According to research conducted by the Immigration Policy Center, immigration reform that includes a program to help legalize unauthorized immigrants would create a new flow of legal workers and result in a large economic benefit. The data shows that the new workforce could contribute as much as $1.5 trillion in added U.S. GDP over 10 years. The data also shows that a reform program that focuses solely on deportation policies would create a loss of $2.6 trillion in GDP over 10 years.
Data in the IPC’s latest report, "Economic Progress via Legalization," shows that unauthorized immigrants who gained legal status in the 1980s through the legalization requirements of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) experienced serious socioeconomic improvement.
The debate between legalization and deportation is most evident in Arizona, where the state’s legislature wanted to get rid of the state’s undocumented immigrants with the passage of S.B. 1070 in April 2010. The IPC report also shows that the S.B. 1070 approach would eliminate the jobs, consumption and tax payments made by the undocumented workers.
Immigrants also help the economy through tax payments. The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) has found that even homes headed by illegal immigrants pay $11.2 billion in state and local taxes.
In addition to economics, immigrants, mainly Latinos and Asians, account for growing numbers of the U.S. electorate. Overall, immigrants made up more than 12 percent of the U.S. population, which is about 38 million people, in 2008. Furthermore, more than 43 percent of these immigrants were naturalized, which means that they had the right to vote. Therefore, immigrant communities are crucial in the voting process and cannot be ignored by politicians, particularly in close elections.
Consequently, immigrants will be key players in the U.S.’ efforts to recover from the current recession.
Census data shows that immigrants make up nearly half of the all scientists and engineers with doctorate degrees in the United States. From 1995 to 2006, 70 percent of the men and women who entered the science and/or engineering fields in the U.S. were immigrants.
Anti-immigrant groups and groups supporting deportation-only policies, as well as some American citizens have raised the fear that native-born Americans will lose their jobs to currently illegal immigrants if a legalizing reform were to occur. Nonetheless, it is a fact that illegal immigrants are here and working with or without a reform that allows them to become legal.
In addition, ICP data shows that neither legal nor illegal immigration is causing the currently high unemployment rates in the U.S. As a matter of fact, the data shows that the higher wages and purchasing power that illegal immigrants would have if they were legal would create new jobs and boost the American economy.
Reforming the immigration system, no matter how intimidating or combative it may get, is not a complication en route to a solution to the current U.S. economic problems.
It is part of the solution.
Posts in Uncovering Immigration appear on Wednesdays.
Immigrants will be key players in the U.S.’ efforts to recover from the current recession.
