The Barriers to Immigrant Youth Achievement: An Examination into Prince George’s County Immigrant Adolescents

Abstract

The result of political labeling is the connotation surrounding the words “immigrants”, “aliens”, or “foreign-born” causes native citizens to perceive immigrants as “the other”. This way of thinking causes native citizens to distance themselves from immigrants’ problems in America today and pretend that the issue does not affect them. Anti-immigration arguments fail to consider the consequences of the social issue affecting 12.9% (the foreign born portion of the population) of the 2010 total population (Census, 2010). There needs to be a mental shift in the way people understand immigrants currently in America today.