America Is Destined for Decline Without More Immigrants

In response to President Donald Trump’s moves to curb immigration, economists and pundits have spilled a lot of ink on the topic of whether immigration hurts the native-born. We’ve reminded the public that the vast bulk of evidence shows that immigrants don’t drive down wages for the native-born, and that immigrants -- especially skilled ones -- make a positive fiscal contribution and integrate rapidly into American culture. We’ve pointed out that undocumented immigration has gone into reverse during the past decade, and that the immigrants that are currently coming to the U.S. tend to be much more highly educated than earlier waves. All these things show that immigration is clearly not a danger to native-born Americans.

But one thing relatively few do is to make a positive economic case for immigration. Immigrants aren’t a danger, but are they an economic necessity? That’s an important question to ask, because legal immigration to the U.S. has slowed down: