The Geography of Immigrant Skills

There has been a long and passionate debate about the economic value of immigration (here's a summary of the debate). Whatever the answers, the evidence suggests that the economic contribution has been increasing in recent years. This is from a new Brookings Institution study:

Despite public perception of immigrants as being poorly educated, the high-skilled U.S. immigrant population today outnumbers the low-skilled population (see chart, "Immigrant Skill Levels, 1994-2010," below). Forty-four of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas are high-skill immigrant destinations, in which college-educated immigrants outnumber immigrants without high school diplomas by at least 25 percent. [More here.]