More immigration arrests mean fewer jobs for US-born workers too

A new study looked at what happened to jobs when immigration arrests went up across the US. It turns out, more arrests meant fewer jobs for undocumented immigrants, and also fewer jobs for US-born workers in industries that rely on immigrants.

For years, some people argued that cracking down on undocumented immigrants would open up jobs for US-born workers. This paper shows that is not what happened. Instead, US-born workers in industries like agriculture or construction also lost work when immigration arrests increased. This means the economic argument for increased enforcement just got harder to make.