America's Voice Blog

Posted 02/01/12 at 01:59pm By Van Le

HB 56 Anti-Immigrant Law Could Cost Alabama $11 Billion, Says Report

sam addyHow much time is HB 56 sponsor Scott Beason going to waste insisting that Alabama’s anti-immigrant law is good for the state?

Despite his claim that HB 56 “is a jobs bill” that would free up hundreds of thousands of jobs for Americans once immigrants self-deport, there’s been no evidence that the immigration law has contributed to the state’s lowered unemployment rate, and no job growth in immigrant-heavy sectors like agriculture and construction.

Now, a new analysis by an economist from the University of Alabama states that HB 56 could ultimately cost Alabama as much as $11 billion in economic output, as much as $264.5 million in tax revenue, and as many as 70,000 to 140,000 jobs.

According to the report’s author, economist Dr. Sam Addy, HB 56 has caused a mass departure of immigrants from the state (“40,000 to 80,000 workers earning $15,000 to $35,000 a year”), which in turn has caused a major dip in consumer demand.

"As a result of this exodus, aggregate demand has been reduced, a negative shock that puts the state's economy on a lower growth path than would have been the case without the law," the study reads.

Among the study’s findings:

  • This decrease in demand for goods and services will shrink Alabama’s economy by 1-6% of the state’s GDP, or somewhere between $2.3 billion and $10.8 billion.

  • The immigrant exodus will also cost the state between $57 million and $265 million in state taxes, with an addition $20 million to $90 million loss in local taxes.  This is a staggering cost to the state budget even without considering the costs of enforcing the law and defending it in court all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will cause the cost to balloon even more.

  • Finally, the linchpin of the law—the idea that self-deported immigrant will leave jobs behind for Americans, does not appear to be bearing out.  As the report says, “It is also argued that illegal immigrants take jobs that should have gone to citizens and other legal residents. If that were true, farmers and businesses that employed these workers and other business interests as well should not have complained about the law especially given the state's high unemployment rate.  There was very little worker substitution and most of the few that considered the jobs previously performed by unauthorized immigrant workers did not have the requisite skills and productivity." 

In other words, immigrants provide a service to the economy to the economy that can’t easily be replaced.  And no, “self-deportation” does not lead to more American jobs.

Posted 11/30/11 at 09:57am By Mahwish Khan

Anti-Immigrant Legislation Will Ruin America’s Acricultural Economy

Agriculture workersThe AP reports that the agriculture industry is worried about enforcement measures like E-Verify, a flawed tool which would evaluate whether or not an employee is legal to work in the United States:

A plan to require all American businesses to run their employees through E-Verify, a program that confirms each is legally entitled to work in the U.S., could wreak havoc on an industry where 80 percent of the field workers are illegal immigrants. So could the increased paperwork audits already under way by the Obama administration.

But E-Verify is a system that is really faulty. It has a failure rate of over 50%, and has been known to cause severe problems for those who are eligible to work in the United States, often identifying authorized workers as unauthorized.

The effect that E-Verify will have on the agricultural economy is obvious to pretty much everyone but the "Three Amigos" – Rep. Lamar Smith, Rep. Elton Gallegly, and Rep. Steve King – who head up the Immigration Subcommittee in the House of Representatives, and are pushing for legislation that would make E-Verify mandatory for all businesses. Here’s more from the AP story on the impact to the agriculture industry specifically:

Vilsak and the American Farm Bureau Federation president, Bob Stallman, said in a recent conference call with reporters that the best and likely only hope to stave off an economic catastrophe for American farmers and consumers is comprehensive overhaul of immigration policy. Vilsak said the industry is worth about $5 billion to $9 billion a year.

"We need to address the agriculture labor supply," Stallman said. "This situation will affect the future of America's farmers and ranchers."

Contributing to the article were Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA); Arturo S. Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers; Manuel Cunha, president of Nisei Farmers League; Shawn Coburn, a politically active farmer; Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association; Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C, who are all in opinion that E-Verify could create a crisis in agriculture.

Still doubtful? Ask farmers in Alabama and Georgia, who are now struggling to find farm labor to save their businesses. With their respective new anti-immigrant laws in place, farmers have been pleading with state legislators to repeal the law – for good reason. According to the Tennessean, economists in the two states estimate Georgia’s and Alabama’s economies lost at least $115 million as a result of their anti-immigrant law:

Georgia economists estimate that their state lost $75 million from its $578 million agriculture industry as berries, bell peppers, squash, cucumbers, watermelons and the state’s famed Vidalia onions were left to rot.

