Surveys of the native-born public show what Americans expect of immigrants who settle among them. In a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, 92% of Americans said speaking English is important to being truly American, including 70% who said it is very important.
More than eight in ten said sharing American customs and traditions is important. By 2020, Pew found that the share calling English at least somewhat important had fallen to 77%, a decline driven by liberals and moderates. In Pew’s focus groups, Republican participants stressed learning English, adopting American values, and following the law.
An AP-NORC poll found that Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree that a fair judicial system, the rule of law, constitutional freedoms, and the ability to get a good job and achieve the American Dream are central to American identity. In a later AP-NORC poll, half of Americans said immigrants should adopt an essential American culture.
Public views of immigrants have long turned on work, welfare, and crime. In 1993, majorities believed Latin American immigrants often ended up on welfare and increased crime. By 2006, about eight in ten described Latino and Asian immigrants as hardworking and having strong family values.
Taken together, these surveys show that, to the native-born, a good immigrant learns English, works and supports his family, stays off welfare, obeys the law, and adopts American customs.
The data on welfare and incarceration support the pessimistic view of Latin American immigrants. A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of 2012 Census Bureau survey data found that 73% of households headed by immigrants from Central America and Mexico used at least one welfare program, compared with 30% of native households. The same analysis found that these immigrant households received an average of $8,251 in welfare benefits, 86% more than native households.
Federal data show that Hispanics are arrested and imprisoned at higher rates than non-Hispanic whites. The Bureau of Justice Statistics found that in 2023, Hispanic adults were imprisoned at a rate of 606 per 100,000, 2.6 times the rate of 231 for white adults. Asian adults were imprisoned at 88 per 100,000. Prison counts record ethnicity but not birthplace, so the Hispanic figure includes both immigrants and the U.S.-born.
In 2018, Hispanics made up 18.3% of the population but 21.4% of people arrested for serious violent crimes, while whites made up 60.4% of the population and 38.7% of those arrested. Per capita, Hispanics were arrested for rape, robbery, and aggravated assault at about 1.8 times the white rate. Victim surveys, which capture crimes never reported to police, identified Hispanics as 15.5% of offenders in serious violent crimes, about 1.2 times the white rate per capita. BJS noted that victims could not determine whether an offender was Hispanic in up to 12% of incidents, which may have led to some undercounting of Hispanic offenders.
A National Bureau of Economic Research study by economists Ran Abramitzky, Leah Boustan, Elisa Jácome, Santiago Pérez, and Juan David Torres used Census data on institutionalized men aged 18 to 40 to separate immigrants by country of origin. It found that since 2005, immigrants from Mexico and Central America have been incarcerated at higher rates than U.S.-born white men.
At the end of 2023, non-citizens made up 22,817 of 155,972 federal prisoners, or 14.6%, about twice their share of the U.S. population. Non-citizens number roughly 22.8 million, or about 7% of residents. The federal prison count includes immigration offenses.
English proficiency among Hmong, Cambodian, Laotian, and Vietnamese immigrants ranges from 36% to 45%. Among working-age Somali immigrants in Minnesota, 58.2% speak English less than “very well,” according to a Center for Immigration Studies analysis of 2014–2023 Census data. Even among those who have lived in the United States for more than 10 years, the share is 49%.
Southeast Asian refugee groups began with high welfare dependency. A 1990 General Accounting Office report found that 58% to 73% of recently arrived Southeast Asian refugees participated in public assistance programs. The 1980 Census showed that 65.5% of Hmong families and 67.2% of Laotian families lived in poverty.
By 2017–2021, Hmong poverty in Wisconsin, home to the country’s third-largest Hmong population, had fallen to 13% from 75% in 1989. Six percent of Hmong households received cash public assistance income, compared with 2% of all households in the state.
Minnesota, which has roughly 100,000 Hmong residents, counted 359 Hmong adults on its main family welfare program in early 2016, compared with 3,696 Somali adults. The program combines cash and food assistance. From 2019 to 2023, 9.1% of Hmong Minnesotans lived in poverty, 33.9% had incomes below twice the poverty line, and 78.8% of working-age adults were employed.
