It doesn’t significantly benefit the economy in the UK, nor in the USA either:
While all these factors can be said to point to the advantages of immigration in specific spheres, it is not the same as saying that immigration benefits the country as a whole because some, usually the poor, lose out to the competition; and, as output rises, it is consumed by the larger population. Taking all this into account, the Lords committee is expected to conclude that “the economic benefits of net immigration to the resident population are small and close to zero in the long run”.
This key conclusion demolishes the Government’s case for large-scale immigration. If it has not been to the economic benefit of the resident population, what has been its purpose?
The truth is that large-scale immigration is of benefit to a relatively small group of business owners in the service industries, which allows them to simultaneously lower their costs as well as increase the size of their potential market. Because service industries can’t go offshore to reduce the labor costs due to their location-dependent nature, they want to bring the offshore labor to them. Hence the political pressure for mass immigration. That’s why there are Somalis in Minnesota and no doubt some other third world group in Nebraska, in order to help the service industries, they have to be spread out all over the place.
This comes at the direct expense of the much greater part of the citizenry that does not own a service industry operation. It does make the services cheaper, but at the price of lowered wages for everyone and the net effect of the increased supply is also reduced by the increased demand.