Divided or Contingent Loyalties? The Political Incorporation Process of Latin American Immigrants in the United States

Immigration is changing America. By 2007, the foreign-born population surpassed 40 million, representing more than 15 percent of the total. As is well-known, contemporary immigration is bifurcated into a flow of highly educated immigrants and a still larger movement of poorly-educated manual laborers. Immigrants with high levels of human capital arrive mostly through legal channels and come predominantly from Asian countries such as India, China, and the Philippines. Manual labor migrants often enter the country without legal papers or overstay temporary visas. They come overwhelmingly from Latin America, primarily Mexico and Central America.