To many, America is the land of dreams and hopes and countless stories have been told of penniless immigrants who earned a fortune here. Skerry (Skerry 2003) has stated that the issues related to immigrants have two dimensions: first are the immigrants who are already residing in the US and the second are those who wish to enter the country. There are again two types of immigrants, those who are not very well qualified and able to make use of the opportunities that the US provides and those who come here primarily to earn money and get back to their country. The main issue concerns the weaker section of the immigrant population and them being integrated into the system and make use of the ample opportunities in the form of education, jobs, loans, and other features. Real and meaningful integration into mainstream society can happen only through the intervention of private and public institutions. Immigrants who are not educated or have the right skills or are too improvised cannot develop the means to sustain and develop themselves and such people need institutional help for integration into the mainstream society.
The question that institutions should be responsible for integrating immigrants has many connotations. One meaning would as responsible as a parent and includes the full cycle of hand-holding, care, nursing, providing for finance, and so on and the answer to this is a big no since this would never end. The correct term that can be used is support and counseling up to a certain extent. America has always been a nation of immigrants from the early days when the Mayflower landed, to the gold rush and beyond and includes the slaves who were brought into the country. So being a nation of immigrants, it is not ethical to deny opportunities to newcomers. Now the African American people have to date not been effectively integrated into the system and discrimination in one form or the other still exists. The end result, as has been seen is a disconnected, non-integrated, and dissatisfied African American population that causes social imbalance and unrest. To avoid such a repetition and creating new ghettos, effective integration policies need to be in place. This could include union membership and jobs for the adults, education for the children, awareness of financing and lending available so that they can make efforts to cherish the values that America represents.