he US], I think it’s had some impact,” noted William Frey, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and author of Diversity Explosion, who wrote the census data analysis, in an interview with FRANCE 24.
At the same time, “increased urbanisation and industrialisation in the major Latin American countries have meant good opportunities for the young people who are there, so they are less inclined to move,” Jack Goldstone, a global fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington DC and professor of public policy at George Mason University in Virginia, whose area of expertise includes immigration, told FRANCE 24. Concurrently with this economic shift, “most Latin American countries have dropped fertility [rates] from 4 children per household in the 1980s to barely over 2 children today”, Goldstone continued.
The corresponding rise in new arrivals from Asia can be attributed to long-term trends in US government policy favouring high-skilled immigration and family reunification.
Since the 1990 Immigration Act put the priority on visas for highly educated and qualified workers, while capping yearly arrivals from those considered unskilled at 10,000, “those visas have predominantly been granted to people from Asia, and once people are in the US through those occupational visas, they can then sponsor family members”, said Janelle Wong, an immigration specialist and professor of Asian-American studies at the University of Maryland, in an interview with FRANCE 24. “If we carry on with the same kind of policies in the future, we will definitely see more immigration from Asia,” she continued.
Shifting patterns in the American economy have accentuated this phenomenon over recent years, Frey added: “the rise of what we call the ‘knowledge economy’ industries – for example in computer work or medical work – helps to bring Asians to the US.”
A 'class element’ explains why there’s less prejudice against Asians
Given the shrinking rate of Latino immigration, the US-Mexico border may seem a strange idée fixe for Trump and sections of his base.
79 percent of those who voted for him in the 2016 presidential elections favoured building a wall across the entire frontier, according to a Pew Research Center survey. However, Trump’s strongest support is in areas where immigration is it at its lowest. For example, of all American states, his highest share of the vote in 2016 – at 68.5 percent – was in West Virginia, where immigrants constituted just 1.6 percent of the population according to 2015 figures.
Many Trump voters are “not really seeing what’s going on”, Frey commented. “Because the actual reality is detached from people’s stereotypes, they’re not really focused on Asians as much as Hispanics. You don’t see Trump talking about Asians very much – it’s off the radar.”
A “class element” also explains the nativist focus on Latin American as opposed to Asian immigrants, argued James Hollifield, an immigration specialist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Because the latter tend to be “highly educated”, the “dynamic that says these people are coming in and stealing jobs hasn’t really taken hold in the same way that people talk about Central Americans, for example, who are often without status, often at the bottom of the labour market”, he told FRANCE 24.
Nevertheless, Wong cautioned that “there’s always going to be this suspicion based on phenotypic differences and that kind of attitude is triggered pretty fast”, while “some research suggests that if you present people with evidence of demographic change, they become more supportive of restrictive [immigration] policies”.
Non-Hispanic whites will be a minority by 2045
The current wave of Asian immigration forms part of a long-term trend, in which the rise of the overall ethnic minority population is projected to make non-Latino whites a minority in the US by 2045.
Historically, large immigration flows to the country have meant that “until minorities are assimilated, until they’re seen as part of the majority, you’ve got pressure that’s going to build up like it did with southern and easter