Alabama’s initial estimate is $40 million lost, and Sam Addy, an economist at the University of Alabama, said that figure likely understates the damage.

The report on the economic damage to Georgia and Alabama comes from Tennessee, where legislators are considering passing similar legislation. Those in the agriculture industry are worried (rightly so) that such plans will cause a labor shortage:

“If, theoretically, you did get rid of all the Mexicans, you’d be hungry in a week,” Marks, a Tennessean tobacco farmer, said. “All your vegetables had a Mexican hand on it. All your fruit, and three-quarters of your meat.”

 Read both the AP article and Tennessean.com for more on the harmful effects of anti-immigrant legislation on the economy.

 

Posted 11/22/11 at 05:53pm By Mahwish Khan

Mercedes-Benz Executive Arrested in Alabama Under HB 56

Mercedes-BenzAccording to some supporters of Alabama’s worst-in-the-nation immigration law – figures such as State Senator Scott Beason, Congressman Mo Brooks (R-AL), U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), anti-immigrant leader Mark Krikorian, and immigration law architect and current Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) – the state’s “papers, please” anti-immigration law is working exactly as they intended.  Any damage to the state’s bottom line and reputation are mere bumps in the road on the way to creating a climate of fear and hostility aimed at forcing the entire immigrant community from the state.

However, we wonder if these “leaders” are singing the same tune after their prized law resulted in the arrest of a German executive from Mercedes-Benz, the crown jewel of Alabama’s efforts to attract international businesses?  As the Associated Press highlights, Tuscaloosa police arrested the Mercedes executive on Friday, charging him under the state’s “papers, please” law for not having proper identification.  Rather than an egregious mistake on the part of police, Alabama’s homeland security director, Spencer Collier said:

“It sounds like the officer followed the statute correctly.” 

Friday’s arrest – and the extreme anti-immigrant law itself – have complicated Alabama’s efforts to portray itself as a welcoming place for foreign companies.  In the past, only when Alabama rejected intolerance and racial division and stepped away from its Civil Rights era reputation, did the state’s standing improve sufficiently on the world stage and enable it to attract international companies.  As the Associated Press noted last month, “In 1993, a few months after state officials quit flying the secessionist Confederate Civil War battle flag on the Capitol dome, Mercedes selected Alabama for an assembly plant.  Then came Honda, Toyota and Hyundai, and many auto suppliers.”  Now, David Bronner, the CEO of the state pension system and a man who helped to recruit those plants, fears Alabama’s reputation has been sullied again, harming its ability to attract foreign investment.  Said Bronner, “You are giving the image, whether it's valid or not, that you don't like foreigners, period.”

As the Decatur Daily editorialized after Friday’s arrest:

The drafters of the law were targeting a stereotype, not humans.  They could not dismiss their stereotypes as long as those suffering from the law were Hispanic. Throw in a wealthy Caucasian from Germany, though, and the law's ugliness became apparent.  House Majority Leader Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, and state Sen. Scott Beason, R-Gardendale, created a vicious and unworkable law.  It is time for the people of Alabama to renounce the law and demand its repeal.

Posted 08/29/11 at 01:24pm By Mahwish Khan

Alabama Immigration Law Affects Immigrants and U.S. Citizens

Alabama Immigration LawIn rural Alabama lies Cullman County, recognized as the “state’s top agricultural community.” David Palmer of The Cullman Times interviewed two farmers who express concern over Alabama's new anti-immigration law, which is scheduled to take effect in three days on September 1st. Both farmers come to the same consensus. To put it succinctly: this new law stinks. Here’s one farmer’s story:     

“Those guys making those laws say they are doing it to help the people. That’s bull. They’re just after the majority support,” said Keith Smith, a lifetime farmer on Gold Ridge Road.

Smith, who was a candidate last year for a county commission seat, said he has heard both sides of the immigration issue and believes a solution would be to allow visiting workers to buy a work permit. He said without the migrant workers, farms will be in deep trouble.

“They (politicians) say they are putting Alabamians back to work, but that won’t happen. Few people want to do this work. We pay minimum wage and more, depending on how much the workers accomplish. I know one thing, if I was depending on American workers I couldn’t do what I do,” Smith said.

Smith has more than 150 acres of sweet potatoes in the fields in Cullman County. He also has poultry houses, hay, and other row crops. Like many farmers, he leases additional land for crop production outside of Cullman County.

