On July 30, 2024, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released a report titled
“Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants.” This report found that undocumented immigrants contributed nearly $100 billion in federal and state taxes in 2022 alone. Don’t believe me, believe what you see with your own eyes right here:
- Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, was paid to the federal government while the remaining $37.3 billion was paid to state and local governments.
- Undocumented immigrants paid federal, state, and local taxes of $8,889 per person in 2022. In other words, for every 1 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the country, public services receive $8.9 billion in additional tax revenue.
- More than a third of the tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants go toward payroll taxes dedicated to funding programs that these workers are barred from accessing. Undocumented immigrants paid $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance taxes in 2022.
- At the state and local levels, slightly less than half (46 percent, or $15.1 billion) of the tax payments made by undocumented immigrants are through sales and excise taxes levied on their purchases. Most other payments are made through property taxes, such as those levied on homeowners and renters (31 percent, or $10.4 billion), or through personal and business income taxes (21 percent, or $7.0 billion).
- Six states raised more than $1 billion each in tax revenue from undocumented immigrants living within their borders. Those states are California ($8.5 billion), Texas ($4.9 billion), New York ($3.1 billion), Florida ($1.8 billion), Illinois ($1.5 billion), and New Jersey ($1.3 billion).
- In a large majority of states (40), undocumented immigrants pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households living within their borders.
The rhetoric said that undocumented immigrants drain our economy, the truth says they contribute nearly 100 billion to this nation every year. The report says that if our government gave them a path to citizenship, it would add even more revenue. Racism comes with a price and the price for mass deportations now is at least 96.7 billion dollars annually. This was free money. Undocumented immigrants were paying for programs they could not get. Money for programs that anti-immigrant right wing Republicans were gladly taking advantage of.