Illegal Immigration and the United States Economy

Often times when discussing the economy, the topic of immigration and immigrant workers comes into the conversation. As years have passed data analysts and economists have been able to gather enough information to provide solid evidence that undocumented immigrants have a positive impact on the economy.

I have done plenty of research on the subject in the hope of finding the truth about illegal immigration’s effects on the economy. I found multiple educational journals written by economists using statistics and collected data to make conclusions on the subject. For example, in Alexia Campbell’s “The Truth About Undocumented Immigrants and Taxes”, she says the following: “In fact, illegal immigration is considered largely responsible for the mushrooming of the file, with undocumented workers paying billions in taxes for retirement benefits they will likely never receive” (Campbell 1). This conclusion was reached by using statistics from the Internal Revenue Service, or the IRS. It was reported that in the last decade, roughly 70 million tax forms have come through the IRS with no connection to a citizen of the United States. The IRS believes that this is due to undocumented immigrants working and paying taxes that they will never get benefits from. This means that the IRS has billions of dollars to spend because there are no citizens to give benefits back to.

Another aspect of undocumented immigrant contribution to the economy lies in the workforce. According to the Pew Research Center, one in twenty workers in the United States are undocumented on average. This means that extracting these people from the workforce would destroy the labor market, leading to a hiccup in the country’s GDP until the gap is filled by workers again. Undocumented immigrants represent a large part of the work force. With a contribution this powerful, we should strongly consider immigration reform to allow these hardworking people into the country legally. They would contribute the same way they do now to the country without placing the burden of being undocumented.

In this day and age, it is all too easy to access information online that may or may not be true. So many statistics are based on different things that the truth becomes clouded by bias and ulterior motives. This is why I want the truth about undocumented immigrants to be considered when talking about the economy, illegal immigration, and immigration reform. I challenge you to research for yourself so that you don’t fall under the trap of popular media and their political agenda.