Immigration Groups Protest FRB Report

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Immigration-rights groups contest a report by the Federal Reserve Board that claims the second immigration boom could bring in relatively uneducated newcomers who lack the skills to maintain this country's current standard of living.

As the nation's 76 million baby boomers retire, these new Americans will both enlarge the labor pool and dilute its skill level, according to the preliminary draft report from the Boston Federal Reserve Bank.

The report questions whether the current wave of immigration, an influx that rivals the first boom in the early 20th century when arrivals entered through New York's Ellis Island, can yield the same productivity as when America emerged as an industrial giant. Ailing U.S. public schools and the already-low educational skills of many of these new immigrants may hamper productivity, according to the report.

Yet the report has its …