The author of a new book finds immigrants are not villains or victims but people who strive to better their lives and contribute to a vibrant society. The book comes at a time when immigration ranks among the country’s most contentious issues. To better understand the topic, I interviewed economist Zeke Hernandez, who responded in writing. Hernandez is an economics professor at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the book The Truth About Immigration: Why Successful Societies Welcome Newcomers.
Stuart Anderson: How would you explain to non-economists why when immigrants come to the United States it does not lead to higher unemployment for U.S. workers?
Zeke Hernandez: There are two basic reasons: First, new people make the economic pie bigger, which requires more workers. Second, immigrants are different from U.S.-born workers in the jobs they fill and the skills they bring, so they don’t compete with the native-born directly. That’s why you don’t get zero-sum outcomes. Instead, you get win-win outcomes because there are more jobs in a larger economy and different jobs in a more diversified economy. That’s why the latest research shows that immigrants (even “unskilled”) create jobs and increase wages for U.S.-born workers.
Anderson: In researching your book, did you find evidence that immigrants today care less about integrating into American society than earlier waves of immigrants?
Hernandez: Remarkably, immigrants today integrate into American society at the same rate as they did even a hundred years ago. That is true for both economic and cultural integration. You see it in the rate at which immigrants’ earnings catch up with those of the U.S.-born, learn English, move out of ethnic neighborhoods or adopt typically native-born names.
Another surprising thing I found is that the immigrants who most successfully integrate are those who preserve rather than abandon their original culture. Policies aimed at forcing foreigners to abandon their original culture backfire by making them dig their heels even more into what they left behind. Immigrants already have a powerful incentive to adapt, and history and evidence show they will.
Anderson: What is the most significant misconception Americans have about immigrants?
Hernandez: We’ve often been told two competing but incorrect narratives about immigrants. The first is that immigrants are villains who steal jobs, undermine our culture and threaten our safety. The second is the victim narrative: immigrants are the “poor, huddled masses” in Emma Lazarus’ poem—they deserve our compassion, even if it costs us a lot to offer that compassion.
The truth—based on the best evidence available—is that immigrants are neither victims nor villains. They’re net positive contributors to everything we want in a successful society: safety, cultural vitality, job creation, investment, innovation, national security, you name it. That isn’t just my opinion. It’s the consensus from research across many years and fields of study. There’s nothing to fear, and much to be excited about.
Anderson: What was your personal experience like with the U.S. immigration system?
Hernandez: I came to America from Uruguay through the least controversial path possible. I arrived on a student visa to go to college, became a permanent resident a couple of years after marrying a citizen, and naturalized five years after that. I don’t come from a distrusted country or a place that sends millions of people to the United States.
And yet, as plain vanilla as my case was, dealing with immigration officials was hard. I was always treated with disdain and suspicion. The paperwork and red tape were unbelievably complex. Once, before becoming a citizen, I was detained at the airport for hours without explanation. It was terrifying, and I thought my educational dreams might be over and that I would be separated from my wife and child. I caught a glimpse of the hassles many immigrants deal with in more complex cases than mine.
I don’t blame any single immigration official. They’re doing the job they way they’re instructed to do it. The entire premise of the system is one of fear and suspicion. It says a lot about our system that we’ve put the Department of Homeland Security in charge of immigration—an agency tasked with protection—instead of an agency focused on building something positive for America’s future.
Anderson: Does the research show U.S. professionals will be unable to get jobs if companies hire foreign nationals on H-1B visas?
Hernandez: Like with your first question, the answer is no. It’s the opposite: skilled immigrants allow U.S. companies to do more than they could without them. Research shows that firms hire H-1B workers only after they’ve exhausted the possibility of hiring a U.S.-born person for the position. Many tasks require a minimum number of people to do them. Think of an R&D [research and development] team that needs at least ten scientists. Even if a company can find nine people for the team, that single missing person makes it so the entire project can’t move forward. Skilled worker visas help prevent that problem, thus preserving jobs for U.S.-born workers. This why research shows that firms take jobs overseas if they lose out on the H-1B lottery.
