People who push for more and tougher anti-illegal alien laws often assert that undocumented workers in the US pay no taxes yet receive a disproportionate amount of support from federal and state relief programs. Nothing could be farther from the truth. One of the biggest illegal immigrations pros is that these workers do in fact pay taxes but do not, as a whole, take part in such programs.
Despite the popular misconception that illegal aliens do not pay taxes, the truth is that the Internal Revenue Service gathered almost $305 million in taxes in 2001 from people who filed using an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN). The ITIN is a special number given to those who do not have Social Security numbers but need to file taxes. That is what illegal aliens commonly use to pay their taxes.
Of course, undocumented workers are also paying sales taxes whenever they buy something, just as legal residents and citizens do. They also pay $7 billion in Social Security taxes every year even though they cannot benefit from Social Security programs. In reality, Social Security is kept afloat and working to a certain extent through the contributions of illegal immigrants.
The idea that illegal aliens are getting food stamps or benefiting from Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security programs is also untrue. Undocumented immigrants are barred from taking part in most federal, state and local aid programs. Some exceptions: illegal workers do benefit from free public schooling for their children and are eligible for short-term disaster relief.
So what are some other illegal immigration pros?
These workers contribute to the American economy by complementing rather than replacing the US workforce. In many areas of the US there is a shortage of labor for low-paying or unskilled jobs. These are the jobs commonly filled by illegal aliens (most of whom are from Mexico), freeing up the local labor pool for better paying jobs.
Even with the recession, for example, Texas business owners state that it is still quite difficult to hire labor for certain tasks. To cite another example, Arizona lettuce farms will need 40,000 people to hand-pick their produce each year – a huge labor force that the area simply doesn’t have if the owners only look for local workers.
Some even say that if there were no undocumented workers available in the US, many businesses that need a large labor force would be forced to move their production overseas.
Unauthorized workers therefore contribute to the local labor force in a complementary way. Rather than replacing the local labor pool or competing with locals for jobs, the illegal workers make possible the affluent lifestyle of the local residents.
The real question is whether the illegal immigration pros outweigh the cons. Regarding the labor force, illegal workers also play a big role in providing a readily available work force for local businesses. As far as taxes and benefits are concerned, the picture is quite clear. Unauthorized workers pay more in taxes than they take out in the form of government services, due to their ineligibility for most services.
Tagged with: food stamps • illegal aliens • illegal immigrants • illegal immigration • individual tax identification number • internal revenue service • labor pool • social security numbers • social security programs • undocumented immigrants
Filed under: illegal immigration pros
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Welcoming Everyone
Dealing with our illegal alien problem has been a large problem for our country. Out of 307 million people in America 11.1 million are illegally in the country. Some people think that illegal immigrants should be granted full amnesty without conditions. Others believe that they should be given amnesty as long as they abide by our laws and try to get citizenship. Still others think that all the illegal aliens should be deported immediately. As citizens of America we need to be informed of the statistics and issues surrounding illegal immigrants.
Illegal aliens come into the United States from several different places for different reasons. Currently about 60% of the illegal immigrants come from Mexico (“Fox News”) The Latin American countries represent 23% of the total and 5% come from Canada and Europe. (Passel, Capps, and Fix) Most of these people come into America seeking economic opportunities or free health care. Some sneak into our country specifically to commit crimes.
