The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong

Many would be surprised to know that in 2017, approximately 23 million people entered the diversity visa lottery for just 50,000 green cards. This fact, according to the authors of this study, calls into question a common myth about immigration, i.e. that it is easy to immigrate legally and that all you need to do is “just get in line.” In this paper, Alex Nowrasteh, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, refutes fifteen such common myths about immigration, including that immigrants “take American jobs,” and that they fail to assimilate as earlier generations of immigrants did. Drawing from research on the economy, public health, criminal justice, and more, Nowrasteh disputes alleged adverse impacts of immigration on the United States. He concludes that while one can disagree with a pro-immigration policy position, one must come up with entirely different arguments than these fifteen common complaints to make a rational case to lower immigration. (Erika Hernandez for The Immigrant Learning Center’s Public Education Institute)

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