Perceptions of economic costs and benefits play an important role in determining attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. The Unified Instrumental Model of Group Conflict, and the correlational and experimental research supporting it, indicate that when immigrants are seen as competing with members of the host society for economic resources, negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration result. Yet measures taken to reduce this perceived competition and threat can have unforeseen consequences. Recent bills intended to reduce illegal immigration in U.S. states, such as Arizona's Senate Bill 1070 and Georgia's House Bill 87, have been framed by supporters as intended to reduce the economic costs of illegal immigration. Their consequences, however, have been increased economic hardship in the form of economic boycotts and lost farm production. We suggest that recognizing the mutual dependency between immigrants and members of host societies may be a first step in reducing support for harsh measures against illegal immigration, to the benefit of all.Economic factors play an important role in determining attitudes toward immigrants and immigration. Anecdotally, in times of economic hardship, one is particularly likely to hear the claim that immigrants take jobs and threaten the economic resources of members of host communities. Our research over the past decade has confirmed this relation between economic concerns and negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration, using both correlational and experimental methods. Our correlational work has demonstrated that individuals who are especially likely to see immigrants as competing with members of the host society for jobs and material resources-in other words, individuals who are especially likely to see the relation between immigrants and nonimmigrants as zero-sum-are particularly likely to hold negative attitudes toward immigrants and immigration

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