Study finds US immigration does not increase unemployment

May 20 2009 by Liam Clifford

Dan Siciliano from Centre for Immigration Policy

Siciliano: no connection

A study carried out by the Center for Immigration Policy comparing US immigration rates and unemployment rates in different states has found there is no correlation.

The center is part of the pro-immigration American Immigration Law Foundation. A senior research fellow at the Center, Dan Siciliano, says, “the level of unemployment in the US is painful, sometimes scary and very difficult for those directly impacted…But the notion that immigration is casually related to unemployment belittles and questions the challenges of unemployment."

The study, which took into account both illegal and legal US immigration was carried out in response to calls for a cut in American visas to help ease unemployment that has increased due to the recession.

Rob Paral, lead author of the study and demographer, explains, "we wanted to lay out the situation and dispel these notions. We wanted to untie this knot made between immigrants and unemployment."

The report’s authors also claim that immigrants can benefit from being inherently more mobile and can therefore move to where the jobs are.

However, they add that the US cannot simply ‘kick out’ the immigrants to make way for US citizens to take jobs, arguing that the country’s economy is not a ‘club.’

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