ABSTRACT
The United States has been a nation of immigrants. The door may not always have been wide open, but it has never been completely shut. The current debate over the wisdom of high rates of immigration is not new; it stretches back even to colonial times. The modern era of immigration policy dates from the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act. Immigration will also affect the age distribution of the resident population, with crucial implications for public policy. The demographic model also projects the racial and ethnic composition of the future population, divided into four mutually exclusive groups: non-Hispanic whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians. The evidence points to the conclusion that immigration has had a relatively small adverse impact on the wage and employment opportunities of competing native groups. Employment rates of immigrants have also fallen relative to those of natives. However, immigrants catch up to natives relatively quickly.
