This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, July 2nd, 2010. I'm Caleb Brown.

Misconceptions about immigrants abound among Republicans and Democrats.

Jeff Flake represents Arizona's 6th U.S. House District.

He believes immigrants are essential to a dynamic U.S. economy

and that a robust guest worker program and other reforms are key to stemming the flow of illegal immigration.

We spoke following a Cato Capitol Hill briefing on immigration yesterday.

What do Republicans and Democrats factually just get wrong about immigration?

Well, one that immigration leads to job loss overall.

And just to give an example on the high end sector,

I have a lot of my Republican colleagues

who don't want to make it easier for high skilled individuals, those with PhDs for example, to be able

to stay here and take high tech jobs.

They say, you know, if they take a job job that's a job that an American is not taking.

When the reality is that, you know, the companies that we have out there, the high tech companies

and startups have to follow the talent wherever

it goes.

And if we persuade individuals who come here and are educated and get a PhD in math or science and then they go home to their home country, then we have to follow

the talent and set up research institutions elsewhere and those jobs are lost with the

jobs that would have been created here.

And on the low-end side as well, we simply need more labor than we're producing here.

And it's not as acute now with this recession we're in,

but it will certainly be so in the future

...