Immigration and Race Relations in the United States
Last week’s move by United States President Barack Obama to unilaterally reform the US’ immigration system, combined with this week’s protests across the US against the decision by a grand jury not to indict a white policeman who shot a black 18-year-old man near the city of St. Louis, highlighted the challenges the US is facing with regards to immigration and race relations. While the two issues are unrelated, they nevertheless point to the fact that the United States’ ethnic profile is changing as the share of the country’s population that has descended from European ethnic groups is on the decline. Moreover, the economic profile of the US is also changing and this is adding to the pressures facing the US immigration system as well as race relations in the US.
So far, the United States has done a better job than nearly any other country in world history at assimilating immigrants and allowing for massive inflows of peoples from around the world to enter and settle within its borders. Nevertheless, the pattern of immigration into the US has changed significantly in recent decades, with European immigration falling and Latin American immigration soaring. As many Latin American immigrants have entered the US illegally, and as there are millions of other Latin Americans seeking to enter the US, this has raised fears that the US will be “swamped” by immigrants coming from the south. Moreover, many of these Latin American immigrants have come to the US to seek lower-skilled jobs, precisely the types of jobs that have been disappearing in the US over the past decade and this is adding to the resistance to Latin American immigration by the working class in the US.
Meanwhile, the protests and rioting that have rocked the St. Louis area as well as many other cities in the US have served as a strong reminder that relations between the 13% of the United States that is African American and the rest of the country’s population remain strained. On one hand, many African Americans believe that they are facing discrimination at the hands of police and other security forces in a number of US cities. On the other hand, African American average income levels remain 25% below the national average in the United States and the recent economic slowdown in the US hit many African American communities particularly hard. Finally, while the African American community has continued to struggle economically, other immigrant groups, particularly those from Asia, have prospered in the United States in recent decades, while their overall numbers are rising much faster than the African American population in the US. All of these factors are leading to the perception by many African Americans that they are being marginalized in the United States.
History suggests that the United States will be able to overcome its current immigration and race relation problems as it is much better positioned to assimilate its minority populations than other countries. Nevertheless, the threat of widening wealth disparities and the disappearance of many of the low-skilled jobs that used to be filled by new immigrants and ethnic minorities in the US could continue to inflame racial tensions and lead to a major backlash against immigrants. For these problems to be overcome, the US government must do more to improve the economic opportunities of all people living in the US, while community leaders must do more to prepare their supporters for the challenges of living in a 21st century economy that is much different than the economies that existing during the previous eras of mass immigration in the late 19th century and in the years following the Second World War.