A State Resilient: Immigrant Integration and California's Future

In this brief, the authors question the methodology and findings of a June 2010 report published by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) entitled "A State Transformed: Immigration and the New California."  The CIS report linked immigration to declining high school completion rates and rising inequality in the state. Specifically, the state was the seventh most educated state in 1970 but 50thin 2008. The USC brief accuses the authors of the CIS report of "cherry-picking" facts to support their anti-immigration bias. The authors point out that California's median household income during this period of heavy immigration rose from 10th in the nation to 8th. They also note that any slippage in college completion rates seems attributable to the native born, rather than to immigrants, who currently constitute 40% of 25-64 years olds with doctorate degrees in California.  Finally, the authors point out that the economic fortunes of immigrants who didn't graduate from high school in their home countries (and who arrived in the U.S. at age 19 or older) are considerably better than native-born non-high school completers.

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