Extended Research on Immigration Proposals
Social Security Deportation and Detention
National Security Health Care System
Economic Impact of Undocumented Immigrants
· Immigrants contribute up to $10 billion to the economy each year and will pay on average $80,000 per capita more in taxes than theyuse in government services over their lifetime. (National Research Council)
· In 2002, undocumented wages accounted for $56 billion in earnings, or about 1.5% of total reported wages. (“Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions,” New York Times, April 5, 2005)
· Undocumented immigrants have become a new source of economic growth as giant U.S. consumer companies aggressively market to undocumented customers, resulting in a surge to the U.S. gross national product. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
· 84% of undocumented immigrants are 18-to-44-year-olds, in their prime spending years, vs. 60% of legal residents. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
· Undocumented immigrants pay income and property taxes, easing the tax burden for others when it comes to paying for schools, health care, roads, and other services. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
· Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for federal public assistance programs such as food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, housing assistance, federal student financial aid, unemployment insurance, Supplemental Security Income, and Aid for families with dependent children. (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services: http://uscis.gov/graphics/publicaffairs/factsheets/948.htm)
· As much as half of all U.S. retail banking growth is expected to come from new immigrants over the next decade according to The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
· ITIN and conventional mortgages taken out by the undocumented could be worth as much as $60 billion over the next five years according to the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
· According to the Pew Research Center, undocumented immigrants are 50% of farm laborers, 25% of workers in the meat and poultry industry, 24% of dishwashers, and 27% of drywall and ceiling tile installers. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
· The agriculture community depends on undocumented workers virtually in its entirety. In California’s 58 counties, ads were placed for agricultural workers and not one U.S. citizen replied. (Senator Diane Feinstein, San Francisco Chronicle- March 2, 2006)
· The mobility of labor provided by immigrants has enabled the meat processing industry to stay in the U.S. If this labor would not have been available, the industry would have moved to other countries. (Chris Hurt, agriculture economist at Purdue University).
· A crackdown on illegal immigrant labor could cause production losses in U.S. agriculture of $5 billion to $9 billion in the first one to three years and up to $12 billion over four or more years. (Study by the American Farm Bureau Federation)
· Evidence strongly suggests that immigration in the 1990s increased the average wage of American-born workers by 2.7%. (Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano of the University of Bologna and Giovanni Peri of the University of California Davis, economists)
Undocumented Immigrants' Effect on Social Security
· Undocumented workers are providing the Social Security system with a subsidy of up to $7 billion per year. (“Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions,” New York Times, April 5, 2005)
· According to the Social Security Administration, undocumented workers are not eligible for Medicare, receive no public pensions in retirement, and are not entitled to any other benefits, even though they contribute billions of dollars annually. (“Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions,” New York Times, April 5, 2005)
· Because foreign-born residents are younger than natives on average and have higher fertility rates, immigration slows the ongoing decline in the ratio of workers to retirees, maintaining the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
· According to the Social Security Administration, the money that undocumented immigrants paid in 2004 added up to 10% of that year’s surplus – the difference between what the system currently receives in payroll taxes and what it pays in pension benefits. (“Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security With Billions,” New York Times, April 5, 2005)
· Many older workers return home to Latin America when they reach retirement age. (“Embracing Illegals,” Business Week, July 18, 2005)
National Security and the Undocumented
· None of the 9/11 terrorists entered the country via the U.S./Mexico border. In fact, the U.S. is most vulnerable at its ports of entry, including ship ports, airports, and land ports. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso)
· The Border Patrol rivals the FBI in size, and will soon become the country’s largest law enforcement agency. (“Arrests Stay Flat as Border Bolstered,” USA Today, April 21, 2006, Kathy Kiely)
· Increasing the size of the Border Patrol has not yielded more arrests. In 1995, the agency reported apprehending 1.3 immigrants. In 2005, with more than twice the number of agents, fewer than 1.2 million were apprehended. (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Syracuse University-based research center)
