First, there is the visibility problem. Americans literally can see jobs that immigrants have riled. By contrast, the jobs that are created by high immigrant productivity, capital formation and demand for goods are far less visible. Second, politicians and labor union leaders often need a scapegoat, someone to take the blame off themselves and their actions that raise labor costs and thus unemployment. The most important economic lesson of the past generation is that nations that let resources flow freely according to market forces tend to flourish relative to ones that control such resource movement through central planning, trade and property-rights restrictions, high taxation, or oppressive regulation.
Immigration reflects the movement of the most important of all economic resources.
Our nation of immigrants has prospered from the inflow of new human capital re-sources from abroad. Immigrants are part of the solution to America's economic woes, not the problem. Mr. Vedder teaches economics at Ohio University. Lowell Gallaway and Stephen Moore also contributed to this article.