Nationally, poverty rates are 14% for Hmong, 13% for Cambodians, 11% for Vietnamese, and 10% for Laotians, close to the national rate of 11.1%. Homeownership rates are 56% for Hmong-headed households, 60% for Cambodian households, 64% for Laotian households, and 68% for Vietnamese households, compared with 62% for Asian households overall.
Burmese households have a median income of $67,600, compared with the national median of $80,610 in 2023. The Burmese poverty rate is 21%.
Among Somali immigrants in Minnesota, 21.6% of working-age men are without a job, compared with 17.6% of native-born men. Among adults, 37.5% live in poverty, compared with 6.9% of native-born adults. The Center for Immigration Studies analysis found that 81% of Somali immigrant households receive some form of welfare, compared with 21% of native households. Among Somali immigrant households, 54% receive food stamps and 73% have at least one member on Medicaid. Nationally, 12.2% of households received SNAP in 2023.
Census data on food stamp receipt by Asian subgroup exist, but no published source reports Medicaid enrollment for Hmong, Cambodian, or Laotian Americans.
A chart President Trump posted in January 2026 listed immigrant household welfare use at 81.4% for Bhutan, 71.9% for Somalia, and 59.2% for Burma. The chart did not identify its data source or which programs it counted.
On obeying the law, no federal dataset tracks crime by national origin or ancestry, and FBI statistics group all Asian Americans into a single category. Deportation data provide one indicator. About 14,788 Southeast Asians living in the United States have final orders of removal. According to ICE data compiled by the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, 76% of those orders stem from contact with the criminal justice system. More than 4,800 Laotian nationals, including Hmong and Mien, have removal orders, as do about 1,700 Cambodians.
In Minnesota, the CIS study found that 1.5% of young Somali men are institutionalized, which usually means prison, compared with 1.3% of young native-born men. In the $250 million Feeding Our Future child-nutrition fraud case, federal prosecutors announced the 68th conviction in July 2026, out of about 80 defendants charged. The vast majority of the defendants are of Somali descent. Roughly a dozen Somalis from Minnesota left to join the Islamic State in Syria, mostly during the 2010s.
On adopting American civic life, naturalization rates are high across the groups. Among immigrants, 85% of Hmong, 79% of Laotians, 78% of Cambodians and Vietnamese, 68% of Bhutanese, and 59% of Burmese are naturalized citizens. In Minnesota, 87% of foreign-born Somalis are naturalized, and 58% of the state’s Somali population was born in the United States.
Education, which drives earnings in the next generation, converges unevenly. Among U.S.-born Vietnamese, 59% have a bachelor’s degree, above the national rate of 37.7% and the 43.4% rate for children of immigrants. The rate is 31% for U.S.-born Hmong and Cambodians and 24% for U.S.-born Laotians.
In today’s culture of anti-ICE protests and pro-illegal-alien activism, it is considered racist to collect data based on race or national origin or to present facts that might hurt someone’s feelings. In that spirit, rather than describing immigrants as good or bad, one can objectively identify those who meet the native-born standard and those who do not.
Measured against the native-born standard, only Vietnamese Americans fit the model on every available measure: second-generation English proficiency, income above the national median, poverty near the national rate, high homeownership and naturalization rates, and second-generation education above the national average.
By contrast, Somalis fail to meet the standard. A Center for Immigration Studies analysis of 2014–2023 Census data found that among Somali immigrants in Minnesota, 37.5% of adults live in poverty, 39% of working-age adults lack a high school diploma, and 58.2% speak English less than “very well,” compared with 6.9%, 5%, and 0.7% of native-born residents, respectively.
Among Somali immigrant households, 81% receive welfare, including 54% receiving food stamps and 73% with at least one member on Medicaid, compared with 21%, 7%, and 18% of native-born-headed households. Even after more than 10 years in the United States, adult poverty remains at 32.9% and limited English proficiency at 49%, although male joblessness overall is comparatively close to the native-born rate, at 21.6% versus 17.6%.
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