MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

American dream: One in five in US don't speak English at home

It does not distinguish between illegal immigrants and those who are in the US legally

One in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English, according to new Census data showing the wide-ranging effects of immigration.

The number of immigrants in the US reached an all-time high of 37.5 million in 2006, affecting incomes and education levels in many cities across the country. But the effects have not been uniform. In most states, immigrants have added to the number of those lacking a high-school diploma, with almost half of those from Latin America falling into that category. However, at the other end of the education spectrum, Asian immigrants are improving education levels in many states, with nearly half of those coming from Asia holding at least a bachelor's degree. "There is no one-size-fits-all policy that you could apply for all immigrant groups", said Mark Mather of the Population Reference Bureau. "I think most of the attention has been on low-skilled workers coming from Mexico. But we have 10 million immigrants from Asia, a number that's growing". The US government's Census Bureau this week released a host of demographic data about the United States, including statistics on immigration, housing, education and employment. The data are from the American Community Survey, an annual survey of three million households that has replaced the Census Bureau's long-form questionnaire from the once-a-decade census. It does not distinguish between illegal immigrants and those who are in the US legally. Mather analyzed the differences in education levels among immigrants from Asia and those from Latin America. Together, the groups account for about 80% of all immigrants. About 48% of Asian immigrants held at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 11% of immigrants from Latin America. Among people born in the US, about 27% were college graduates. "Driving this are people coming from China and India'' Mather said. "They are either coming with a bachelor's degree, or they are coming with visas and getting degrees once they arrive". At the other end of the spectrum, 47% of adult immigrants from Latin America lacked a high school diploma, compared with 16% of Asian immigrants and 13% of people born in the US. Those numbers are fuelling overall increases in the number of high-school dropouts in four states: Nevada, Arizona, Colorado and Texas, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. "It used to be the poor southern states that had low levels of education and income. Now it is the high-immigration states as well", Frey said. "But that isn't to say that the second or third generation won't do better, because they will" he added. ''There is upward mobility in US society".