Thesis

Although its true that immigrants use resources in the U.S., they contribute more to the economy than what they use. They contribute by paying taxes, work and purchasing power.

Immigration and its contribution to our economic strength

Immigrants’ contributions to the economy

A growing economy attracts immigrants, and immigration, in turn, makes the economy grow. Immigrants contribute to the economy as workers, as consumers, and as taxpayers. Immigrants fill vital niches in the labor market; they go where the jobs are; they contribute to innovation and business creation; they revitalize declining areas; and they slow the aging of the American workforce.


First, immigration increases the labor force, which makes the economy bigger.  Foreign-born workers comprise about 16 percent of the workforce, and immigrants account for nearly one-half of U.S. labor force growth since the mid-1990s. 

10-year projections of the economic gains from immigration reform

Applying our 25.1 percent citizenship effect on the income of the undocumented, we project the economic gains from immigration reform under three scenarios. The first and most politically unlikely scenario—but one that is nonetheless useful for comparison purposes—assumes that legal status and citizenship are both conferred on the undocumented in 2013. The second scenario assumes that the unauthorized are provided legal status in 2013 and citizenship five years thereafter. The third scenario assumes that the unauthorized are granted legal status starting in 2013 but that they are not given a road map to citizenship.

In each of the three scenarios we have almost certainly understated the amount of additional taxes that will be paid by undocumented immigrant workers because the tax estimates include only taxes from the increased earnings of the previously undocumented. While it has been widely documented that unauthorized workers are contributing billions of dollars in federal, state, and local taxes each year, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that between 30 percent and 50 percent of the undocumented population fails to declare their income.

The economic effect of citizenship on unauthorized immigrants: Income gains from legalization and citizenship.

           If we made the assumption that the income effect of legalization and citizenship combined for the unauthorized is the same as the income effect of citizenship that we estimated for the entire noncitizen immigrant population, then we would conclude that the unauthorized would experience an average increase in income of 16 percent from legalization and citizenship. This estimate, however, understates the true income effect for the unauthorized population because it aggregates the relatively smaller income gains that legal non citizens get from citizenship alone with the relatively larger income gains that the unauthorized get from legalization and citizenship. In addition, our regression estimate further understates the income effect of citizenship for the unauthorized because the unauthorized are undercounted in the dataset.

Fueling The Recovery

High-Skilled immigrants Create jobs and help build the U.S. economy.
 

•  According to a 2012 report the New American Economy and the U.S chamber of commerce research has found that “ every foreign-born student who graduates form the U.S. university with an advanced degree and stays to work in STEM the average for American workers is 2.62

 

• In 2006 study by national venture capital association found that, during the previous 15 years, immigrants started one-quarter of the public companies in the United States more that $500 billion and employed 220,000 workers in the United States in 2006.

   

•  In 2011 report from the partnership for a new American economy concluded that immigrants were founders of percent of al fortune 500 companies. In 2010 these companies generate $1.7 trillion in annual revenue, employed 3.6 million workers worldwide.

          With the U.S. economy still recovering, it may seem counterintuitive to believe that any industry would benefit from having more workers. The United States economy is in general, absorbing more high-skilled professional than the U.S. That is one reason so many highly skilled workers in the United States are immigrants. http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/just-facts/fueling-recovery

Illegal immigrants benefit the U.S. economy

According to the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project, there were 8.4 million unauthorized immigrants employed in the U.S.; representing 5.2 percent of the U.S. labor force (an increase from 3.8 percent in 2000). Their importance was highlighted in a report by Texas Comptroller Susan Combs that stated, “Without the undocumented population, Texas’ work force would decrease by 6.3 percent” and Texas’ gross state product would decrease by 2.1 percent.  Furthermore, certain segments of the U.S. economy, like agriculture, are entirely dependent upon illegal immigrants.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture states that, “about half of the hired workers employed in U.S. crop agriculture were unauthorized, with the overwhelming majority of these workers coming from Mexico.” The USDA has also warned that, “any potential immigration reform could have significant impacts on the U.S. fruit and vegetable industry.” From the perspective of National Milk Producers Federation in 2009, retail milk prices would increase by 61 percent if its immigrant labor force were to be eliminated.  http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/203984-illegal-immigrants-benefit-the-us-economy.

Congressional Budget Office Study

During 2007, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office reviewed 29 reports published over 15 years on the impact of unauthorized immigrants on the budgets of state and local governments. While cautioning that the reports are not a suitable basis for developing an aggregate national effect across all states, they concluded that:

• State and local governments incur costs for providing services to unauthorized immigrants and have limited options for avoiding or minimizing those costs;
• The amount that state and local governments spend on services for unauthorized immigrants represents a small percentage of the total amount spent by those governments to provide such services to residents in their jurisdictions;
• The tax revenues that unauthorized immigrants generate for state and local governments do not offset the total cost of services provided to those immigrants, although the impact is most likely modest; and
• Federal aid programs offer resources to state and local governments that provide services to unauthorized immigrants, but those funds do not fully cover the costs incurred by those governments.