Each year our boarder patrol agents apprehend over a million people trying to illegally cross our Mexico-Texas boarder. (“American Patrol Reference Archive”) Because our boarder patrols have gaps, human smuggling into the US has become a business. Some Mexican drug cartels sell passage into the US for $1200 to $2500 for Mexicans and $45,000 to $60,000 for non-Mexicans. Robert Muller, the director of the FBI, claims that known al Qa’ida associates pretend to be Mexican immigrants and pay to cross boarder into the nation. (Pope)
Our laws have exasperated this boarder patrol problem by practically encouraging Mexicans to commit a felony and cross our boarders. For example, The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act states that hospitals can’t turn away anyone requiring emergency medical care regardless of their citizenship, status, or ability to pay. Because of this act many Mexicans cross the border for free Health Care. Each year hospitals close to the boarder receive 7,000 new cases of leprosy and 16,000 of tuberculosis from illegal aliens while paying legal residents must wait behind them in line. (Wooldridge) In Los Angels County new emergency room cases from illegal immigrants cost taxpayers more that $500 per tax payer in 2004. Fox News says that “In Los Angeles County, patients can wait four days for a hospital bed and up to two years for gallbladder surgery”.. Insured, law abiding citizens must wait behind illegal immigrants for up to two years with these symptoms because of laws we have in place. In addition, 71 hospitals have closed down in California because of uninsured people using emergency rooms. Over 50% of the uninsured are illegal immigrants. (LaJeunesse)
Another illegal immigration problem that our laws create involves ‘Anchor Babies’. An anchor baby is a baby born of illegal parents in America. The parents hope that due to the child’s citizenship that they will also be allowed to stay in the country. The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution states that “Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States.” Because of the 14th Amendment “Anchor babies” are legal. (Wooldridge) There are currently 3 million Anchor babies in America. (Passel, Capps, and Fix) These babies cost 2.45 billion dollars a year for education and 1.75 billion a year to be born. (Wooldridge)
In addition to the anchor baby problem, a weak boarder enables Drug trafficking. The ability for Drug cartels to move over the boarder with relative ease has resulted in over 100 billion dollars worth of drugs being brought over the boarder and sold through over 11,000 gang members every year. (Wooldridge) Annually, over 2.2 million Kilograms of cocaine is brought over the Mexico-Texas border. (Pope) Also, 80% of the daily supply of marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine, and heroin come from over the Mexican border. (“US Illegal Aliens”) While only 5.4% of Americans are Hispanic they make up 46% of the drug-trafficking arrests in America. (Pope)
Another huge problem that illegal aliens create in America is a sharp increase in crime rates. An astounding 86% of illegal aliens in the workforce that are apprehended for immigration laws violations have stolen American identities. In addition, 240,000 illegal aliens are convicted sex offenders. (Pope) Our state and federal prisons have 618,000 illegal immigrants that have been convicted of committing a deadly crime on American citizens. This imprisonment costs the US tax payers 1.6 billion dollars a year. These imprisoned illegal aliens make up 29% of all inmates in state and federal prisons. (Wooldridge) In 2009 35% of the illegal aliens deported were convicted criminals totaling 136,126 criminals. In 2010 (from January to June of 2010) 113, 453 criminals were deported that represented 49.9% of the total illegal aliens deported for that time period. (Slevin)
Gangs are another large problem in the U.S. and again illegal aliens have made the situation worse. For example, in North Carolina’s Hispanics only make up 7% of the population but they make up more that 22% of North Carolina’s gang members. One of the most powerful gangs in North Carolina is the MS-13 and they are 90% illegal aliens. They depend on the border smuggling to support their crimes. Nationally 49% of gang members are Hispanics and 66% of the Hispanic/Latino gang members are illegal. (Pope)
Fixing the illegal alien problem would have a large impact on America. If there were some way to instantly rid America of illegal immigrants, 57,000 cars a year would remain in the possession of the rightful owner in Phoenix alone. Also Thirteen Americans a day wouldn’t be killed by uninsured drunken illegal aliens and twelve more citizens a day would not have to die a violent death by the hands of non-citizens. (Wooldridge) In addition to those crimes another 8 children a day under the age of 18 wouldn’t have the emotional/physical scaring of being victims of sex crimes. (“US Illegal Aliens”)
Many illegal immigration proponents think that the illegal aliens help sustain the U.S. economy. They claim that the illegal aliens don’t use many government programs yet pay taxes to the government. It is true that illegal immigrants can’t receive social security and they pay sales taxes. But it is also true that they get free health care and their children get free public schooling while they don’t pay their income tax. Plus as already described illegal aliens commit a higher percentage of crime and increase the burden on our criminal system.
Another issue commonly argued by illegal alien proponents is that illegal immigrants take low level work that other Americans wouldn’t. Yes, it is true that illegal men have a higher employment rate than legal citizens at 96%. However, 6 million illegal immigrants are in the labor force and fewer than 4.3 million are in low wage jobs. This leaves over 1.7 million skilled jobs being taken by people illegally in the country. (Passel, Capps, and Fix) According to the laws of supply and demand if the 4.3 million illegal aliens working in low wage workplaces were removed then many businesses would be forced to pay their employees more. This would enable Americans to work more unskilled labor jobs. If this employment change happened, the prices of certain goods would rise. However, if all prices rose simultaneously while pay also increased it would not be economically consequential in the long run. Also the unemployment rate would be reduced by 58.9% to a mere 5.5%. The unemployment rate is based on the number of people without jobs currently looking for work divided by the number of people considered in the labor force. (“Seeking Alpha”)
Figure 1 shows the unemployment of American citizens seeking work. It shows that about one and a half million American teenagers (ages 16-19) are currently seeking work and are unable to find it. Almost three million Americans between the ages of 16-24 are seeking work. Generally teenagers and adults not yet out of college, (most people graduate between the ages of 22 and 24) work in the low wage jobs that illegal immigrants take. This means that if the illegal immigrants were removed from the workforce then almost 3 million of the 4.3 million low wage jobs would be available to American workers. Wages wouldn’t have to increase because so many of the jobs would be easily filled. In today’s job market many teenagers can’t get jobs quickly or when they want them and they become discouraged. If they stop searching for a job then they are then removed from the unemployed statistic. It’s likely that many of the discouraged American workers would also seek these job openings. Therefore, it’s likely that a large percentage of these 4.3 million jobs would be filled by American workers.
