http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200512\NAT20051213a.html

U.S. Immigration Hits Record High, Increases Poverty Levels
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Correspondent
December 13, 2005

(CNSNews.com) - From 2000 to 2005, the U.S. has seen the highest immigration levels in a five-year period in its history, according to a report released Monday by the Center for Immigration Studies.

"This corrects the notion that immigration has really slowed as a result of Sept. 11, or as a result of the economy, or anything else," Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Cybercast News Service.

"The last five years appears to be a record. Nearly eight million people came," Camarota added.

The center said there are 35.2 million immigrants in the United States, of those, Camarota said, "45 percent of immigrants and their young children live in or around the poverty threshold."

Many of these immigrants are not well educated, only giving them opportunities in low-paying jobs.

"For immigrants who arrived between 2000 and 2005, 34 percent had not completed high school. In comparison, slightly less than eight percent of natives in the workforce lacked a high school education," the report said.

"The difference in the educational attainment of immigrants and natives has enormous implications for the social and economic integration of immigrants into American society. There is no single better predictor of economic success than education," the report added.

Demitrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute, said that while the numbers are what they are, the implications of poverty may be different for immigrants.

"Poverty is something that every good society, just society, should be concerned about. That is a necessary thing for us to do. Due to different life choices, the way that different immigrant households have organized themselves... does not imply the same thing as an average American household that is at or near the poverty line," Papademetriou told Cybercast News Service.

"An immigrant household may know how to stretch a dollar. Also, they cut corners. Immigrants have always done that in their first five or ten years of immigration. It's probably how they behave today, which means the sting of being at the poverty line may not be felt the same way," he added.

But Camarota is wearier of a large influx of immigrants, which he said is bound to have a large impact on American society.

"Absent a change in policy, the number of immigrants will continue to grow rapidly for the foreseeable future. No nation has ever attempted to incorporate more than 35 million newcomers into its society. Whatever one thinks of contemporary immigration, it is critically important to understand that its effect on America represents a choice," he said.