meeting with immigration experts to examine the most current research on immigration trends. The goal was to discover how America' s newcomers were faring after three decades of high immigration.

To get a sharp picture of who is resettling in America and where, the reporters analyzed data from the Immigration and Naturalization Service for the past 16 years, along with figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.

They also fanned out to immigrant communities across the country, from the nation' s capital to California's San Joaquin Valley.

Among the academic resources the reporters relied on were:

The National Research Council' s 1997 report, "The New Americans."

RAND' s 1997 report on immigrants in California, "Immigration in a Changing Economy."

RAND' s 1996 report, "The Mixed Economic Progress of Immigrants."

The Urban Institute' s report on the San Joaquin Valley -- done in conjunction with the University of California Davis -- titled "Poverty Amid Prosperity."

"The Debate in the United States Over Immigration," a collection of essays from immigration experts that was assembled by Peter Duignan and Lewis H. Gann of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

The complete series

Sunday, Aug. 23:
Immigrants are arriving in numbers so large they have surpassed an eventually will dwarf the numbers that arrived roughly a century ago. But today's immigrants face greater obstacles than their predecessors to move up in society.

Monday, Aug. 24:
America is seen as an economic launching pad by new immigrants. But that's not the reality for many, particulary in California's Central Valley, where poverty is spreading like dandelions through the world's richest farm belt.

Tuesday, Aug. 25:
Education is the best hope for young immigrants to succeed in this country. But high dropout rates, a shortage of schools and grim economics leave many second- and third-generation Americans worse off than their parents.

Comments

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