IMMIGRANTS IN THE UNITED STATES Citizenship Begins At Home: A New Approach to the Civic Integration of Immigrants

For some time now, the debate over U.S. immigrant policy (which addresses the needs of immigrants already residing here, as opposed to immigration policy, which concerns how many and which immigrants should be admitted) has been stuck in an unproductive and divisive pattern. On one side are immigrant advocates, a relatively well-defined and cohesive coalition of civil rights organizations, immigrant activists, minority spokesmen and elected officials, human rights activists and civil libertarians, religious and church groups, and most recently labor unions—all of whom have been pushing for increased programmatic benefits and expanded rights for immigrants. On the other side are the immigrant-policy skeptics, a diffuse and disparate lot of fiscal conservatives, cultural conservatives, and business interests, who tend to embrace high levels of immigration but are not very enthusiastic about programs to support immigrants once they are here. What these skeptics share is the pervasive laissez-faire ideology that today’s immigrants, just like yesterday’s, can and do fend for themselves in taking advantage of the opportunities America affords them. In other words, immigrants do not need or merit any special help to become part of American society.