“This is all I’ve ever done,” said Smith, 54. “I grew up farming. I worked hauling hay and whatever needed to be done. But things have changed. Without the migrant workers, who are mostly Hispanic, you wouldn’t be able to make a living farming.”

You may have expected legislators in Alabama to have learned a lesson or two from neighboring Georgia, which passed an anti-immigrant bill of its own a month before Alabama passed theirs -- much to the detriment of the state’s agricultural economy; perhaps, even, resulting in its ruin. But this would be giving GOP legislators too much credit. They're too nativist to see beyond their xenophobic ways. After all, killing farm jobs fits in with the GOP jobs plan. They'll kill an entire industry. 

The law is also a sore point for civil rights advocates who argue that such backward legislation sets the state back some 40/50 years. As can be expected with extreme legislation, there are grave implications for undocumented immigrants,  documented immigrants, and citizens...which means that pretty much everyone can find themselves knee-deep in the fray.  Over the weekend, the New York Times and the Washington Post editorialize on the effects of the legislation. 

According to the Washington Post:

The immediate effect of the law will be to intensify the harassment and beleaguered conditions under which Hispanics in Alabama — legal as well as illegal — live their daily lives. In addition to the state’s legal Hispanic residents, an estimated 120,000 illegal immigrants are in Alabama, drawn there for the most part by jobs that locals have not wanted.

And the New York Times writes of a need for a federal fix to the immigration problem:

The law, which takes effect Sept. 1, is so inhumane that four Alabama church leaders — an Episcopal bishop, a Methodist bishop and a Roman Catholic archbishop and bishop — have sued to block it, saying it criminalizes acts of Christian compassion. It is a sweeping attempt to terrorize undocumented immigrants in every aspect of their lives, and to make potential criminals of anyone who may work or live with them or show them kindness.

It effectively makes it a crime to be an undocumented immigrant in Alabama, by criminalizing working, renting a home and failing to comply with federal registration laws that are largely obsolete. It nullifies any contracts when one party is an undocumented immigrant. It requires the police to check the papers of people they suspect to be here illegally.

The new regime does not spare American citizens. Businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants will lose their licenses. Public school officials will be required to determine students’ immigration status and report back to the state. Anyone knowingly “concealing, harboring or shielding” an illegal immigrant could be charged with a crime, say for renting someone an apartment or driving her to church or the doctor…

Congress was once on the brink of an ambitious bipartisan reform that would have enabled millions of immigrants stranded by the failed immigration system to get right with the law. This sensible policy has been abandoned. We hope the church leaders can waken their fellow Alabamans to the moral damage done when forgiveness and justice are so ruthlessly denied. We hope Washington and the rest of the country will also listen.

Last Wednesday, the Department of Justice faced off with lawyers from Alabama over the constitutionality of Alabama's immigration law. While Judge Sharon Blackburn has said that she believes “there are a lot of problems” with the law, she has yet to issue a ruling. She is expected to make a decision this week. We'll have more on that when it happens. Stay tuned.

Posted 08/02/11 at 01:32pm By Matt Hildreth

Bloated Budget of US Customs and Border Protection Buys More Nap-Time for Agents

Border Patrol immigration

Here's a question: how many border agents does it take to the protect the border?

The real-life answer is that we'll never find out because apparently, a significant number of them have been known to fall asleep on the job.

If Congress is looking for places to slim down out-of-control bureaucracies, they should take a really close look at the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). Officers in that agency have been known to fight boredom by falling asleep. That is no joke, especially when you consider the amount of resources our government funnels into these program -- take a look at the numbers:

  • As this chart shows, spending by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) skyrocketed from almost $7.5 billion in 2002 to over $17 billion in 2010.

  • Over the last decade, agents on the northern border have increase by 700 percent (up from 300 agents to 2,263); the number of Border Patrol agents stationed along the Mexican grew to 16,974 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009.

  • The Immigration Policy Center notes that the annual budget of the U.S. Border Patrol stood at $3.0 billion in FY 2009 - nine times the FY 1992 budget. 

They literally have so much money, staff, and resources that they don’t know what to do with it -- other than nap. You can only imagine the return.

As the Seattle Weekly News reported last week, if you dial 911 in some towns in Washington state (even towns nowhere near the border) the Border Patrol answers the phone.

Instead of hiring 911 dispatchers, local governments have contracted those services out to US Customs and Border Protection because they apparently have way too much free time on their hands.

