We tend to notice them in our social spaces and label them undocumented immigrants, after all any individual who resides in a country without legal documentation is known as an illegal immigrant. According to the Pew Research Center’s most recent estimate, in 2014 there were 11.3 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Some Americans believe illegal immigrants tend to take the jobs “most Americans do not like”, others believe that they are taking all the jobs. However, Illegal immigrants usually opt for jobs referred to as “low skilled jobs” in areas of food, landscaping. hospitality, agriculture and domestic service. With their illegal status these individuals face the risk of exploitation from their employers and have no legal rights as employees to protest. These individuals live and work in a country where they have no legal rights but are entitled to pay taxes. Hence, Illegal immigrants should be given permanent residency in the United States.
Do illegal Immigrants Pay taxes?
One fact that is often overlooked is that undocumented immigrants pay taxes. Like everyone else in the United States, they pay taxes. According to The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) estimates, which do not count federal taxes, undocumented immigrants pay an estimate of $11.6 billion in state and local taxes a year. This includes: $7 billion in sales taxes, $1.1 billion in income taxes through social security numbers acquired from falsified information , (American Immigration Counsel 2016) more than $6.9 billion in sales and excise taxes, $3.6 billion in property taxes, and just under $1.1 billion in personal income taxes. (ITEP report page 2, paragraph 9)
How will a legal status of illegal immigrants benefit The United States?
According to US immigration support, certain work regulations prohibit employers from giving illegal immigrants employment. The granting of lawful permanent resident status to all 11 million undocumented immigrants would generate the largest increase in tax revenue. (American Immigration Council, 2016) If these undocumented immigrants are given a legal status, they would earn much more, and therefore pay much more in taxes. A permanent status yields more tax revenue than temporary status or being undocumented. (American Immigration Counsel, 2016)
Having a legal status enables immigrants to get better jobs and earn higher incomes, thus increasing the amount they pay in taxes. ITEP estimated that if all undocumented immigrants had a legal permanent residence status today, their state and local tax contributions would be $2.1 billion higher than they actually are. (American Immigration Counsel, 2016) A 2010 study from the North American Integration and Development (NAID) Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) revealed that legalization will enable higher worker productivity, full labor rights and $4.4 to $5.4 billion in additional tax net revenue with an increase in wages in the first three years. If undocumented immigrants can work legally, many workers and employers alike will pay payroll taxes for the first time this will also avoid workplace exploitation and enable them to move freely across the labor market and mobilize to find jobs that best match their skills and talents. (American Immigration Counsel, 2016)
Not Leaving America -Antonio Vargas Story
At the age of twelve, Jose Antonio Vargas was smuggled into the US to reside and live with his grandparents under false documents. Vargas became a successful journalist but he faced numerous risks and setbacks with his secret as an illegal immigrant such as denying all expense paid work related trips outside of the United States, or refusing to form intimate relationships out of fear of exposure from revealing too much or possibly the truth. It was after he saw a group of college students rallying for the “Dream Act”, when he acknowledged that he was living a facade and revealed his alien status. He received numerous backlash from the public and mainstream media after his confession. He was fired from his job and had to obtain a Philippine passport to avoid deportation.
“I grew up here. This is my home. Yet even though I think of myself as an American and consider America my country, my country doesn’t think of me as one of its own”- Jose Antonio Vargas, 2011
There are many more illegal immigrants who are like Antonio Vargas that are capable of bringing more tax revenues to the labor market who are being ostracized and currently face legal sanctions.
According to the US immigration council, approximately 65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools annually. However their lack of legal status puts them at risk of deportation. Over the last decade, there has been growing bipartisan consensus that Congress should provide legal immigration status for young adults who came to the country as children and graduated from American high schools. (American Immigration Council, 2016) Since 2001, when the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act was proposed to provide permanent resident status upon completion of two years of college or service in the military has been the light at the end of the tunnel for undocumented youths. However, due to the echo effect of the political environment on illegal immigrants; bipartisan support for the DREAM Act has decreased. (American Immigration Council, 2016)
What the Critics have to Say
There is already a consensus that young people who were brought to the United States at a young age by their parents should not be penalized for their lack of immigration status. Critic Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA, a group that has been lobbying against the DREAM Act argues that it will only create more workers to legally compete against the 22 million unemployed Americans and could cost taxpayers millions of dollars while doing little to address the lagging U.S. economy. (Dwyer, 2010)
However, it is the deportation of all illegal immigrants that would cost “taxpayers”.Removing all undocumented immigrants would also cause the labor force to shrink by 6.4 percent, which translates to a loss of 11 million workers. The dramatic decline in the labor force would cause the economy to decrease sharply, as such at the end of 2018, the economy would be 5.7 percent smaller than it would be if the government did not remove all undocumented immigrants. Hence, the real GDP would be about $1 trillion lower in 2018 than the Congressional Budget Office baseline estimate, wiping out all economic growth that would have occurred during the previous three years. (Gitis 2016)
Complete Deportation Is Expensive and Unrealistic
Last year, The American Advertising Federation revealed it would take at least 20 years and cost the federal government between $400 to $600 billion to deport all illegal immigrants living in the United States. The 20-year time frame was based on the current Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) removal capacity of 400,000 per year. Based on how the government conducts its apprehensions, it would require $100 to $300 billion arresting and removing all undocumented immigrants residing in the country in addition, to prevent any new undocumented immigrants going forward, the government at a minimum would have to maintain current immigration enforcement levels. This results in an additional $315 billion in continuing enforcement costs over that time period. (Gitis 2016)
As a result, 20 years from now the economy would be nearly 6 percent or $1.6 trillion smaller than it would be if the government did not remove all undocumented immigrants. Assumptions are made that an announcement that the federal government would begin enforcing mass deportation would lead to 20 percent of undocumented immigrants leave voluntarily. Assuming that 20 percent would leave voluntarily, the federal government would then have to forcibly remove the remaining 9.04 million immigrants. (Gitis, 2016)
Contrary to what many believe, deporting 9.04 million undocumented immigrants is not as simple as purchasing them all a ticket and waving goodbye. When enforcing the legal prosecution of undocumented immigrants, there are four stages in the process of successful indictment. Local, state, and federal officers must investigate, pursue, and apprehend the undocumented immigrants currently living within the United States. After apprehending the suspected undocumented immigrants, officials must detain them in a prison then the undocumented immigrants must be processed legally in the immigration courts. Finally, after a judge determines the suspects to be in the country unlawfully, the federal government must transport them to their native countries. While most of this is processed by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, each step requires immense coordination and networking between several offices, analysts, agents, attorneys, and judges and inevitable billions of dollars in government fees (Gitis 2016)
With the likes of Journalist Antonio Vargas and many other undocumented immigrants, the United States is faced with the task of granting these individuals legal status or facing potential economic loss and recession. They have been raised and educated here, and are “American” in nearly every sense of the word. There is a growing consensus that they deserve permanent status. Undocumented aliens are not only the lady speaking Spanish outside your hotel room with the hospitality cart or the man mowing your neighbor’s lawn; but main contributors to tax revenues that contribute to the financial stability of the US. Deportation would not only affect the millions of families of undocumented immigrants, but the entire economy of the United States by granting these individuals legal citizenship, the United States not only creates buffer space for potential economic instability, but maximizes on it’s current human capital capabilities to increase tax revenues.
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