Immigration Reform
Our System Is Broken
America was founded and built by immigrants, and immigrants still perform some of our hardest jobs. But U.S. laws offer few legal paths to work and deny nearly 12 million a way to earn citizenship. This makes it easier for employers to exploit hardworking, taxpaying workers, which drives down pay and benefits for all workers in America. Get the latest »
Myths v. Reality
See how these myths about undocumented immigrantsdon't reflect reality:
| Come here to collect welfare | Drain our economy’s resources |
| Don’t pay taxes | Shouldn’t be costly to deport |
Steal jobs from Americans | Flood our schools |
Myth: Undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. to collect welfare.
Reality: Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, most other public benefits. Undocumented immigrants come here to work. In fact, in 2003, more than 90 percent of undocumented men worked—a rate higher than that for U.S. citizens and legal immigrants. (Urban Institute, 2005)Myth: Undocumented immigrants drain resources from our economy.
Reality: Undocumented workers contribute more than $300 billion to our economy annually and each new immigrant generates a positive contribution to our economy of roughly $1800.
(American Immigration Law Foundation, Spring 2002; UCLA, 2001)
Myth: Undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes.
Reality: Undocumented immigrants pay the same property, sales, and other consumption taxes as everyone else—which fund the majority of state and local costs of schooling and other services. Nearly three-fourths of undocumented workers pay payroll taxes—contributing $6-7 billion in Social Security funds they are unable to claim. (Urban Institute, 2005)
Myth: Deporting the undocumented is a reasonable solution.
Reality: The costs of a mass deportation could exceed $230 billion over five years (at least $41.2 billion annually). That exceeds the entire budget of the Department of Homeland Security, is more than double the annual spending on border and transportation security, and is twice the annual cost of military operations in Afghanistan. (Center for American Progress, 2006)
Myth: Undocumented immigrants steal jobs from Americans.
Reality: We will have a shortage of 10 million workers by the middle of this decade—even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before Congress that immigrant workers offer a viable solution to the threat this shortage poses to our economy. Nearly half of all jobs created from now until 2012 will be held by workers with a high school diploma or less. Since nearly twice as many immigrants lacked a high school diploma in 2003 than native-born adults, America will rely on immigrants to fill most of these jobs. (Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C., July 25, 2001; Immigration Policy Center, July 2005)
Myth: Undocumented schoolchildren are flooding our schools
Reality: Nationally, only 1.5 percent of elementary students and 3 percent of middle and high school students were undocumented—and only 5 percent of elementary and 4 percent of middle and high school students had undocumented parents. (Urban Institute, 2005)
