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FORTUNE -- As the 2014 midterm elections draw nearer, the issue of immigration reform will be used as a wedge to pressure vulnerable Republicans into either angering their base and supporting reform, or alienating key demographics.

The politics of immigration are complicated, as are the economics. Researchers are split over whether immigration brings down the wages of low-skilled workers in the U.S. But with respect to other questions, like whether immigration promotes overall economic growth, the data is clear. It overwhelmingly does.

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One way to highlight this is to compare economic growth over the past 30 years in the U.S. to other wealthy countries like France, the U.K., and Japan. A stylized fact often thrown about is that the United States, over the 80 or so years in which we've measured this sort of thing, has consistently grown faster than other countries due to its more enthusiastic adherence to classic capitalistic principals. Check out the graph below, which shows nominal yearly GDP growth from 1982 to 2012:

As you can see, the U.S. consistently beats out its wealthy peers. Over this period, nominal GDP growth in the U.S. has averaged 5.4%, compared with 1.8% in France, 2.4% in the U.K., and 1.9% in Japan.

But one fact that often gets overlooked is that the U.S. population has been and continues to grow at a faster rate than its industrialized peers. Take a look now at GDP growth over that same period, this time on a per capita basis:

US GDP per Capita Growth data by YCharts

Here, the competition is much closer. In fact, the U.S. doesn't even win. On a per capita basis, these countries grow at:

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Without immigration, the U.S. economy looks like sclerotic Old Europe