Yu Xie commented on the American economy's shift away from manufacturing and the impact of that shift on immigrant demographics in a Christian Science Monitor article, "How Asians displaced Hispanics as biggest group of new U.S. immigrants."
According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, the gap between Asian and Hispanic immigrants had been narrowing since 2000, and was finally closed in 2010, when Asians made up 36 percent of immigrants and Hispanics made up 31. As Xie explained to the Christian Science Monitor, these numbers reflect "fundamental changes" in the U.S. economy away from manufacturing and towards information, research, technology, and other areas that require technical skills.
"Native-born Americans do not do well in acquiring technical skills to field the jobs that are demanded by the U.S. economy," Xie summarized. "So some of that demand is met by foreign students and immigrant scientists."