Source:Dawn
Why do so many Americans oppose immigration, and why has it become a central issue in the American presidential campaign? A growing body of research suggests that the answer isn’t economic anxiety, or concerns about public spending, or even general nationalism. It is more specific — and more disturbing.
The question of what drives anti-immigrant sentiment is put in sharp relief by an extensive report released last week by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The report finds that immigration has positive effects on economic growth —and doesn’t hurt the employment or wages of native-born workers.
As my Bloomberg View colleague Paula Dwyer wrote, the picture isn’t all rosy: Immigration seems to reduce the number of hours worked by native-born teens, and depress the wages of native-born workers who didn’t finish high school. But the general lesson of the report is that immigration promotes and is even “integral to the nation’s economic growth”. What, then, explains widespread public opposition? Here are four possibilities:
Categories: Americas