Unauthorizing Immigrants

Undocumented immigrants pay state and local taxes. Many also pay property taxes and excise taxes like any American citizen would. In the article “Do undocumented Immigrants Pay Their “Fair Share” of Taxes (PRO)” (Wiehe, Meg etall,) it states that,

The Travel Ban marks a major turning point in the policies on immigration in the United States. Due to increased terrorist attacks and illegal immigrant numbers rising, it is believed that temporarily banning immigrants from particular countries is key to ensuring safety within the United States. Though many have expressed their concern towards the ban because of its similarity to previous discriminatory and unconstitutional acts. The ban has even been referred to as the “Muslim Ban”.

But amazingly, the flow of foreign-born is so large that immigrants currently account for a larger share of labor force growth than natives (“U.S. Immigration and Economic Growth: Putting Policy on Hold”, 2003) When you do the math, it makes a good deal of sense to spend the little that we do—if not more—to keep them healthy (Karvounis, 2007). Care for undocumented immigrants represents a tiny fraction of the nation’s health care burden. They receive minimal care; some pay taxes. Between one half and three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay taxes and some work “off the books” jobs as well (What Immigration Reform Could Mean To The US Economy, 2009). Illegal aliens provide as much as 7 billion dollars a year to the Social Security Fund although they cannot claim benefits for this program (Immigrants’ Economic Contribution, 2009). Further still, undocumented workers pay sales taxes where applicable and property taxes—directly if they own and indirectly if they rent (“Undocumented Immigrants as Taxpayers”, 2007).

“We must end welfare state subsidies for illegal immigrants. Some illegal immigrants—certainly not all—receive housing subsidies, food stamps, free medical care, and other forms of welfare.” In this statement by Ron Paul, a Texas congressman, it is obvious that this subject needs a serious look into modifying our current guidelines. He also states, “Illegal immigrants place a tremendous strain on social entitlement programs. Under a proposed totalization agreement with Mexico, millions of illegal immigrants will qualify for Social Security and other programs-programs that already threaten financial ruin for America in the coming decades.”(1) They

"As a result of these differing opinions, many individuals fear they may be denied entry to the country in the future. This is especially true during times of war, as the goverment did prohibit Chinese laborers from entering the country in the 1800s and also allow Japanese-Americans to be put into internment camps during World War II. As many are now saying America is in a war against Islamic extremists, this could lead to certain groups, such as Muslims, from being banned legally," Munsey

Many might argue that immigrants do not pay enough in taxes to cover the public services they receive from the government at the present time. According to Maria Santana on CNN MONEY, illegal immigrant “Collectively, they paid an estimated $10.6 billion to state and local taxes in 2010, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP). Illegal immigrant in most states does not qualify for welfare, food stamps and Medicaid. What most people seem to forget is that illegal immigrants do not even get any benefit from their daily job, some have no name or record if anything was to happen in their line of work. Some employers see them as dispensable with no question. Yet, these same employers take out taxes, Medicare and other

Although most immigrants are stereotyped, all immigrants are not taking advantage of the system. According to the Urban Institute, illegal immigrant families pay 70.3 billion dollars annually in taxes. This is only a third of the 227 billion dollars total spent overall on education. Not all illegal immigrants receive welfare from the U.S. government. Only the families that consist of children that were born in the United States receive Government assistance.

In addition, at the government level, around 33% of costs are coordinated by tax accumulations from illegal immigrants. At the state and neighborhood level, a normal of under 5 percent of general society costs related with illicit immigration is recovered through taxes gathered from displaced aliens. Most illegal immigrants don 't pay wage taxes. Among the individuals who do, a significant part of the incomes gathered are discounted to the displaced people when they record government forms. With many state spending plans in deficiency, policymakers have a commitment to search for approaches to decrease the monetary weight of illicit migration. California, confronting a spending deficiency of $14.4 billion in 2010-2011, is hit

In distinction, some people argue that this ban is a good move. A recent poll suggested that 49% of the people support this immigration ban (Kahn). Obviously, one feels better and safer that their country is more secure if the number of people coming from an active war zone is less. This is astonishing in a way, as President Trump has the lowest approval rating, as compared to the past Presidents, yet he has an awful lot of supporters (Kirk). Hoffman, a person who participated in the polls, says that he understands that the country was founded on immigrants, but fears that the refugees are supported by his tax dollars (Kahn). A fair number of American citizens feel the same way about immigrants, that these people steal their jobs,

