President Donald Trump rode immigration back to the White House in 2024. It was one of his major campaign stump speeches, drawing supporters to his rallies holding bold red signs calling for mass deportations.
Trump framed a crackdown on immigration as a panacea for the country’s most pressing issues: fixing everything from the economy and the labor market to housing. But if history is any lesson, his hardline approach could backfire. A new report from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute found that immigration quotas could actually lead to the worsening of economic outcomes for native-born Americans for generations, undercutting the promise of prosperity Trump has touted.