While illegal immigrants do keep the prices of certain goods low they cause many other problems in society. They bring hundreds of billions of dollars worth of drugs over the boarder every year. They smuggle anyone into the nation who is willing to pay. They increase crime rates drastically. They raise unemployment rates while stealing money from tax payers by using Health care and only paying sales tax. As a nation we need to take steps to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into our country.
Work Cited
“Illegal Immigration is a Crime.” American Patrol Reference Archive. N.p., 11 Jun. 2006. Web. 13 Oct 2010.
(“American Patrol Reference Archive”)
LaJeunesse, William. “L.A. Emergency Rooms Full of Illegal Immigrants.” Fox News. N.p., 18 Mar. 2005. Web. 21 Oct 2010.
(LaJeunesse)
Passel, Jeffrey, Randolph Capps, and Michael Fix. “Undocumented Immigrants: Facts and Figures.” Urban Institute. N.p., 12 Jan. 2004. Web. 20 Oct 2010.
(Passel, Capps, and Fix)
Pope, John. “Illegal Immigration: Drugs, Gangs and Crime.” Civitas Institute. N.p., 2010. Web. 12 Oct 2010.
(Pope)
“‘Recovery Summer’: Nothing But Deficit of Hope for America’s Unemployed.” Seeking Alpha. N.p., 11 Aug. 2010. Web. 15 Oct 2010.
(“Seeking Alpha”)
Slevin, Peter. “Deportation of illegal immigrants increases under Obama administration.” Washington Post. Washington Post Company, 26 Jul. 2010. Web. 14 Oct 2010.
(Slevin)
“Study Shows Illegal Immigrants From Mexico Staying Put Despite Overall Decline.” Fox News. Fox News, 02 Sep. 2010. Web. 20 Oct 2010.
(“Fox News”)
“The Dark Side Of Illegal Immigration.” US Illegal Aliens. N.p., 25 Sep. 2006. Web. 13 Oct 2010.
(“US Illegal Aliens”)
“Two illegal aliens charged with murder of South Carolina man.” Examiner National. N.p., 21 Feb. 2010. Web. 20 Oct 2010.
(“Examiner National”)
Wooldridge, Frosty. “DAY WITHOUT ILLEGAL ALIENS .” News With Views. N.p., 25 Sep. 2006. Web. 13 Oct 2010.
(Wooldridge)
Dear Lee:
i would very much like to debate this issue with you. i am a conservative college student. initially i was very much against illegal labor in the united states. in developing a literature review for a final paper i was forced to change my thesis entirely. regardless of the reality that the limitation of labor, employment options, and the choice of employers to peruse the best labor for the lowest cost is in direct contradiction of the conservative free market paradigm, i was forced to concede that exploited labor is indeed very good for our suffering economy. while there exists a great deal of data (circa prior to 2002) that establishes a limited (though clear) deficit on costs to the united states vs benefits obtained, these studies neglect the last fiscal decade that include global economic crisis, the housing market crash, hurricane katrina, devastating tornadoes in alabama, etc. etc. etc. a vast majority of literature that i found indicated a clear economic benefit to all demographics and levels of the US economy. the only demographic that suffers is the high school drop out. Other studies indicate, however, that levels of higher education (both completion of high school and college) are dramatically increasing creating a deficit of labor for business looking for under skilled workers.
anyone hear about alabama?
additionally i could comment on human rights violations but ill simply leave those at this “no taxation without representation”.
check your sources. it was difficult for me to deal with too but in an attempt to oppose most that is wrong with this country when the facts change so will my opinion.
16% of the US population (Hispanic) had 42% of the births for 2009. There are 55,000,000 Hispanics in the US – not including illegals. The population of all of Mexico is only 107,000,000. I think we have enough Hispanics. There were 350,000 children born to undocumented women in the US last year. Let’s see 350,000 X $10,000 (modest cost of having a baby) I don’t have enough windows on my calculator.
