We Wanted Workers ─ Unraveling the Immigration Narrative

The economic impact of immigration is often viewed through a narrow lens. To many economists, immigrants are a collection of much-needed workers who can fill predetermined slots along the proverbial assembly line, always a boon to the host country. But immigrants are more than just workers; like the rest of us, they have lives outside the factory gates and are affected by the social environment in which they live. They make choices with unintended consequences. And those who migrate might not fit the ideal the receiving country has in mind. While George J. Borjas reveals that immigration has not affected the average American all that much, it has also created many winners and losers. Somebody’s lower wage is somebody else’s higher profit, and those who employ or use immigrants benefit handsomely. In the end, Borjas argues, immigration is mainly just another government redistribution program—though often disguised by the volatile political debate it stirs.