Undocumented immigrants put back nearly a majority of their income into local businesses, these immigrants also contribute nearly $15 billion every year into the Social Security fund(Davidson). However, they only use about $1 billion every year through government benefits (Davidson). These immigrants are responsible for many economic benefits, and allowing a path to citizenship for them would result in an influx in tax payments, thereby helping the government and paying for the benefits they would theoretically use (Davidson). Attempts to deport these immigrants would have great costs to the government, this can be illustrated through current budget proposals which designate billions of dollars in attempts to prevent future immigration. Therefore, providing these undocumented immigrants with a path to citizenship would relieve the government of costs to deport them, and would result in an influx of tax dollars for the government to help unskilled natural-born workers that are affected by the undocumented

In “Illegal Immigration Creates Large Fiscal Costs for US Taxpayers” by Robert Rector he analyzes this point. One of his points being that “In 2010, the average unlawful immigrant household received around $24,721 in government benefits and services while paying some $10,334 in taxes” This data is accurate but where are the government benefits going if legally non-citizens can’t receive government funds. Most likely the majority benefits are given to the American children of this illegal immigrants in the form of Medicaid and food stamps, and therefore benefit Americans. In Lynch’s argument he cancels this argument, “Over the 10-year period they would earn $392 billion more and pay an additional $109 billion in taxes,” now it’s billion they would contribute to the economy instead of taking money. Another argument is that with better jobs and a legal status immigrants would actually pay more taxes to the government. Many of them don’t currently do so because they have no social security card, hints why they only pay “$10,334” in taxes. On the other hand many do pay a lot on taxes and since they cant receive any benefits in reality they pay for many benefits they do not qualify for. If people oppose legalization because it would mean tax cost and instead support deportation one of the statements in Ann Garcia’s “The Facts Support Immigration Reform with a Path to Citizenship” could change their

The cost of imprisonment for illegal immigrants who commit crimes is around $1.5 billion each year (Pose). Illegal immigrants who are punished by imprisonment costs the government a great deal of money. Over one billion dollars are spent each year on the incarceration of unauthorized immigrants, who should instead be deported for their crimes. Instead of serving jail time, which costs the government money, illegal immigrants should be made to pay a fine and face deportation. Doing so would be an alternative in order to save money. Furthermore, illegal immigrants have taken advantage of public works in the past. Immigration Reform states, “Most beneficiaries of the 1986 amnesty had not become greater economic contributors as a result of the amnesty. Rather, their marginal participation in the economy meant that when they became eligible to draw on social service programs available to them after five years as legal residents, they became much more of a fiscal burden on the U.S. taxpayer at the federal, state and local level” (Federation). Instead of pushing themselves to working harder after being given amnesty in 1986, almost all formerly-unauthorized immigrants remained essentially insignificant contributors to the Gross Domestic Product. However, they gained access to certain programs because they were employed and became legal citizens. If citizenship is given

However, they might not have noticed how important illegal immigrants are in the American economy. Despite the fact illegal immigrants have no documents; they contribute billions of dollars to the Social Security Administration yearly and get nothing back when they retire (Porter 10). There is not an exact amount how much they contribute, however, researchers indicate that illegal immigrant contribute roughly around $ 7 billion to Social Security Administration (Porter 10). Illegal immigrants are classified as undocumented people in the United States, but that does not mean they do not help fund state and local taxes. They must file their taxes yearly. IRS enacted a system called, Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) to track illegal immigrants who are employed. There is not an exact number that measures how many illegal immigrants pay taxes yearly, but many of them definitely pay their taxes for the IRS yearly which benefits the U.S. economy. (Lipman

Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth. Thus, greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access them. If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net cost of $29 billion. Costs increase dramatically because unskilled immigrants with legal status — what most illegal aliens would become — can access government programs, but still tend to make very modest tax payments. Although legalization would increase average tax payments by 77 percent, average costs would rise by 118 percent. The fact that legal immigrants with few years of schooling are a large fiscal drain does not mean that legal immigrants overall are a net drain — many legal immigrants are highly skilled. The vast majority of illegals hold jobs. Thus the fiscal deficit they create for the federal government is not the result of an unwillingness to work.

Immigration and Economic Growth: Putting Policy on Hold”, 2003) When you do the math, it makes a good deal of sense to spend the little that we do—if not more—to keep them healthys (Karvounis, 2007). Care for undocumented immigrants represents a tiny fraction of the nation’s health care burden. They receive minimal care; they pay taxes. Between one half and three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay state and federal taxes. They also contribute to Medicare and provide as much as 7 billion dollars a year to the Social Security Fund. Further still, undocumented workers pay sales taxes where applicable and property taxes—directly if they own and indirectly if they rent (“Undocumented Immigrants as Taxpayers”, 2007).