Immigrants Boost the Wages, Income and Economic Output of Cities

Last week, a bipartisan group of Senators dubbed the "Gang of Eight" unveiled a sweeping bill [PDF] The Washington Post called "the most ambitious overhaul of the nation's immigration system in three decades." Its approach is two-pronged. It provides a much-discussed "path to citizenship" — albeit an arduous one — for many of the country's 11 million undocumented immigrants. At the same time, it purports to fortify border control, appropriating billions of dollars for fencing, drones, and other measures. The bill also upgrades the visa system, authorizing tens of thousands of additional H-1B visas for high-tech workers, establishing a new visa category for the "guest worker," and revamping the criteria for visas for family members.

A great deal of the immigration debate in the United States is driven by the notion that undocumented and mostly unskilled immigrants take jobs away from Americans and depress their wages. But the bulk of research on the matter shows that immigrants add a lot more to the U.S. economy than they take from it.