Skip to content
LPBN-Icon-v1
ImmigrationProf Blog
A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network

Legalization GOOD for the Economy?

By immigrationprof

The Wonk Room in ” Why Legalizing 12 Million Undocumented Immigrants Would Help U.S. Economy” responds to Rep. Lamar Smith’s (R-Texas) (“Opposing View:  Amnesty Makes No Sense”) editorial in USA Today.   The Wonk Room emphasizes that “study after study shows that there is little, if any, relationship between immigration and unemployment rates at the regional, state, or county level. Furthermore, the potential economic benefits of a legalization program have been widely documented. Available research suggests that — had the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 passed — it would have generated a much needed $66 billion in new revenue during 2007-2016 from income and payroll taxes, as well as various administrative fees. Giovanni Peri, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of California-Davis, further suggests that immigrants don’t even compete with the majority of natives for the same jobs because they tend to work in different occupations.”

KJ