Cities that receive the largest numbers of immigrants also have twice the unemployment rate, 40% more people living in poverty, and 40% more serious crime per capita than cities with few or no immigrant arrivals.
Some 11.2 million immigrants arrived in the USA between 1990 and 2000. This, added to the 6.4 million children born to immigrants living in the USA, accounts for almost 70% of the US population growth in the past decade.
Immigrants now represent more than one in every tenUS residents, the highest percentage in 70 years.
Over the next 50 years, the US Census Bureau projects that immigration will cause the population of the United States to increase from its present 270 million to more than 400 million.
Nationwide, 33% of Third World immigrants who settled in the USA since 1990, live in poverty, nearly three times the rate for US-born natives. Some 36% of immigrants failed to finish high school, more than double the percentage for US-born nationals.
About 15% of US citizens fall below the poverty line,compared to 29% of non-citizens. About 11% of non-citizens have incomes less than 50% of the poverty line, compared to 6% of citizens.
The number of impoverished people in the USA's immigrant-headed households nearly tripled from 2.7 million in 1979 to 7.7 million in 1997. During that same period, the number of poor households headed by immigrants increased by 123% while the number of immigrant households increased by 68%.
According to Forbes Magazine, a greater proportion of the US population is currently living in poverty than what was the case three decades ago. According to Forbes Magazine, Significantly, Hispanics accounted for a statistical 0% of the nation's poor in 1959.
Hispanics first entered the tables in 1972, making up 1.1% of the USA's poor in that year. By 1996, Hispanics made up 2.7% of the nation's poor - almost equivalent to the Black figure.
Forbes Magazine identified the leap in Hispanic poverty rates as being dueto their numbers being "fed by immigration."
According to the US Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, March 2001, some 22.1% of Blacks were below the official poverty line. This compares with 21.2% of Hispanics; 10.8% of Asians and Pacific Islanders; and 7.5% of White non-Hispanics.
According to the Puerto Rican/Hispanic Institute for the Elderly in New York, about 23.8% of elderly Hispanics in the United States live in poverty, with no prospects of improvement in their situation.
In 1997, 25% of all children in California were living below the poverty line.
The number of children living in poverty in California had increased by more than 3% from 1990 to 1997.
In the Appalachia, Mississippi Delta, Black Hills, and Los Angeles areas, more than 30% of Hispanics are below the poverty line.
According to a survey by the University of California at San Francisco and the Field Institute, Latinos are 13 times more likely to be part of the working poor -- defined in the survey as a family off our earning less than $20,000.
Denver's five poorest neighborhoods are populated mostly by Hispanics that only speak Spanish, particularly in the northern part of the city. In these neighborhoods, 80% of the children receive food coupons, and are responsible for 37% of the city's crime rate.
The number of people in poverty living in immigrant households in Arizona has nearly tripled to 330,000 from 113,000 during the 1990s. During that same time, immigrant households rose to 41%, from 20% of the total of poverty-level households.
In 1996, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 1.2 million newcomers joined the US population - yet fewer than 5% were admitted because of their job skills. Most of the rest were allowed in because they were relatives of US citizens or other immigrants or were refugees, and a quarter of the total were illegal immigrants.
During the 1990s, more than 1.3 million people with less than a high school education entered the USA. Of those who arrived in this decade, 34.4% were school dropouts.
In 1998, nearly 40% of immigrants had less than a high school education - double the share for natives, according to the 1990 census figures. The gap widens when grade school education is considered. Some 23% of immigrants have less than nine years of education,compared with just 4% of Americans.
Only 8% of California Latinos have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with 43% of Asians, 33% of whites and 24% of African Americans, according to the California Research Bureau.
Latinos in California have the highest high school dropout rate (45%), lowest college graduation rate (8%) and, not surprisingly, the lowest median income ($14,560).
The Latino education gap in California is not new. Previous studies showthe same was true as far back as the 1940s.
The high school dropout rate in most Latin American countries exceeds 50%.
Mexico, for example, has an illiteracy rate in excess of 10%, and Guatemala has an illiteracy rate of over 40%.
Median household income in the New York areas of Queens, Brooklyn, Suffolk, Fairfield, favored by immigrants, dropped between 1989 and 1998. This was also the case in many other countiesacross the nation that experienced a large influx of immigrants, according to census data.
The data show that in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx - counties with a major increase of immigrants - median income fell sharply. In Queens, according to the data, the median household income fell from $44,938 in 1989, to $36,480 in 1998, a drop of nearly 19%, while in Brooklyn it fell by 18%, from $33,762 to $27,556.
Median income also fell in many counties in other states attractive to immigrants, including Los Angeles County and Miami-Dade County. In Los Angeles County, where there has been a surge of immigrants from Mexico, median income fell in constant dollars from $45,962 in 1989 to $37,655 in 1998, a decline of 18%.