Such a move goes way beyond the mission of the Border Patrol, and it’s not contained to just Washington state. This is happening all over the country.

In New York, border agents have boarded domestic trains and buses. In Minnesota, agents pass the time listening to local police scanners, and show up without being asked.

The Border Patrol is technically responsible for all territory within 100 miles from the international border, but the agency's ambitions have since moved inland -- no doubt made possible by a huge increase of funds since 2001, and a decrease in the number of border crossings.

"They don't seem to have a lot to do," Michele McKenzie told the Seattle Weekly News. As a lawyer with The Advocates for Human Rights, she has personally witnessed border agents fanning out across rural communities in Minnesota and North Dakota.

This waste is just one of the many side-effects of Lamar Smith’s “enforcement only” immigration policies, and the entire scheme to mass-deport 11 million undocumented immigrants is wasting our taxpayers billions of dollars. According to a study by the Center for American Progress, deporting approximately 10 million undocumented immigrants would cost at least $206 billion over five years, or $41.2 billion annually. And no matter how high or wide a fence, or how many alligators in a moat, enforcement initiatives to "protect the border" are futile in the absence of practical solutions like comprehensive immigration reform

In the wake of our country's recent debt-ceiling debacle, these facts warrant a thoughtful and serious conversation about CBP's out-of-control government spending, which is buying our country more nap-time for border patrol agents.

Posted 07/21/11 at 03:47pm By Frank Sharry

Lamar Smith Responds With Yet Another Misleading Letter to the Editor on Immigration

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has really, really thin skin.

The leading anti-immigrant voice in the US House just can’t help himself. He has to respond to any article that mentions him and/or his egregious immigration policy.  The criticisms of Smith's agenda are not baseless allegations. Even well-known news columnist, Ruben Navarrette, called him out on it, writing that Lamar Smith “creates his own reality on immigration.” Navarrette didn’t have to wait long before Rep. Smith had drafted and published a response in the Ventura County Star.  

We might have let it slide, if it wasn’t for the fact that Smith’s Letters to the Editor are full of lies.  In his latest Letter to the Editor, Smith attempts to rebut arguments made in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed by Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) about the economic benefits of turning unauthorized workers into documented taxpayers.  And though he probably doesn’t know it, Smith, in his argument, actually proved the central point that Polis was making. 

It’s hard to believe Smith could get so much wrong in so few words. 

For example, Smith writes: “Rep. Polis cites a questionable figure by a liberal nonprofit” about the economic benefits of immigration reform. 

Polis did cite a statistic from the Center for American Progress (CAP) study which noted that comprehensive immigration reform would generate $5.4 billion of new revenue. But CAP’s analysis is also supported by the government and another right-leaning organization.  Polis also cited them.  The Congressional Budget Office estimate that the 2007 Senate immigration bill “would have boosted revenues by $15 billion by 2012 and by $48 billion by 2017” and the libertarian Cato Institute’s analysis that “forcing undocumented immigrants to get right with the law would boost their productivity and thus the incomes of U.S. households $180 billion a year by 2019, thereby further increasing tax revenues” were both included in Polis’ piece in the Wall Street Journal.  

Smith also wrote that there is consensus among “nonpartisan economists” that undocumented immigrants are a fiscal drain on American taxpayers.

Wrong.  Estimates such as the 1997 National Research Council study that Smith cites describes the immigration status quo  -- namely, that things aren’t changing. It helps bolster the entire point of the Polis op-ed: that passing comprehensive immigration reform will be an economic boon to our nation and will turn the dysfunctional system into one that benefits all Americans.

Lamar Smith hates to be challenged. But, he's making stuff up. And, with the growing chorus of criticism against his E-Verify bill, we'll be hearing a lot more from Smith.

Posted 07/15/11 at 01:05pm By Guest Blogger

E-Verify: Rep. Lamar Smith’s Scheme to Mass Deport Immigrants—and the US Agriculture Industry

FarmworkersBy Sofia Navas-Sharry:

As it turns out, undocumented workers aren't really big fans of being targeted while they're doing their job, and farmers aren't so keen on having their workers picked on either. As a result of anti-immigrant legislators passing legislation that scares off undocumented workers, farmers are suffering, and a multi-billion dollar industry is at a significant loss. If you're not believing it, see this story on Georgia.

The agriculture industry employs a workforce that pools about $280 billion per year in trade and economic activity. It is extremely dependent on undocumented workers to pick their crops and do the back-breaking work that nobody else seems to want to do.