Because they REFUSE to speak English, how much money is poured into phone messaging and interpreters? Our high school let Advanced Placement teachers go and hired “Interpreters”. There has to be a full time interpreter at our public health clinic.
John Crawford this is how you do it. You have them fill out a W2 form or 1099 take their laser jet SS card and copy it. When it comes time to file they don’t. They declare 8 dependents and so they pay no taxes and in fact are due a TAX CREDIT. That’s why they want to pass E-Varify. The SS office has to tell you if the SS# is good. NOW they just say, “Tell them to report to the nearest SS office.” Day laborers get paid in cash. No taxes no nothing. We went out of business because we could not compete with day laborers. We had three crews of 10 and were paying $3,000 a MONTH in Workmens’ Comp alone. We offered health care and paid 1/2 the cost. Day laborers are left at the hospital for free care to be passed unto us in higher premiums. We had to include these costs in our bids so we always lost. 30 taxpaying people out of work for 40 no pay tax people. They’re just as lazy as they have always been just CHEAPER or maybe NOT.
John Crawford THAT’S what the big stink in about – the government does NOTHING. I’m surprised you’re still in business.
These comments are founded on opinion, no facts are represented to support what you’ve said. When have you ever applied for a job and not gotten it because an immigrant was doing your work? In most cases they do the jobs that the traditional white non-Hispanic Americans are not willing to do. Go educate yourself more before you mindlessly spout your useless opinions.
HISPANICS MAKE UP OVER 90% OF ILLEGAL APPREHENSIONS IN 2009
WHAT COUNTRY WOULD ALLOW TENS OF MILLIONS OF FOREIGNERS TO ENTER THIS COUNTRY ILLEGALLY? ANSWER: A CORRUPT COUNTRY.
Don’t blame the messenger. The 15+ million Mexican nationals that are hiding in shadows, overflowing U.S. prisons and bankrupting U.S. hospitals and schools are here because the U.S. gov’t wants them here. White America has become weak and impudent allowing hispanics to drag this country down. A weak and uneducated populous demands a large and overbearing gov’t.
Thank you yess exactly stop saying that its just Hispanic Immigrants Its all race and countries. Stop accusing all immigrants now because everyones an immigrant descendent and if they heard of downing and avoiding and deporting IMMIGRANTS YOU WOULD BE A DISAPPOINTMENT Im a hispannic american yet i lived the life of my IMMIGRANT DESCENDENTS and the economy crisis and accusations are rediculious
i feel and know that most who are against illegal immigration have been brainwashed by this lame government and could care less about looking past the “numbers”. regardless of what the media, government and any other prejudice person with an opinion, WE ALL HAVE IMMIGRANTS IN OUR FAMILIES!!!Whites, African Americans, Asians ect. People need to stop pointiong the fingers and figure out how we can help the “Illegal Immigrants” to become better educated and maybe the statistical numbers would go down!!!!
How is it that Illegal Immigrants PAY these taxes?
As an employer, I am required to make deposits every single month of all payroll taxes and I have to submit a list of every employee with their respective social security number. Payroll tax returns have to tie out to the penny, or there are penalties to pay. Annually, each employee’s tax account must be properly credited and accounted for.
As it is against the law to employ anyone without a valid social security number (ALSO with extreme penalties in play), I don’t know how an employer could do that and not wind up having the IRS shut down the company and take over the business. I know that illegal aliens are hired in the U.S. – I just can’t figure out how the government could receive the tax money unaccounted for. HOW is this accomplished?
Can you post the link of the web site where you read that so that I can start that homework? Maybe someone out there who is hiring illegal aliens can post here how it is you can get this done and not get caught.
Lee, where is your evidence to support your comment, “DON’T SPEW LIES ABOUT THE IMPACT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ON AMERICA, PLEASE!!”?
TOTALLY WRONG! A majority of illegal immigrants do feed off the government and American tax-payers! I have nothing against immigrants who try to become a citizen of the country and enter it legally! But I do have something against ILLEGAL immigrants! Why, you say, are illegal immigrants so bad??? Well, I could sum it up in one sentence for you, or I could write PARAGRAPHS for you on why they are bad for America, including facts and statistics! To sum it up for you, like I just offered, I can say that the BIGGEST reason that illegal immigrants are bad for America is because of the basic fact that they are ILLEGAL!!! And if you like, I would very much like to debate with you the other how many reasons why they are ad for America, or as you think of it why they are good for America. Or, if you like, we can just agree to disagree. But for the latter, I have one condition, DON’T SPEW LIES ABOUT THE IMPACT OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ON AMERICA, PLEASE!! I’m sure it would benefit everyone (just like your precious illegal immigrants).