The Truth about Undocumented Immigration

Undocumented Immigrants Effect on Social Security

• Undocumented immigrants compose about three percent of the total US population. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso)

• The estimated seven million or so illegal immigrant workers in the United States are now providing the Social Security system with a subsidy of about $7 billion a year. (The New York Times)

• Immigrants contribute billions of dollars annually but receive no public pension in retirement, are not eligible for Medicare, and are not entitled to any other benefits. (Social Security Administration)

• Most undocumented workers pay taxes, and they pay a variety of taxes. (The New York Times)

• The money that undocumented immigrants paid in 2004 added up to about 10 percent of that year's surplus - the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it pays in pension benefits. (Social Security Administration)

• The money paid by illegal workers and their employers is factored into all the Social Security Administration's projections. (Social Security Administration)

• After the 1986 passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act, the Social Security Administration began receiving mountains of W-2 earnings reports with incorrect or fake Social Security numbers, and placed them in the "earnings suspense file." Since then, the file has grown, on average, by more than $50 billion a year, generating $6 billion to $7 billion in Social Security tax revenue and about $1.5 billion in Medicare taxes. (Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois at Chicago)

• Many older workers return home to Latin America when they reach retirement age. (BusinessWeek)

The Healthcare System and Undocumented Immigrants

• Immigrants are not swamping the U.S. health care system and use it far less than native-born Americans. (The American Journal of Public Health)

• Immigrants accounted for 10.4 percent of the U.S. population but only 7.9 percent of total health spending and 8 percent of government health spending. (The American Journal of Public Health)

• Thirty percent of immigrants use no health care at all during the course of a year. (The American Journal of Public Health)

• Immigrant children spent or cost $270 a year, compared to $1,059 for native-born children. (The American Journal of Public Health)

• Most immigrants have health insurance. (The American Journal of Public Health)

• In reality, if more restrictions were placed on health care for immigrants, very little money would be saved, and many immigrant children would be put at grave risk. Many immigrant children already fail to get regular checkups, and as a result, more end up needing emergency care, or get no care at all. (The American Journal of Public Health)

• Many immigrants actually help to subsidize health care and social security for the rest the country. (Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New York University)

• Immigrants pay taxes -- including Medicare payroll taxes -- and most pay health insurance premiums, but they receive only half as much care as other families. (The American Journal of Public Health)

Economic Impact of Undocumented Immigrants

• Undocumented immigrants have become a new source of economic growth as giant U.S. consumer companies like banks, insurers, mortgage lenders, credit-card outfits, phone carriers, and others aggressively market to over 11 million undocumented customers. (BusinessWeek)

• Undocumented immigrants add 600,000 to 700,000 new consumers to the economy every year. (Pew Research Center)

• 84% of undocumented immigrants are 18-to-44-year-olds, in their prime spending years, vs. 60% of legal residents. (BusinessWeek)

• Allowing immigrants financial privileges boosts corporate profits because it enables them to move out of the cash economy, put their money in banks, and take out credit cards, car loans, and home mortgages. U.S. gross national product also surges because consumers with credit can spend more than those limited to cash. (BusinessWeek)

• When more undocumented immigrants pay income and property taxes, they help ease the tax burden for others when it comes to paying for schools, health care, roads, and other services immigrants use. (BusinessWeek)

• Letting the undocumented save and invest, could also result in a decline in crime because if immigrants are allowed to protect their money in banks, the rate of hold ups and robberies in Latino or immigrant neighborhoods drop. (Austin Police Department)

• Immigrants benefit the economy more than they take away in social services. (National Academy of the Sciences)

• In 2004, Arizona suffered severe labor shortages and huge quantities of lettuce went unpicked because growers lacked pickers. In 2005, the Central Valley in California had 70,000 to 80,000 labor positions that were unfilled. Legalizing workers would alleviate such labor shortages. (Benjamin Powell, economist at the Independent Institute)

• Immigrants are one of the main labor sources for the rebuilding and clean-up effort in post-Katrina Louisiana and Mississippi. (NewAmericanMedia.org)

• As much as half of all U.S. retail banking growth is expected to come from new immigrants over the next decade. (The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp)

• Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrant households earn enough to qualify for $95,000 mortgages. (National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals)

• ITIN and conventional mortgages taken out by undocumented could be worth as much as $60 billion over the next five years. (National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals) Undocumented immigrants now comprise fully half of all farm laborers, up from 12% in 1990. (US Department of Labor)

• Undocumented immigrants are 25% of workers in the meat and poultry industry, 24% of dishwashers, and 27% of drywall and ceiling tile installers. (The Pew Research Center)

• The overall proportion of unauthorized workers in the labor force is 4.3%. Employers from many sectors of the US economy employ unauthorized immigrants – including enormous amounts of private US households. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso)

• The estimated population growth rate in Mexico is declining rapidly and may soon be slower than that in the US. (United Nations)

• Immigrants benefit the United States economy but their potential remains hindered by current laws. They do not deplete government resources, as is widely believed. (Benjamin Powell, economist at the Independent Institute)

• Undocumented add at least $22 billion, in total, to the economy each year, and legalizing their status would increase that amount. (Benjamin Powell, economist at the Independent Institute).

National Security and the Undocumented

• None of the 9/11 terrorists entered the country via the US/Mexico border. In fact, the US is most vulnerable at its ports of entry, including ship ports, airports, and land ports. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso).

• It is not easy to immigrate to the US legally as it often takes decades before an individual can obtain many kinds of legal immigrant visas. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso).

• Working with Mexico is central to the future of controlling the US border. Through cooperation with Mexico, the US will be able to isolate criminals, publicize rules, and identify forms of Mexican identification. (Peter Laufer, former NBC new correspondent).

• Enhanced border enforcement only increases the number of deaths of men, women, and children at the border annually. Areas with heavy border security see up to 100 additional deaths a year. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso).

• While heavy border does not stop the volume of unauthorized border crossing, it does increase the costs and risks of coming to the US, including death, injury, and the use of smugglers. It also reduces the number of back and forth trips, forcing undocumented immigrants to stay longer. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso).