Proposed Points System and Its Likely Impact on Prospective Immigrants

This report offers a series of original charts that break down data from the 2005 American Community Survey to depict the characteristics of recent immigrants who are representative of those likely to be affected by the proposed merit-based points system for selecting permanent immigrants to the United States.

The charts profile the overall, regional, and national foreign-born population groups for each of the five selection criteria emphasized in the new legislative proposal: age, education, English proficiency, occupation, and labor force participation rates.

Also included in the report are several preliminary observations that authors have extracted from the data. In general, immigrants from Asian countries can be expected to fare well under the proposed points system, while greater challenges in obtaining entry are anticipated for Latin American immigrants. Immigrants from Africa, while comprising a relatively small segment of the immigrant population, largely possess the language, age, and educational characteristics favorable for points-based admission. Finally, for readers who wish to draw their own conclusions from the data presented in the report, authors provide thoughtful guidelines for navigating through the underlying uncertainties of the points-based scheme and avoiding common pitfalls inherent in such exercises.