14 Reasons to Chill Out about Illegal Immigration

Before I read What Makes Americans Vote Republican, I made the mistake of responding to a conservative in-law's rant about the 14 negative impacts of illegal immigration with the following. I did so because this in-law was spouting "facts" that were absolute B.S. So I went looking for "real" facts. The article above explains what's wrong with this approach when fighting the Right, but I hadn't read it yet.

Even so, I feel called to list here an alternative view of facts concerning the impact of illegal immigration on the U.S. economy, cuz damn it! I can't help myself!

14 Reasons To Chill-Out about Illegal Immigration

Source of data: Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy, at the University of Arizona [PDF]

1. "non-citizen households" in Arizona had consumer spending, in 2004, of $4.41 billion.

2. That created an estimated 28,000 full-time jobs.

3. That spending generated tax revenues of approximately $318.6 million.

The typical "illegal immigrant" takes jobs that don't pay as well and which, for the most part, are shunned by the native born:

4. Almost 60 percent of agricultural workers were immigrants. [Take them away and what happens to the cost of food?]

6. About 22 percent of food preparers and servers were immigrants. [Take them away and what happens to the cost of food?]

7. About 35 to 41 percent of construction workers were immigrants.

8. About 46 percent of textile workers were immigrants

9. About 51 percent of landscaping workers were immigrants

10. About 8 percent of maintenance workers were immigrants.

11. Non-citizens, for their part, contributed $28.9 billion, or eight percent of Arizona's economic output, resulting in 278,000 full-time equivalent jobs. Their output included $10 billion in labor income, and $3.3 billion in other property income. The state tax revenues resulting from this economic activity were approximately $1.08 billion.

12. If the illegal workers were removed from the workforce:

Agriculture:
A fifteen percent workforce reduction in the agriculture sector would result in direct losses of 3,300 full-time-equivalent jobs, and losses of $600.9 million in output including lost labor income of $198.6 million, and lost other income of $116.1 million. The lost direct state tax revenue would be approximately $24.8 million.

Construction:
A fifteen percent workforce reduction in the construction sector would result in direct losses of 55,700 full-time-equivalent jobs, and $6.56
billion in output including lost labor income of $2.59 billion and
$450.5 million in other lost income. The direct lost state tax revenue
would be approximately $269.2 million.

Manufacturing:
A ten percent reduction in the manufacturing workforce would result in
direct losses of 12,300 full-time-equivalent jobs, and $3.77 billion in
output including lost labor income of $740.8 million, and lost other
income of $286.1 million. The lost direct state tax revenue would be
approximately $104.4 million.

Service industries:
In the service sectors analyzed, a sixteen percent
reduction in the labor force would translate to direct losses of 54,000
full-time equivalent-jobs, and lost output of $2.48 billion including
reduced labor income of $901.3 million, and reductions in other income
of $273.0 million. The lost direct state tax revenue would be
approximately $156.9 million.

13. The state of Arizona took in tax revenue of $1.64 billion from
immigrant workers while the amount the state spent on immigrants was
approximately $1.41 billion leaving a net benefit of $222.6 million to
the state coffers.

14. Shikha Dalmia, a senior analyst at the Reason Foundation noted: "A stunning two-thirds of illegal immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes." And while they pay in, under US law they are forbidden to receive the
benefits for which they pay. "The only services that illegals can still
get are emergency medical care and K-12 education."

Aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks. Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they'll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for.

Last year, the revenues from these fake [social security] numbers — that the Social
Security administration stashes in the "earnings suspense file" — added
up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus. The file is growing,
on average, by more than $50 billion a year.

This is in Arizona ALONE!

Chill out, folks! Illegal immigration is NOT the problem that reactionaries claim it to be. It is a net CONTRIBUTION to the U.S., not a drain. Want to know what is DRAINING the U.S.?? The war in Iraq.