Increasingly, we are finding ourselves, both as immigrants and as allies, engaged in discussions about the impact of immigration in the United States. These oft-times heated discussions may take place anywhere – when meeting with an elected official, speaking to persuade a member of our congregation, or a chance encounter at the gym. While people may hold to certain opinions and fears, Rural & Migrant Ministry believes it is important to speak up about misinformation regarding immigrants. If we don’t speak up, there is no counter to what can become a prevailing — and misleading — force. Speaking truth to power is sometimes all we can do. But we also know that sometimes, it is hard to speak up because we don’t always have the facts.
Myths to Debunk
Here are some myths to debunk and accurate information to use in response (thanks to the US Chamber of Commerce and the Anti-Defamation League):
MYTH: Undocumented immigrants do not pay taxes.
FACT: Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in taxes each year.
Undocumented immigrants pay sales and excise taxes, just like most every other consumer in the United States. They also pay property taxes, whether they own a home or rent, since landlords pass on a portion of this tax to renters. More than half of undocumented immigrants have federal and state income, Social Security, and Medicare taxes automatically deducted from their paychecks.
According to an in-depth analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, in 2022, the undocumented population paid almost $97 billion in taxes, with more than $54 billion in payments to the federal government and more than $37 billion paid out to states and localities.
MYTH: Every job filled by an immigrant is one that could be filled by an unemployed American.
FACT: Immigrants typically do not compete for jobs with native-born workers; immigrants create jobs as entrepreneurs, consumers, and taxpayers.
Newcomers strengthen the American workforce, filling roles in healthcare, STEM, construction, environmental services, and more. Some 22 percent of entrepreneurs nationwide were born outside of the U.S.
www.iine.org/2024/04/dispelling-10-common-myths-about-immigrants-and-refugees
MYTH: Immigrants come to the United States for welfare benefits.
FACT: Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal public benefits or programs. Even legal immigrants to the U.S. face stringent eligibility restrictions.
Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for federal public benefits such as Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, Medicare, or SNAP benefits.
Even most legal immigrants cannot receive these benefits until they have been in the United States for five years or more, regardless of how much they have worked or paid in taxes. A number of state studies have noted that, on average, immigrants pay more in taxes than they receive in government services and benefits. For example, a study in Arizona found that the state’s immigrants generate $2.4 billion in tax revenue per year, more than offsetting the $1.4 billion in educational, healthcare, and law enforcement resources they use.
MYTH: Immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans.
FACT: Immigration does not cause crime rates to rise. In fact, immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes or be incarcerated than native-born Americans.
A recent study (www.news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/03/immigrants-are-significantly-less-likely-to-commit-crimes-than-the-us-born) analyzing 150 years of U.S. Census data shows that immigrants have never been incarcerated at a higher rate than U.S.-born individuals. The gap has widened since 1960, and immigrants today are 60 percent less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens
Notably, U.S.-born citizens were ten times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated for committing weapons-related offenses, five times more likely for violent offenses, more than twice as likely for property crimes, and nearly twice as likely for drug offenses.
www.migrationpolicy.org/content/immigrants-and-crime
Furthermore, crime rates actually decreased as immigration grew in 200 U.S. cities from 1970 to 2016. www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-06/what-s-the-real-link-between-crime-and-immigration
www.iine.org/2024/04/dispelling-10-common-myths-about-immigrants-and-refugees/
MYTH: Immigrants are coming to the U.S. with the express purpose of having babies here.
FACT: The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” (See the section on Underpinnings in this Menu.)
People commonly refer to this as “‘birthright citizenship.”’ Some claim that undocumented immigrants come to the U.S. to take advantage of this right in order to help the foreign-born parents and other family members gain legal residency or avoid deportation.
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchor_baby
However, research consistently shows that the vast majority of immigrants — those with lawful status and those who are undocumented – come to the U.S. for economic opportunity, or to flee violence or poverty in their birth countries.
