In the current election cycle, rhetoric about immigration (of any kind) is so strident that it’s easy for people to come away believing that even legal immigration is harming the country. This simply isn’t so.
In the June presidential debate, former President Donald Trump hammered President Joe Biden for what he believed to be the current president’s weakness on border security. Biden attempted — rather poorly — to defend his immigration record. Neither candidate had many positive things to say about those immigrating to the United States. Even in the midst of the recent assassination attempt on Trump and Biden announcing that he will not be seeking reelection (along with his endorsement of Kamala Harris), immigration will likely remain a key policy issue with voters.
Immigrants currently make up about 14% of the U.S. population. This is a significant increase since the 1970s, reaching levels similar to that of the early 20th century. There have been more than 1 million new authorized entries each year since the late 1990s, with about 2.5 million entering in 2022.
Despite the political discourse, the economic benefits of immigration are well established in the empirical literature. A 2011 meta-analysis by economist Michael Clemens found that dropping all current immigration restrictions would result in a doubling of world GDP. A more recent analysis corroborated these findings, concluding that lifting all migration restrictions would increase world output by 126%. Research has indicated that global poverty is 40% higher than it would be in the absence of immigration restrictions. Dropping restrictions could potentially double the income of the global poor.
These are potentially surprising findings, running contrary to many people’s intuitions and the rhetoric we sometimes hear. But the fact is, an influx of immigrants appears to positively impact the economy on a number of levels.
These benefits are felt within the United States as well. During America’s Age of Mass Migration (1850–1920), the United States witnessed its highest levels of immigration. A 2020 study found that U.S. counties that experienced more immigrant settlement during this time period have “significantly higher incomes, less poverty, less unemployment, more urbanization, and more educational attainment today.” A 2016 IMF study estimated that — after controlling for multiple variables — ”a 1 percentage point increase in the share of migrants in the adult population … can raise GDP per capita by up to 2 percent in the longer run.”
Even those working illegally in the U.S. contribute about 3.6% of private-sector GDP annually — around $6 trillion dollars over a 10-year period. (Legalizing these workers would make the GDP contribution jump up to almost 5%.) Even one of the most distinguished critics of immigration finds that the economic gains of immigration for Americans is between $5 billion and $10 billion per year. Ironically, immigration has likely made the Biden economy stronger than it otherwise would have been.
Yet, many Americans continue to worry that an overabundance of immigrants will make things worse. Some accuse immigrants of stealing native jobs, depressing native wages, undermining native culture and institutions, bloating the welfare state, and/or being criminals and terrorists. The vast majority of empirical studies, however, find that the long-term effects of immigration on jobs, wages and the fiscal budget tend to be neutral to slightly positive.
Immigrants are more entrepreneurial than natives, creating more jobs than they supposedly “take.” Immigrants assimilate rather well into their host countries and even appear to improve their institutions. Immigrants also tend to have both lower crime rates and lower incarceration rates than native-born Americans (this includes immigrants living in the country illegally). Some have argued that immigration harms low-skilled workers, especially among the African-American community. However, follow-up studies with modified assumptions show modest reductions in wages in the short run, but increases in the long run. Overall, the benefits of immigration for both natives and migrants alike are immense.
But many voters are unaware of these findings. As legal scholar Ilya Somin explains, “Immigration restriction … is one that has long-standing associations with political ignorance.”
The scholar points to survey data in both the United States and Europe suggesting that lack of knowledge is “strongly correlated with overestimation of the proportion of immigrants in the population, lack of sophistication in making judgments about the economic costs and benefits of immigration, and general xenophobic attitudes toward foreigners.”
Somin points out that there is no evidence to correlate attitudes of opposition to immigration with actually being exposed to “labor market competition from recent immigrants.”
Despite all this, the number of Americans in favor of increased immigration has steadily risen from 6% in the early 1990s to 26% in 2023. Those wanting to decrease immigration has dropped from 65% in 1993 to 41% in 2023. This correlates with shifting attitudes toward immigrants during the same period of time: Only 31% of Americans believed immigrants strengthened the country in 1994. By 2019, that percentage had risen to 66.
Granted, attitudes toward migrants illegally crossing the border during the past decade have moved the other direction. In 2001, 28% of the population was worried a “great deal” about illegal immigration. That number reached 48% in 2024. Although harsh feelings toward migrants can color people’s feelings toward anyone coming into the country, it’s important to differentiate the two.
Plus, most Americans (56%) believe creating more opportunities for people to legally immigrate to the U.S. would improve the situation at the southern border. Recent research suggests that they are correct: More opportunities to come here legally reduce the number of illegal crossings.
In order to avoid undermining the progress we have made as a nation, we must keep the facts at the center of immigration policy. Immigrants are not threats. They are potential partners, lenders, investors, innovators, employers, employees, co-workers and customers. More than that, though, they are potential neighbors, friends and family. Our immigration policy should reflect this reality.
Walker Wright is the author of “‘Ye Are No More Strangers and Foreigners’: Theological and Economic Perspectives on the LDS Church and Immigration,” which was published in BYU Studies Quarterly 57, No. 1 (2018). He currently works for a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C.