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I think both are fine. They mean two different things. Newly is an adjective meaning that it is recent. It describes the following adjective, arrived, which means their arrival already happened. Or arriving, which means it is currently happening. In the first case you are talking about people who have already immigrated but still carry the name immigrant (I guess that would be true as long as they lived here.) In the second case you are talking about people who are either on their way here or are at the immigration office, but are not effectively in this country yet. It comes down to either people who have immigrated or people who are immigrating.
I love the topic of semantic differences between the present and past participle adjectives. In many cases, the difference is substantial, particularly because the present participle can sometimes represent the active voice, whereas the past participle represents the passive voice. I noticed this when I was in school learning a foreign language, and the teacher, a non-native English speaker, would consistently misuse a certain participle adjective.
Consider the following participle adjectives:
She is interesting. He is interested. / The interesting woman and the interested man ...
She is bored. He is boring. / The boring man and the bored woman ...
She is frightened. He is frightening. / The frightened woman and the frightening man ...
My language teacher would often say things like: "I can tell you more about this if you are interesting." Of course, I would always strive to be interesting.
In the case of arrive above, there is no passive voice, since arrive is intransitive. Here, the semantic difference is simply one of tense.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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