Bangladesh, July 1 -- authorized immigration-measured relative to a local area's existing employment-raised home prices by approximately 2.2 percent while increasing rents by roughly 1.4 percent. At the same time, wages for native workers declined by nearly one percent.

Those figures represent more than statistical curiosities.

They describe a painful reality for working Americans who have watched the American Dream drift further out of reach. Higher rents reduce disposable income. Rising home prices delay homeownership. Lower wages make both problems even worse.

For many households, this combination creates a vicious cycle in which families save less, borrow more, and find themselves permanently priced out of neighborhoods where they...