They Took Our Jobs.....and other myths about illegal immigration.

Most of the complaints made by anti-immigration activists regarding the status of illegal immigrants from Mexico to the United States are based on exaggeration, misconception, myths and outright lies. As with most things, many of the complaints are real for a very small number of illegal immigrants, but by and large, they do not apply to most of the illegal immigration into this country.

Further, those who oppose illegal immigration tend to focus their rhetoric on emotional issues, such as claims that illegal immigrants are "taking our jobs" and "threatening our security;" but the evidence they provide in favor of these claims is very scanty, and they only seem to have one "solution" of the problem, viz., "kick the wetbacks out," which if there were no other objections to it would cause major damage to the U.S. economy.

Illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes

• All immigrants pay taxes whether they are illegal or not. They pay them in the form of property tax - directly if they own a home, or indirectly if they rent; sales tax on all the goods they buy, and income tax at Federal, State and local level.
• Since illegal immigrants often have fake documents, including fake Social Security numbers, the money they pay into the system is money that will never be withdrawn. The amount in question is evidenced by the Social Security Administration’s “suspense file” (taxes that cannot be matched to workers’ names and Social Security numbers), which grew $20 billion between 1990 and 1998.

Legal immigrants come here to get "welfare"

• Immigrants come to work and to reunite with family members.
• Immigrant labor-force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigrant workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S., unless the “study” was undertaken by an anti-immigrant group. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes, and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use.
• Since the welfare reform of 1996, when limits were implemented cutting off benefits to two years consecutively or five years cumulatively, this is a bogus accusation.
• To immigrate into the US, you must have a sponsor (generally the family member, such as the spouse, bringing you into the country) who will testify that he or she has enough money to support you, if you are unable to support yourself, or if you lose your job. This agreement means that within the first 5 years of living in the US, you cannot take welfare. Your family member will be assessed a penalty if you demand it.  Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries
• In addition to the consumer spending of immigrant households, immigrants and their businesses contribute $162 billion in tax revenue to U.S. federal, state, and local governments. While it is true that immigrants remit billions of dollars a year to their home countries, this is one of the most targeted and effective forms of direct foreign investment.

 THEY TOOK OUR JERBS! Immigrants take jobs and opportunity away from Americans

• The largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with the lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth. Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers, and foreign-born students allow many U.S. graduate programs to keep their doors open. While there has been no comprehensive study done of immigrant-owned businesses, we have countless examples: in Silicon Valley, companies begun by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs in 2000.
• Illegal immigrants, as well as legal immigrants with little job skills or language skills often take the work seen by most Americans as "beneath them." Janitorial services, crop pickers and garbage collectors need workers, and they do not find them from high-school-educated, English-speaking citizens. As a demonstration of this fact, in Georgia, a 2011 crackdown on illegal immigrants caused many to be deported and more to flee the state. This caused a shortage of labor on the state's farms, indicating that illegal immigrants in that state do not compete very much with Americans for jobs.

Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy

• During the 1990s, half of all new workers were foreign-born, filling gaps left by native-born workers in both the high- and low-skill ends of the spectrum.

• Immigrants fill jobs in key sectors, start their own businesses, and contribute to a thriving economy. The net benefit of immigration to the U.S. is nearly $10 billion annually. As Alan Greenspan points out, 70% of immigrants arrive in prime working age.

• Due to welfare reform, legal immigrants are severely restricted from accessing public benefits, and illegal immigrants are even further precluded from anything other than emergency services. Anti-immigrant groups skew these figures by including programs used by U.S. citizen children of immigrants in their definition of immigrant welfare use, among other tactics. transplanted into our workforce and will contribute $500 billion toward our social security system over the next 20 years.

Immigrants don’t want to learn English or become Americans

• Within ten years of arrival, more than 75% of immigrants speak English well; moreover, demand for English classes at the adult level far exceeds supply. Greater than 33% of immigrants are naturalized citizens; given increased immigration in the 1990s, this figure will rise as more legal permanent residents become eligible for naturalization in the coming years. The number of immigrants naturalizing spiked sharply after two events: enactment of immigration and welfare reform laws in 1996, and the terrorist attacks in 2001.

Most immigrants cross the border illegally

• Around 75% have legal permanent (immigrant) visas; of the 25% that are here illegally, 40% overstayed temporary (nonimmigrant) visas.
• Prior to modern immigration laws, and even prior to the existence of the United States, Europeans came to the continent without any paperwork whatsoever.

Weak U.S. border enforcement has led to high levels of illegal immigration

• From 1986 to 1998, the Border Patrol’s budget increased sixfold and the number of agents stationed on our southwest border doubled to 8,500. The Border Patrol also toughened its enforcement strategy, heavily fortifying typical urban entry points and pushing migrants into dangerous desert areas, in hopes of deterring crossings. Instead, the illegal immigrant population doubled in that period, to 8 million - despite the legalization of nearly 3 million immigrants after the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. Insufficient legal avenues for immigrants to enter the U.S., compared with the number of jobs available to them, have created this current conundrum.

The war on terrorism can be won through immigration restrictions

• No security expert since September 11, 2001 has said that restrictive immigration measures would have prevented the terrorist attacks—instead, the key is good use of good intelligence. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on legal tourist or student visas (but some did overstay on those). Since 9/11, the myriad of measures targeting immigrants in the name of national security have netted no terrorism prosecutions. In fact, several of these measures could have the opposite effect and actually make us less safe, as targeted communities of immigrants are afraid to come forward with information.
•  Illegal immigrants are the source of many communicable diseases
• Anti-immigrant advocates including Lou Dobbs have claimed that Mexican border-crossers are the source of a rampant increase in leprosy. CDC and Department for Health and Human Services statistics do not bear this myth out.

Illegal immigrants cause crime

• Whilst a common cry of the anti immigration brigade - and the font of endless anecdotal "evidence" - the facts don't support this.

The government is not enforcing existing immigration laws

• By September 2011, Barack Obama has exceeded the number of removals from the United States during the entire Bush Administration. Simply put, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the government to round up and deport every illegal immigrant. The agency responsible for doing so, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has limited resources (finances, officers, jail spaces etc.) and must prioritize how they are spent (as well as figuring out how to spend resources on enforcing US Customs laws). Simply put, a migrant farm laborer's family probably is not as high on ICE's priority list for deportation as as a major drug trafficker might be. Furthermore, aliens involved in deportation proceedings are entitled to due process regardless of their status in the United States.