But it’s about a lot more than foreigners filling job shortages. Research also shows that when organizations hire skilled immigrants, they can expand the range of what they do—they can develop more technologies and products and serve a broader range of customers. That’s especially true for startups, the most important creators of new jobs, and for companies in the neediest parts of America (like small and medium cities). This is another win-win for the country.
Anderson: Would allowing more work visas help reduce illegal immigration?
Hernandez: This is a resounding yes! We have some good evidence that shows that.
The biggest misconception people have about the immigration system is that the root cause of illegal immigration is “bad actors” who break the law, and thus the solution is to ratchet up enforcement at the border. We now have six decades of experience proving that simply doesn’t work.
The root cause of illegal immigration is that our legal system doesn’t allow sufficient people to fill our economic, humanitarian and family needs. If I’m being extremely generous, we might let in about half a million *new* workers through permanent and temporary visas. (Most of the one million green cards we give annually are to people already here in temporary status.) That doesn’t even replace the 700,000 people in prime working age (25-65) who die each year, let alone those who are entering retirement. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands more we need to power a growing economy.
The last time we updated the quotas was in 1990 when the economy was less than half the size today ($9 trillion vs. $25 trillion). I often use the analogy that we’ve set a speed limit of 25 MPH on an interstate highway. What happens if you do that? You create a very powerful incentive for people to speed—not because people are “bad actors,” but because the law is nonsensical.
That’s why illegal immigration declines when you allow more legal immigration.
Anderson: A former Trump White House adviser has argued that Congress passing the Immigration Acts of 1921 and 1924, which reduced legal immigration by approximately 90%, benefited Americans and the United States economically. Do you agree?
Hernandez: Given everything we’ve discussed so far, the answer is definitely not. But it’s not just my opinion. We have a lot of compelling evidence that the 1920s restrictions were a serious unforced error by America. U.S.-born scientists who worked with foreign-born scientists experienced a permanent 68% decline in patenting. Firms that would’ve employed those foreign scientists patented 53% less over the next four decades. Places that lost the most immigrants due to the restrictions receive less investment even to this day—a hundred years later! Mass deportations around that time caused U.S.-born workers to lose jobs. And on and on.
It’s not just economic losses either. Think of all the cultural contributions of immigrants that were lost. One of my favorite examples of this is in the foods we eat. Most of the iconic dishes we associate with early America were introduced by immigrants (like pizza or hamburgers). The mid-1900s, when the country implemented the draconian immigration restrictions, were a particularly dark time for American food—it became bland and unoriginal. And it’s no coincidence that much of the renaissance in new American cuisine happened as immigration rose again after 1965.
Anderson: What would be the economic impact today if the U.S. government reduced legal immigration by 50% or more through law or administrative action?
Hernandez: The harmful outcomes of the 1920’s restrictions weren’t just a historical anomaly. We have contemporary evidence that artificial restrictions on immigration hurt US workers, companies, and communities. A good example is what happens to companies that lose out on hiring foreign-born workers when applying for them through the H-2B or H-1B lotteries: they hire less, invest less, innovate less, and are less profitable.
America’s innovation machine would also be decimated. Sixteen percent of inventors in the US are foreign-born, but they account for 36% of all patents. Immigrants are 80% more likely than the U.S.-born to start new businesses (of any kind), and they are founders of over half of startups that achieve a $1 billion valuation. You don’t have to have compassion for foreigners to know that getting rid of immigrants is bad for us.
Anderson: What do you think motivates people who immigrate to America?
Hernandez: Immigrants help keep the proverbial American dream alive: 70% believe their children will have a better future than themselves, compared to 47% of U.S.-born individuals. This renewal of optimism and hope is healthy for any country, and America has been richly blessed—economically, culturally and socially—by wave after wave of strivers that keep the dream fresh.
I’ve prospered in ways I never thought possible, and I believe in contributing to the national enterprise so that those who come after me can thrive, too. America is a remarkable place. It’s not just its large and resilient economy. It’s also its system of institutions, its culture of freedom, and the sense of possibility. I’m so grateful that this country welcomed me.