E-verify is legislation that Lamar Smith claims to be "a jobs bill" as opposed to what it really is, which is an (anti-)immigration bill. And we might agree, if what he meant by "jobs bill" is that it kills both jobs and crops alike. In truth, E-Verify is a tool that would be used to mass-deport immigrants, and it's a system that is actually hurting and not helping our economy. Because of E-Verify, undocumented immigrants are being forced deeper into an underground economy, and the farm jobs that they've left are not being filled. What we've got now are unpicked crops rotting on the vine, and we're not seeing any unemployed Americans coming to the agriculture industry's rescue. Ruben Navarrette tells an amusing little anecdote about how clueless people are about farmwork(ers):

WHEN I was in college, my roommate from New York City - aware that I had grown up in the farmlands of Central California - asked me a simple question: "What time of year do workers pick the raisins?"

After I stopped laughing, I had to explain to the city slicker that you don't actually pick raisins. You pick grapes, and then lay them out in the sun to make raisins.

The story reminds me just how far Americans have gotten away from the farm and anything connected to it. In other news, milk does not come from cartons in the supermarket, tomatoes can't be picked by machine unless you want ketchup, and peaches do not magically fall from trees and into cardboard boxes ready for shipping.

Summer means harvest for many crops, and so it's a good time to visit with someone whose job it is to promote farming - and, in the public debate, prevent the spread of fertilizer.

Eric Larson is executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. I asked him how most Americans became so disconnected from the realities of life on the farm.

"We're a victim of our own success," Larson said. "We go to the store and there's always food there. So we take it for granted that someone grew it so we can buy it. And as time goes on, we think less and less about the person who grew it."

People should realize that immigrants are not taking another person's job, nor do they replace them. What they actually do is complement them. The availability of jobs is not on a one to one ratio.  If one person gets a job, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's at the expense of another's. Not to mention, for every on-farm job, there are about 3.1 "upstream" and "downstream" jobs. These undocumented workers are simply willing to do labor-intensive jobs in abrasive weather conditions, picking a variety of crops at tedium, because their ultimate goal is to provide a better future for themselves and  their family -- something that is not likely to have happened in their native country.  From the Washington Post:

...the elephant in the room is that significant portions of the U.S. economy depend on undocumented immigrants for labor, said Craig J. Regelbrugge, vice president of the American Nursery & Landscape Association.

"Simply put, any E-Verify expansion that comes without meaningful immigration reform would be disastrous for the American agricultural economy," he said. "It will leave the United States importing food and exporting jobs."

Rep. Lamar Smith should really grasp that it takes a lot more than gravity and a truck to get that peach to the grocery store. It took actual manpower of the variety that he is now actually trying to deport in order to "help the economy." When Americans are paying five dollars for a tomato, we'll know who to blame.

Posted 06/24/11 at 12:59pm By Mahwish Khan

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) Unveils GOP’s Jobs Plan, Also Known As “Grapes of Wrath: The Sequel”

grapes of wrathYes, "Grapes of Wrath: the Sequel" is now playing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. It's being directed by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Supported by GOP leadership, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) is promoting his E-Verify program as a "jobs" bill that will ease unemployed Americans’ woes.  It’s telling that the first GOP “jobs plan” introduced this year would send unemployed manufacturing workers in Ohio or Michigan to the fields to pick fruit and vegetables. And who woulda thunk that the jobs bill would emanate from the Judiciary Committee? 

 

In The Hill, Smith tries to pass off his burdensome and ineffective E-Verify bill as a salve for American job seekers and economic growth, writing: 


E-Verify quickly identifies those working illegally in the United States.  Requiring it for all employers will open up more jobs for Americans and legal immigrants."  But if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Making E-Verify mandatory for all employers across the nation will make the situation worse, not better, for American businesses, workers, and taxpayers.  Not only will it fail to identify undocumented immigrants at least half the time, but it will jeopardize the jobs of millions of Americans, cost small businesses billions of dollars to implement, reduce tax revenues by at least $17 billion as workers and jobs move into the cash economy, and threaten the viability of the entire agriculture industry—as well as the jobs that depend on it. 


