According to economists Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder, immigrants will play a critical role in helping America achieve higher economic growth over the next several decades. Jared Culver of the Immigration Accountability Project addresses these claims head-on in his latest commentary, Repackaging the Immigration Propaganda of the 1990s, pointing out that these economists are repackaging decades-old ideas without any evidence.
Culver refers to the authors’ assertions that immigrants are harder working and smarter than Americans as “old tropes.” He adds that the claim that immigrants’ propensity for moving to areas with more job opportunities is part of their “economic virtue” as a “whopper.”
Moore and Vedder recycle other theories from 1997, claiming that foreign workers do the jobs that Americans won’t, increasing the demand for labor. In response, Culver states, “Wages are the product of negotiation… And bargaining power can be drastically undercut by flooding the labor market with competition.”
Representing the state with the second-highest rate of illegal immigration, Texans for Strong Borders is well aware of the strain that illegal aliens put on the economy. While liberal economists continue to claim that massive immigration will boost wages and productivity, hardworking Texans know, and more importantly, experience that the opposite is true.
From legal analysts, like Culver, to comedians, like Tim Dillon, Americans agree that immigration has negatively impacted the labor market. Dillon might not have a Harvard law degree, but his sentiment reflects that of most Americans: “The lie about ‘jobs Americans won’t do’ is a lie. Construction, retail, landscaping—these are all jobs that Americans did forever. These are jobs that they don’t want to pay Americans to do. So that is a lie, and I think Americans are waking up to that lie.”