Part 2: Truth versus trash talk
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By William C. Shelton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

I had intended for this to be a two-part series: the first about what’s driving the flood of Central American children who are entering the U.S., and the second about what a rational immigration system would look like.

The system that we have is beyond repair. It’s quotas and criteria harm U.S. businesses and families. Its bureaucracy is slow and unresponsive. And its exorbitantly expensive enforcement mechanisms fail to put a dent in illegal immigration.

Crafting good policy requires understanding the facts on the ground. But numerous conversations that I’ve had with friends and acquaintances, stimulated by my last column, have acquainted me with how much misinformation is commonly accepted as fact. So this column speaks to that misinformation.

Taxes

Illegal immigrants provide an enormous subsidy to U.S. Citizens. The Social Security Administration estimates that in 2010 alone, undocumented workers paid $13 billion into the trust fund, from which they will never collect. Cumulatively, their net contributions are over a trillion dollars.

They pay sales taxes when they buy goods and services. They pay property taxes when they rent their homes. They pay state and federal income taxes.

A number of state governments have estimated the amount of tax revenue generated by households headed by illegal immigrants. The Texas Comptroller put the annual figure at $1.6 billion. In Georgia, it was between $216 and $253 million. In Colorado, between $159 and $194 million.

The Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that in 2010, undocumented immigrants paid $10.6 billion in state and local taxes. It estimates that if these immigrants were allowed to work legally, they would contribute an additional $2.1 billion.

Welfare

It’s not just social security that illegal immigrants subsidize. They are ineligible for Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and SSI.

Of course, citizens and noncitizens alike can game the system. But a University of California Study found that only 2% of illegal Mexican immigrants had ever received welfare, and only 3%, food stamps, while 84% paid taxes. A Princeton University study of 6,000 undocumented Mexicans found that only 7% had received Supplemental Security Income, and 5% or less had received AFDC, food stamps, or unemployment compensation.

An Arizona study found that illegal immigrants generate $2.4 billion in tax revenue while costing the state $1.4 billion in services. A Florida study estimated that on average, each undocumented immigrant paid $1,500 more in taxes that he or she received in public service benefits.

Crime

Immigrants, both legal and illegal, have a much lower crime rate than do native-born Americans. The conservative Americas Majority Foundation reports that crime rates are lowest in states with the highest immigration growth rates.

Immigrants’ incarceration rates are between a third and fifth those of people born in America, regardless of their ethnicity or educational attainment. The research that produced those results eliminated deportation of criminals as an explanation.

In fact, increasing illegal immigration rates are correlated with decreasing crime rates. Between 1990 and 2010 the number of undocumented immigrants increased from 3.5 to 11.2 million, while violent crime fell by 45% and property crime by 42%. To bring this home, one need look no further than the crime log that we publish weekly in this newspaper.

Wages

The best research available shows that immigrants increase the wages received by people born in the U.S, rather than driving them down. Native-born Americans. tend to have higher education and skill levels than immigrants, while the work that they do often depends on work performed by immigrants. This increases the productivity and pay of native-born Americans.

An Economic Policy Institute Report estimates that between 1994 and 2007, immigration increased native-born Americans’ wages by 0.4%. A National Bureau of Economic Research study puts the figure at 0.7%.

Jobs

For the most part, immigrant and native-born Americans do not compete with each other for available jobs. Even when both groups are less educated, they tend to work in different occupations or industries, or perform different tasks in the same occupations. Again, immigrant and nonimmigrant workers tend to complement each other, increasing job growth and productivity.

Economy

So the dire prospects confronting young people who are today entering the job market have much more to do with our economy’s structure than with the immigrants who work in it. And immigrants will be essential to keeping that economy healthy in coming years.

My generation represents a quarter of the American population, and we’re retiring. We’re drawing down social security rather than contributing to it, and we’re increasing the portion of GDP spent on healthcare.

Bureau of Labor Statistics projections show that without immigration growth, we will be unable to meet labor market demands. Without immigrants to replenish the work force and the tax base, our economic prospects are bleak.

Enforcement

Any discussion of immigration reform stimulates a mindless response from many (but not all) Congressional Republicans. Their solution is to hire more enforcement officers, buy more weapons, and build a bigger fence. This gratifies the punitive instincts of their electoral base and rewards the avarice of their owners, but it has no effect on illegal immigration.

Since the 1986 passage of the Immigration Reform and Control act, the federal government has spent well over $200 billion on immigration enforcement. Over the same period, the undocumented population has tripled, growing from 3.5 million to 12 million.

The GAO concluded that the “prevention through deterrence” approach has merely “moved migrant traffic from one place to another.” Its main accomplishments are to increase the profitability of human traffickers and increase deaths in the desert.

Republicans who represent states with large undocumented populations tend to have a better grasp of immigration’s complexities than do their colleagues. Only 4% of Representatives from Congressional districts with 75,000 or more undocumented immigrants voted for the punitive Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, while 74% of Representatives from districts with 5,000 or fewer voted for it.

Border security

Another result of tougher enforcement is to increase the sophistication of smuggling networks through which foreign terrorists can potentially enter the country. I can find no security experts who believe that restrictive immigration measures will keep out terrorists. It’s worth remembering that the 9/11 attackers came here on legal visas.

A rational immigration policy would be based on truth rather than trash talk. It would meet our economy’s labor needs, across skill levels. It would keep families together. And it would ensure enforcement by focusing on why people come here rather than how.

That will be the subject of the final column in this series.