Immigration trends — both over the last few decades and throughout history — show that immigration increases when the U.S. economy is booming and decreases when the American economy is doing less well, supporting the findings that people come for economic opportunity.
If people were coming to the U.S. with the express purpose of having children here, we would expect to see at least the same number of women as men. There are many more young immigrant men coming to the U.S. than young women.
Under U.S. law, American citizens cannot petition for a Green Card for a foreign-born parent until they turn 21 years old. In the meantime, the parent would be living here as an undocumented immigrant, often in very difficult conditions. When asked why they come to the United States, undocumented immigrants consistently cite other reasons for migrating, not the desire to have a baby here.
The Positive Side of Immigration: Ten Ways Immigrants Help Build and Strengthen Our Economy
In many of our travels, we hear people making comments and arguments that immigrants are a detriment to today’s economy and society. We are sure you’ve heard them as well. Here are some talking points for a discussion about the positive side of immigration.
Immigrants start businesses
According to the Small Business Administration, immigrants are 30 percent more likely to start a business in the United States than non-immigrants. While immigrants make up just 14 percent of the U.S. population, they founded 19 percent of new businesses in 2023. The children of immigrants also start a significant number of new businesses.
Immigrant-owned businesses create jobs for American workers.
According to the Fiscal Policy Institute, small businesses owned by immigrants employed an estimated 4.7 million people in 2007, and according to the latest estimates, these small businesses generated more than $776 billion annually.
Immigrants are also more likely to create their own jobs
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 7.5 percent of foreign-born persons are self-employed, compared with 6.6 percent among the native-born.
Immigrants develop cutting-edge technologies and companies
According to the National Venture Capital Association, immigrants have started 25 percent of public U.S. companies that were backed by Venture Capital Investors. This list includes Google, eBay, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems, and Intel.
Immigrants are our engineers, scientists, and innovators
According to the Census Bureau, despite making up only 16 percent of the resident population holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, immigrants represent 33 percent of engineers, 27 percent of mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists, and 24 percent of physical scientists. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, immigrants held 23 percent of all patents issued between 1990 and 2016. Immigrants are more likely to patent in sectors that are changing rapidly, such as computer, communications, electronics, and medical fields.
Immigration boosts earnings for American workers
Increased immigration to the United States has increased the earnings of Americans with more than a high school degree. Between 1990 and 2004, increased immigration was correlated with increasing earnings of Americans by 0.7 percent and is expected to contribute to an increase of 1.8 percent over the long-term, according to a study by the University of California at Davis.
Immigrants boost demand for local consumer goods
According to a 2021 report from the American Immigration Council (www.map.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/locations/national), immigrants in the U.S. have a collective spending power of $1.4 trillion and paid $525 billion in taxes each year.
Immigration reform legislation such as the DREAM Act reduces the deficit
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, under the 2010 House-passed version of the DREAM Act, the federal deficit would be reduced by $2.2 billion over 10 years because of increased tax revenues.Enacting the American Dream and Promise Act (H.R. 6) would increase U.S. GDP by a cumulative total of $799 billion over 10 years and create 285,400 new jobs.
Comprehensive immigration reform would create jobs
Comprehensive immigration reform could support and create up to 900,000 new jobs within three years of reform from the increase in consumer spending, according to the Center for American Progress.
Comprehensive immigration reform would increase America’s gross domestic product (GDP)
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that even under low investment assumptions, comprehensive immigration reform would increase the GDP by between 0.8 percent and 1.3 percent from 2012 to 2016.
Almost 20 percent of U.S. metro areas would have seen population declines between 2010 and 2021 without immigration, but instead grew because of it. Immigrant communities in those metro areas help revitalize local business and downtowns, contributing to prosperity.
So, evidence shows that America is neither less safe because of immigration, nor worse off economically. In fact, in the regions where immigrants have settled in the past two decades, crime has gone down, cities have grown, poor urban neighborhoods have been rebuilt, and small towns that were once on life support are springing back. (Utica, NY, and Lewiston, Maine, are two well-known examples.)