Jeffrey Miron and Jacob Winter
President Trump has pledged to conduct the largest mass deportation campaign in American history. Fulfilling that pledge would harm the country in many ways, including by weaking American entrepreneurship.
A recent study confirmed that,
Start-ups founded by native-immigrant teams outperformed start-ups founded solely by natives or immigrants. Three years after their inception, start-ups with native-immigrant teams employed 20 percent more people than native-only start-ups.
Furthermore,
Native-immigrant start-ups were also significantly more likely to receive funding than native-only start-ups, and they raised substantially more capital than both native-only and immigrant-only start-ups. Start-ups with native-immigrant teams were also more likely to be acquired and more likely to initiate an IPO than either native-only or immigrant-only start-ups.
The authors provide evidence for three explanations:
[Native-immigrant startups] had access to a more diverse, highly skilled labor pool… greater access to investor capital… [and] greater access to product markets.
This study highlights (yet again) that immigrants benefit the American economy.
This article appeared on Substack on July 16, 2025.