Even as most Americans celebrate their heritage and identity as a “nation of immigrants,” there is deep ambivalence about future immigration. There is a strong base of support for continued immigration as a necessary ingredient for economic growth and as an essential element of a cosmopolitan society among many Americans. Almost 60 million people— more than one fifth of the total population of the United States—are immigrants or the children of immigrants. For most of this community, immigration policy is not
an abstract ideology but a means of family reunification and an affirmation that they are part of the “American dream.”