Fact Check: Ted Cruz’s family history complicates his immigration fear-mongering

*This fact-check digs into Ted Cruz’s debate remarks about his family’s personal immigrant saga, and his claim that immigrants drive wages down. The result? He’s wrong on wages and his family history isn’t the saga he claims it is. VL

By Tim Fwernholz, Quartz

At last night’s Republican presidential debate, Texas Senator Ted Cruz disagreed with his rivals about immigration, arguing that practical fixes to recognize undocumented immigrants would be a political loser because they hurt ordinary American’s wages.

[pullquote]One assumes that when Cruz discusses his father’s legal immigration, he’s not in favor of a regime that would extend permanent residency to anyone who can make it to the US—but that’s the case for Cubans.[/pullquote]

So let’s get this out of the way: Immigrants have not driven down native wages in the US, as we’ve discussed in the context of Donald Trump’s similar claims. Two different multi-year studies show that new immigrants in the US economy have led to small net wage increases to people all over the skill spectrum, or at worst, no change.

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