It is a widespread belief that undocumented immigrants use up our country’s resources and don’t give back. What the public isn’t aware of is that this belief was invented to cover up corporate spending that favor special interests and establishments. According to itep.org, undocumented immigrants cooperatively contribute around $11.74 billion to our country in sales, personal income, and property taxes. Adding insult to injury, most taxes in this country are collected from people regardless of their citizenship status. Some of these taxes include but are not limited to: state and local, sales, property, and income taxes. In some cases, undocumented immigrants contributed more of their income than the top 1%. To be more exact, the 11 million immigrants in our nation pay 8 percent of their income while the 1% only pay 5.4% on average.
Aside from the fact that undocumented immigrants contribute their fair share of capital to our economy, it is unrealistic to assume that they are taking jobs away from American citizens. Almost all of these immigrants are working in blue-collar jobs that require no education and are therefore less desirable. According to pewhispanic.org, in 2012 one-third of immigrants in the U.S held service jobs such as janitors, cooks, or child-care workers.
At the federal level, a study from the Social Security Administration showed that undocumented immigrants paid $12 billion to the social security trust fund while only drawing $1 billion. If the country decides to go for full immigration reform, the deficit would take a nasty hit as well as generating $450 billion in additional federal revenue over the next 10 years.
It is especially important to remember these facts at a time when the leaders of this prosperous country are favoring the privileged and wealthy side of our society. At a time when our own President is making false claims about undocumented immigrants not contributing to the economy, our country should be unifying and trying to solve the problem together.