Smith’s piece was a thin-skinned response to an earlier op-ed from Eliseo Medina, International Secretary-Treasurer of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). Medina, who knows a thing or two about jobs and working people, pointed out the laughable rationale behind the Smith proposal:

 

As damaging as the bill is, Rep. Smith's rationale is even more preposterous. He asserts that, if unauthorized immigrants are chased out, jobs will be available for America's unemployed. First, two-thirds of the workers who were disqualified after Arizona's E-Verify law became mandatory did not leave, but entered the cash economy. Second, laid off workers with graduate degrees are not lining up for stoop labor.  This bill is a jobs killer.

Click here to read more.
Posted 05/24/11 at 09:46am By Maribel Hastings

Immigration Reform Will Be Overshadowed By Fierce Debate On GOP’s Flawed E-verify

E-verify ErrorPosted at America's Voice Español:

Even though the DREAM Act, a bill to legalize undocumented youth, was reintroduced in both chambers of Congress earlier this month, the legislative fight up next is not over that measure but instead, a bill to mandate nationwide use of the E-verify system to determine if employees have their papers in order.

With a Republican majority in the House of Representatives that completely refuses to consider legalization measures, and a Senate with a reduced Democratic majority, the possibilities of advancing the DREAM Act by itself are difficult.

Although it has been suggested that lawmakers might, for example, try to add the DREAM Act to some other legislative measure--especially in the Senate-- Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that the E-verify bill he plans to introduce in the House will not be a vehicle of what he calls “amnesty”.

What is approaching is a fierce debate about whether programs like E-Verify can function properly without solving the reality of the 11 million undocumented immigrants among us; the role of undocumented people in our economy; and how measures that some define as  meant to fight undocumented immigration can affect citizens, legal residents and the economy.

The E-Verify program, which was established in 1997 as a voluntary pilot program, checks employees’ data against information from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Department of Homeland Security.

Pro-immigrant and civil rights groups argue, among other things, that despite the “improvements” that DHS claims to have implemented (to avoid clerical errors that leave authorized workers without jobs), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has concluded that “E-Verify errors persist.”

Click here to read more.
Posted 04/26/11 at 05:26pm By Mahwish Khan

Undocumented Immigrants Paid Approximately $11.2 Billion in Taxes in 2010

There’s more news for those naysayers who claim that undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Last week, the Immigration Policy Center came out with a report using data from the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), estimating that in 2010, the state and local taxes paid by households that are headed by undocumented immigrants came to approximately $11.2 billion in state and local taxes. 

Here’s the breakdown, followed by a chart showing which states benefited the most in tax dollars from their immigrant populations:

  • $1.2 billion in personal income taxes,
  • $1.6 billion in property taxes
  • $8.4 billion in sales taxes. 

Tax Revenue by State

Earlier today, we wrote about the relatively unknown, but powerful, California Congressman, Elton Gallegly, and how California farmers are worried about the immigration policies that the Mass Deportation Caucus in the House (namely Gallegly, and his two right-hand men, Reps. Lamar Smith and Steve King) is trying to implement.  As you can see from the chart above, if California mass-deported their tax-paying undocumented workers (many of whom are migrant farmworkers), California would lose approximately $2.74 billion in tax revenue. More, actually, when you consider that for every farm worker job, there are approximately 3.1 upstream and downstream jobs created.

But this is only if Gallegly had his way with undocumented immigrants. His immigration policies are also anti-“legal” immigration (though he’d have you believe otherwise), which would gravely affect workers in California’s Silicon Valley.

The short of it: Gallegly’s immigration strategy could sink our economic recovery -- and California's in particular.

The other anti-immigrant “amigo,” Rep. Lamar Smith, is more vocal and better known in political circles for some of his more extreme views. He and Rep. Steve King have famously pushed to revoke 14th amendment rights, and labor intensively with Gallegly to push for enforcement-only “solutions” (that don’t work). And our more vocal anti-immigrant House member hailing from Texas would be surprised to learn that his state is number two on the list of states receiving the most tax revenue from households led by undocumented immigrants, at $1.6 billion dollars.

But that’s such a small number to both Smith and Gallegly. It’s especially unimpressive when you compare it to the numbers related to the Gallegly, Smith, and King’s much-loved strategy of mass deportation, though there’s more damage than benefit here. Mass deportation would cost an estimated $206 billion to $230 billion over 5 years, and a $2.6 trillion cumulative loss in GDP over 10 years.

Any lawmaker who was concerned with the economy and had passed a second-grade math class would, especially after seeing these numbers, try to create a path toward citizenship to create more taxpayers.  But Gallegly, Smith, and King are driven by their anti-immigrant views, and very soon, if they keep it up, they'll be driven out of office.

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