Legal immigrants, refugees and illegal immigrants are all included in U.S. censuses. But refugees and illegal immigrants have tended to be poorer and less educated on average than other immigrants. As a result, census data on the education, skills, and incomes of all immigrants understate immigrant quality when applied to the legal immigrant population. Changing policy with respect to legal immigrants cannot be expected to change the characteristics of illegal immigrants and refugees. Projection of the future racial composition of the United States must take into account trends in ethnic intermarriage and ethnic self-identification.
Different assumptions produce strikingly different racial and ethnic profiles.
Understanding the effect of immigration on wages and jobs requires looking both at aggregate data and specific labor markets. Aggregate data show no overall effect. Studies of specific labor markets show small negative effects on low-skilled workers in stagnant local economies with high concentrations of immigrants, but not in other types of economies. The impact of immigration on the wages and jobs of native-born Americans within a community is likely to vary over time depending on the local economy. Estimates of the labor market effects of immigrants usually fail to account for the job-creating effects of immigrant businesses and spending.