Commentary: Immigrants want chance to assimilate

In our past, immigrants assimilated by the second generation and today's immigrants are the same.   - - Donna Poisl

By Helen B. Marrow and Tomas R. Jimenez, Los Angeles Times

Now that the Senate has passed its immigration bill, the future of reform lies in the hands of the GOP-led House, where the debate will center on allowing a path to citizenship for 11 million immigrants living in this country without legal status. Opponents of this path often claim that low-skilled Mexicans, who make up the largest subgroup, are not fitting into U.S. society — that they don’t want to assimilate and are fated to remain a permanent underclass.

Solid evidence suggests these claims are untrue. Many Mexican immigrants and their children have traveled paths to becoming full Americans that, even if slower, are not unlike the paths followed previously by European immigrants. And when parents have legal status, their children do better in school and become fully productive members of American society more quickly.
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