The United States is a country of immigrants. With the exception of a very small number of Native Americans, all Americans originally came from elsewhere, and even relatively recent immigrants are able to rise to top political and economic roles.
In recent times, however, the political landscape of the United States has come with a strong anti-immigration bias, and the issue played a crucial role in the 2012 Republican Party presidential nomination battle. However, the re-election of President Barack Obama showed the electoral power of voters from the Latino community, who rejected 3-1 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, as did the Asian-American community.
Because of this, a number of prominent politicians in the Republican Party are now trying to get their party to change its stance on immigration and there is no doubt that the start of Obama’s second term as US President will have US immigration reform high on the agenda. Many even believe that successfully achieving this reform is an important move to stop the decline of the power of America itself.
There is nothing new about American fears about the impact that immigration could have on the nation’s values and identity, but market forces and mass communication provide very strong incentives for immigrants to accept a degree of assimilation and master the English language, with most evidence pointing to the fact that today’s immigrants, who have the assistance of modern media to help them to learn about their new country, are assimilating at least at the same speed as their predecessors.