· The most viable method of keeping terrorists outside of U.S. borders would be to invest in a state-of-the-art terrorist watch list complete with biometric screening; terrorists are more likely to enter the country through airports. (Richard Falkenrath, Brookings Institution scholar and former deputy homeland security adviser)
· Enhanced border enforcement does not stop the volume of unauthorized border crossing. It only increases the number of deaths (areas with heavy border security see up to 100 deaths a year) and the use and exploitation by smugglers. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso)
· Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke formulated a database of 373 known or suspected terrorists in North American or Western Europe since 1993. They found that not a single terrorist has entered the U.S. from Mexico. (Robert S. Leiken and Steven Brooke of the NixonCenter)
· Enhanced security reduces the number of back and forth trips, forcing undocumented immigrants to stay longer. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso)
The Visa Process
· It often takes decades before an individual can obtain any kind of legal immigrant visa. (Josiah Heyman of the University of Texas at El Paso)
· Currently in 2006, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is in the beginning stages of processing visa and permanent resident application requests from 1999. (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services)
· U.S. companies are complaining that the harsher new procedures for visa applicants hinder their ability to compete for foreign business. (Pia Orrenius, Senior Economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)
· Taking the data provided by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, legalizing one’s status requires a number of applications which cost hundreds of dollars each. (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, http://uscis.gov/graphics/formsfee/forms/index.htm)
· There are now higher fees for visa applicants, and wait times for visitor visa approvals have increased dramatically. Individuals are paying more and are more likely to be denied entry. (Pia Orrenius, Senior Economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)
· Between 2001 and 2003, background checks and stricter requirements on the universities that admit foreign students have reduced the number of student visas issued by 26%. (Pia Orrenius, Senior Economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)
· There was a 72% decline in refugee admissions from 2001 to 2002. (Pia Orrenius, Senior Economist in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas)
· The government allowed only 558 people to stay under the Convention Against Torture. Thousands have been deported back to their home countries, only to face persecution, torture and even death. (Caruso, David. “In ’02, a record number of foreigners who used claims of torture were not granted US stays.” Associated Press. April 18, 2003)
Deportation and Detention Effects
· The 1996 Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) created a rule of “mandatory detention,” according to which most immigrants facing deportation cannot be released even if a judge believes they have the right to go. Because of this legal change, the detained population exploded to over 21,000 by FY 2000. (www.immigration.gov)
· Detention and deportation waste taxpayer money. Non-violent immigrant detainees are the fastest growing portion of the U.S. prison population. In 2003, the federal government will spend approximately $743 million locking up immigrants. (The President’s Fiscal 2003 Immigration Budget, February 4, 2002)
· Approximately 15% of U.S. households are “mixed status” – at least one parent is a non-citizen and one child a citizen. Deportation policies devastate American-born children. (The Urban Institute)
· U.S.-born domestic violence victims report their abusers in 1 out of 2 situations; immigrant victims report in 1 out of 4 instances, and undocumented immigrant victims, largely because of their status, in just 1 of 7 instances (House Immigration Subcommittee hearing on NYC executive order 124 on February 27, 2003, http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/printers/108th/85287.PDF)
Health Care System and the Undocumented Immigrants
· Many undocumented immigrants help to subsidize health care and social security for the rest the country. (Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, co-director of immigration studies at New YorkUniversity)
· Workers without validsocial security numbers contribute $8.5 billion annuallyto Social Security and Medicare. Such workers, most of themimmigrants, usually receive no eligibility credits for theircontributions. (American Journal of Public Health, August 2005, Vol. 95, No. 8)
· Immigrants are not swamping the U.S. health care system and use it far less than native-born Americans. In fact, 30% of immigrants use no health care at all during the course of a year. (The American Journal of Public Health, August 2005, Vol. 95, No. 8)
· Immigrants spend 55% less per capita annually on health care than U.S.-born persons. (The American Journal of Public Health, August 2005, Vol. 95, No. 8 )
· Because immigrant children rarely use health services, they spend only $270 per year on health care, compared to $1,059 for native-born children. (The American Journal of Public Health, August 2005, Vol. 95, No. 8)
· Approximately 63% of immigrants have health insurance. (The American Journal of Public Health, August 2005, Vol. 95, No. 8)