Born in the U.S.A.

One of the most important questions America will face over the coming decades is how to successfully integrate the children of immigrants. As of 2013, there were 17.4 million children in the United States living with at least one immigrant parent, or roughly 25 percent of all American children. That number is expected to climb to 30 percent by 2018. While the overall U.S. population has increased by 28 percent since 1990, the number of children in immigrant households has increased by 112 percent.

These children face unique challenges. For one thing, they are far more likely than the children of native-born parents to be raised poor. Of those 17.4 million children in immigrant households, more than half — 9.5 million — live in families earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. They constitute almost a third of American children living in such circumstances. This shouldn’t be too surprising, as almost 25 percent of the foreign-born labor force has less than a high-school education, a proportion five times higher than that of the native-born labor force. Moreover, 40 percent of adult immigrants have a low level of English literacy, and 48 percent have a low level of numeracy, rates far higher than for the native-born population. If there were no relationship between the low literacy and numeracy levels of adults and those of their children, this wouldn’t be a great concern. Unfortunately, there is — children of Americans with low levels of literacy and numeracy are significantly less likely to achieve academically than those with better-educated parents.