This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, February 20th, 2013.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Much of the opposition to increases in legal immigration comes from people who don't understand much of the basic economics involved,

like division of labor and the wealth that comes from so-called job-destroying trade.

Alex Narasta, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, clears up some of the confusion.

The claim is they took our jobs and it is a frequent claim and it is a claim that is I think predominantly made by Republicans

about immigrants.

Representative Lamar Smith makes its claim most frequently, as well as Chris Kobot, the Secretary

of State for the State of Kansas.

He basically says if you want to create a job for an American today,

deport an illegal immigrant.

It's pretty ludicrous claim, something that only people who are ignorant of economics tend to make.

The idea is that there's a fixed pie in society, a fixed amount of work, and there's only so much to be done at any given time.

So if an immigrant is employed,

well clearly he took a job from an American.

Or in the same argument goes, well, if Caleb is rich,

well clearly he got rich off the back of somebody else and somebody else is poor because of it.

Both of those claims are false.

No economist believes them.

Nobody who seriously studies or understands economics has any faith in those claims.

All right, just for those who are surprised by what you're saying,

then how do we get from that belief to understanding

...