The immigration narrative is supposed to run something like this: the initial immigrant may struggle to get settled, but the kids will be valedictorians and successful in adult life. Even some illegal alien kiddies show up in caps and gowns to show their future potential as the immigration myth dictates.
Below, amnesty-seeking Dreamers paraded around Hollywood in 2010 in scholarly attire [1] to give the impression of future success.
But the narrative turns out to be false, according to a new study from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The second generation experiences more poverty and school failure — so much for the idea of immigrant progress!
If immigrant kids are not able to succeed in American schools, perhaps the reason is that there are too many of them. School stress caused by immigrant overcrowding [2] has been reported in many areas, resulting in deficient education for all [3].
Children of immigrants experience more poverty, academic failure, report finds [4], Washington Post, October 24, 2017
Children of immigrants, who make up 28 percent of all children in Maryland and nearly a quarter of those in Virginia and the District, are more likely to live in chronic poverty and less likely to perform at grade level in school, according to a report being released Tuesday by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
The report [5] highlights disparities in opportunities for children of immigrants. It also highlights the harder-to-measure impacts of persistent stress on children affected by government policies that result in the profiling, deportation and detention of immigrants.
“When you hear conversations about immigration and immigration policies, it’s rare that you hear about the impacts on kids being discussed,” said Laura Speer, associate director for policy reform and advocacy for the Casey Foundation. “These kids are going to be our future leaders, our future workforce. We need them to be successful if we are going to be successful as a country.”
Nationally, there are 18 million children who live with parents who emigrated from another country. Of those, 88 percent are U.S. citizens. About 5 million children have a parent who is undocumented.
While children of immigrants make up less than a quarter of the nation’s population of children, they account for 30 percent of those from low-income families, the report says.
They are also more likely to struggle in school. Only 8 percent of fourth-graders in immigrant families scored at or above proficient in reading in 2015 compared to 38 percent of children from non-immigrant families. And just 5 percent of eighth-grade children from immigrant families scored at or above proficient in math in 2015 compared to 34 percent of children from nonimmigrant families. The report used English-language learner status as a proxy for determining which students have immigrant parents.
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