Does immigration actually lower wages for low-skilled workers in rich countries, or is that claim mostly a mirage? I ask because my brother-in-law runs a roofing crew in Texas and swears he can't find Americans willing to do the work at $18 an hour, yet I keep reading studies from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggesting the effect on native wages is somewhere between -2% and +1% depending on the methodology. Meanwhile, a town 40 miles from me saw its population jump 12% in five years, mostly from Central American families, and the local school district had to hire 30 new bilingual teachers. I genuinely don't know if the net effect is positive or negative. What do you think?