Top 5 false claims in Hillsdale College lecturer Michael Anton’s Washington Post op-ed claiming the U.S. doesn’t need immigrants

1) Americans don’t support amnesty for DACA.

Fact: Polls show 80 percent of Republicans nationwide support protections for Dreamers.

Fact: By nearly any measure they’ve risen, especially as a result of the recent policies passed by the Republican Congressional majority.

3) Immigrants are to blame for these falling wages. 

Fact: There is no correlation between parts of the country with high numbers of immigrants and the parts with stagnating wages. In fact, the correlation runs in the opposite direction, with immigrant-heavy metro areas like Washington D.C., New York, and Los Angeles experiencing the fastest wage growth in recent decades, while areas with fewer immigrants — like Appalachia — have stagnated.

4) Harvard immigration researcher George Borjas finds immigrants hurt workers. 

Fact: Borjas has found it negatively effects only those without a high-school diploma, and only by a small margin. This is a minority position among immigration scholars.

5) Economists “torture data” to show that immigrants are good for the economy.

Fact: The economic benefits of immigration is one of the most agreed upon positions in the field of economics.