Share Your Story

Immigration Reform… By the Numbers

When it comes to the economy and immigration, there’s an emerging consensus that passing comprehensive immigration reform will strengthen our economic future.  

Here are some cold, hard numbers on immigration reform:

• $66 Billion: The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the 2006 Senate comprehensive immigration reform bill would have raised $66 billion in new revenue over a ten-year period, primarily from income and payroll taxes.

• 15%: The increase in wages over five years earned by immigrants who gained legal status under the 1986 immigration law.  Legalization also means that immigrant workers can exercise their labor rights and lift the floor for all workers. (U.S. Department of Labor study)

• 90%: Approximately 9/10 native-born workers with at least a high school diploma experienced wage gains because of immigration between 1990 and 2004 (study by Giovanni Peri, Associated Professor of Economics at UC Davis). 

• $272 million & $70 million:  In New York City alone in 2005, the city government lost out on $272 million in revenue in lost payroll taxes and $70 million in lost personal income taxes from employers paying “under the table” (Fiscal Policy Institute study)

• $407 Billion: The estimated amount that, over the next 50 years, new, legal immigrants entering the U.S. would provide in present value to the national Social Security system (study from National Foundation for American Policy).

• $206 Billion: The minimum estimated amount it would cost over the next five years to enact the dream scenario of the mass-deportation caucus and to deport the entire undocumented population (report from Center for American Progress).

• $1.8 Trillion: Removing undocumented workers from the U.S. would total a loss of $1.8 trillion in annual spending and $651.5 billion in annual economic output, according to a study by the economic analysis firm, the Perryman Group.

• $1.5 Trillion: The estimated amount it would cost to enact universal health care over the next 10 years (estimate from health care consulting and analysis firm, the Lewin Group)

• Negative $17.3 Billion: The Congressional Budget Office estimated that making the E-Verify program mandatory would decrease federal revenues by $17.3 billion over the 2009-2018 period

• $315 Million – the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s total budget allocated for enforcement in 2008 (Wall Street Journal).  The overall SEC budget for FY 2008 was $974 million. 

• $5.05 Billion. The 2008 budget of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).  The FY 2008 ICE budget is a jump of over $1.3 billion since FY 2004. In total, DHS had a FY08 budget of $47 billion.

A Few More Numbers to Consider...

• 33% Increase - 15% Decrease: The proportion of overall federal prosecutions related to immigration jumped from 18% to 51% of federal filings between FY 2001 and FY 2008, while  white-collar crime prosecutions fell by almost 15% between FY 2000 and FY 2008 (report from the Transaction Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University) 

• 15% vs. 12%: 100 years ago, nearly 15% of Americans were classified as foreign-born by the Census.  Today, that same figure is below 12% (Census data historically and from 2003).

• 1,046,539: The record number of new citizens naturalized in 2008, including 461,317 Latinos.

• 62% - 21%: In 2008 polling, 62% of American voters believed we would be better off if people who are in the United States illegally became legal taxpayers vs. 21% who preferred that the undocumented population leave the country because they are taking away American jobs (Lake Research and Benenson Strategy Group polling, 2008)

• 218, 60, 1: The number of votes (House, Senate, President) presumably needed to enact immigration reform legislation to fix the broken system and bolster the economy.