Broken: A Podcast on American Systems

Immigration is one of the most polarizing and pressing issues in American politics, but far less attention is paid to how it actually works.In this episode, we sit down with economist Dr. Giovanni Peri, a Distinguished Professor of International Economics at UC Davis and founder of the UC Davis Global Migration Center, to examine immigration not as a slogan, but as a system.We discuss: What happens to wages and employment when immigrants enter local labor marketsThe differences between family-sponsored, employment-based, and unauthorized migrationWhat decades of data show about long-term national growth and productivityHow undocumented immigration fits into the broader systemWhat the research actually says about crime and border enforcementDr. Peri has spent decades studying migration, labor markets, and productivity. His research has been cited in outlets like the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and The Economist. In this conversation, we move beyond the inflammatory rhetoric surrounding immigration and examine incentives, tradeoffs, and empirical evidence.