Recent empirical work documenting a declining trend in immigrant earnings relative to
natives has focused primarily on immigrants who arrive as adults. In this paper, I find a large
decline in the earnings of childhood immigrants (who represent over one fifth of the working
immigrant population in my sample) in the U.S. between 1990 and 2010, and in particular
during the 1990s. This drop in earnings has occurred across all age at arrival groups, but
has disproportionately impacted lower-educated immigrants. A large decline in English language
proficiency can explain much of this trend. A concentration of source countries (largely,
through not entirely, due to an increase in Mexican immigration) has also contributed, mainly
through the negative impacts it has had on English language proficiency and education levels.