A common argument against immigration is the idea that immigrants "steal American jobs" from hardworking, native-born Americans. However, that is far from the truth, for a plurality of reasons.

First, immigrants typically head toward growing regions in the U.S., where they expand employment opportunities by increasing both supply and demand in the area. They are also most likely to compete for jobs against other immigrants, as opposed to native-born Americans, in part because they often have lower literacy skills, which prevents them from competing for the full range of job opportunities available to natives. In this way, not only do immigrants not have a negative effect on native-born Americans' employment and wages, but they may even have a positive effect in many cases. In a study of various nations worldwide over the past 50 years, researchers found that more cultural diversity (i.e., higher immigrant populations) has a significant positive impact on the growth rate of GDP. Immigration also leads to a more specialized work force, increasing economic productivity; one study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that a one percent increase in immigrant employment per U.S. state leads to a 0.5 percent increase in income per worker across the nation. Between 1990 and 2004, when immigration levels from Latin America peaked in the U.S., about 90 percent of native-born workers experienced economic gains, while the individuals whose wages were most negatively affected were other immigrants. Though native-born workers without a high school degree are somewhat negatively affected by immigration, they only represent eight percent of the American workforce, and this negative impact could easily be alleviated by improving the availability of job training.