MYTH #2: Immigrant workers suppress the wages of American workers.
FACTS: The overwhelming majority of economists agree that immigrants increase the economic productivity and thus the wages of natives.

• A 2006 study by University of California, Davis, economist Giovanni Peri found that because immigrant workers generally "complement"-rather than substitute for-native workers in terms of their education and skills, immigration tends to increase the productivity, and therefore the wages, of natives.
• As a result of this "complementarity," the White House Council of Economic Advisers concluded in a 2007 report that roughly 90 percent of native-born workers experience wage gains from immigration, which total between $30 billion and $80 billion per year.