In the inaugural column of our new series, One Thing I Know, Rubén Rumbaut addresses the gap between public perception and facts on immigration. For this inaugural column, you can download the PDF or continue reading the full column below.

one thing i know

One thing I know is that popular conceptions about immigrants and their assimilation don’t square with the facts.

Of the 6.5 billion people in the world today, 191 million—just under 3 percent—are international migrants. The rest, 97 percent of humanity, are “stayers” living in the countries where they were born.

Moving to a foreign country isn’t easy, even under the most propitious circumstances. Those who do tend to be young and intrepid souls, which is what makes migration the selective process it is. Still, though, the total global migrant stock is up from 155 million in 1990 and 81 million in 1970.

More immigrants come to the United States than to any other country. In 2005 there were 38 million here, one fifth of the world’s immigrant total. But, only 12.9 percent of the U.S. population is foreign-born. Many other countries exceed that percentage and the United States itself did, too, in each decennial census from 1860 through 1920.

These days immigrants to the United States come from extraordinarily diverse backgrounds. In fact, by far both the most and least educated groups in the United States today are immigrants. They’re anything but the homogeneous lot implied in popular stereotypes.