America Needs an Integration Policy

We Can't Take for Granted That Our Country Will Continue to Successfully Incorporate Newcomers

The United States takes in far more legal immigrants each year than any other nation on Earth, more than a million. We Americans have a great deal of confidence in our ability to welcome and integrate these newcomers and their children. Indeed, we consider it one of our defining traits as a people, and as a nation.

But our successful integration of immigrants is less exceptional—whether we take that word to mean unique or excellent—than we often think when compared to other countries. That is our conclusion after undertaking a …