Immigrants

Immigrants are not a drag on the economy. They don't take jobs from the native born population and they don't depress overall wage rates. Fears of immigrant crime are overblown. Finally, objections to immigration because of the welfare state or public property are misplaced.

Free trade in labor, like trade in goods and services, frees existing Americans to do what's in their comparative advantage.

That immigrants "take our jobs" is probably the most repeated and most economically ignorant objection to immigration. Everyone can see when an immigrant takes a job that used to be held by a native-born worker. But not everyone sees the secondary consequence of the new jobs that are created because native-born labor has been freed up for more-productive uses.5 In the market's process of creative destruction, jobs are created and destroyed all the time.

Those immigrants who increase the supply of labor also demand goods and services, causing the demand for labor to increase. This means that the effect of immigration on wages shifts from being a theoretical question to being an empirical one.

Labor is heterogeneous. When the immigrants have different skills than the native-born population, they complement the native-born labor rather than substitute for them.

Bringing more immigrants into the United States expands our market and allows for greater specialization.

The vast majority of immigrants, legal and illegal, who come to the United States are not criminals or terrorists. Most simply want to work to create a better life for themselves and their families. Some studies report that illegal immigrants are even less likely than the native-born population to commit crimes.