“Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has . . . framed the immigration debate as a struggle between American-born and foreign workers. . . . Sessions railed [that] for American citizens, the [Senate immigration bill] offered nothing except lower wages, higher unemployment, and a heavier tax burden.” – The Huffington Post, Roque Planas 2/17/15.
Fact Check: This article is typical of those seeking to put a positive economic spin on illegal immigration. It claims, for example, that illegal aliens don’t take jobs from Americans or drive down wages, and that they pay more into the system in taxes than they receive in public benefits.
The notion they don’t take Americans’ jobs stems from the mantra that they only take jobs Americans refuse to do. The reality is that with only a few exceptions, such agriculture, native-born Americans are the majority of workers in just about every job category. Thus when illegal foreign workers enter those occupations, they are taking jobs from American workers—usually those who are poor and unskilled—while also suppressing wage levels.
The claim they put more into the system than they take out isn’t factual either. Planas maintains it’s a myth that illegal aliens don’t pay taxes. Actually, no knowledgeable person claims this. They indeed pay sales taxes, property taxes when they rent places to stay, and sometimes federal income taxes. A little less than half of them, however, pay no federal income tax because their employers pay them under the table. And a large number avoid paying the full share of what they owe on their incomes by making false claims about the number of dependents they have.
Illegal aliens are not substantial taxpayers because on average they only have around a tenth-grade education. A study by the Heritage Foundation found that people with this level of education are net consumers of taxes rather contributors.
Planas tries to minimize the fiscal drain caused by illegal aliens by stating that they receive little welfare because they are not legally entitled to most assistance programs. He concedes that children of illegal aliens get welfare, but those born in the U.S. are counted as U.S. citizens, so he maintains that what they get should not be counted as a cost of illegal immigration. But that is a faulty analysis because the illegal parents of the children certainly benefit from payments to their children. And the children would not be here if the parents had not come here in the first place.
Planas also tries to claim an economic benefit from illegal aliens by citing their contributions to Social Security. The idea, he suggests, is that there is a Social Security treasury box that stores taxes paid into the system for future distribution to recipients. Illegal alien advocates maintain that illegal aliens will not receive in retirement what they contribute to this fund, so those contributions are a subsidy to the rest of us.
The flaw in this analysis is that there is no box with accumulated funds. As columnist Charles Krauthammer points out, the box just contains IOUs. The Social Security taxes go to for the current expenses of government, including Social Security. This being the case, illegal aliens are not accumulating funds for our retirement. Once again, what they contribute—specifically at the federal level—is less than what they take out in benefits.
Illegal immigration, however, does provide some economic benefits—most specifically to those already wealthy folks who aim to profit from it. They in turn encourage the media to spin tales about how it supposedly helps the rest of us.