Immigration Policy Center

Published on Sun, Apr 24, 2011

The 112th Congress had a full plate to start the year.

Debates and votes were expected on energy, climate change, education, national security, immigration, trade agreements and transportation. And there was the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

But for the most part, lawmakers have been consumed with cutting the federal budget deficit – which might top $1.6 trillion this year – since convening in January.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said the focus on all things fiscal began with the November elections, when voters gave Republicans control of the House and a larger minority in the Senate.

“The overwhelming interest of citizens in this country in these budget matters … almost impelled that this would likely be the case, that we would be spending almost all the time discussing some part of spending, taxes, budget stability, debt and the future of all this,” Lugar said in a recent interview.

Freshman Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-3rd, blames the previous Congress, which failed last year to approve a budget for fiscal 2011. After a series of short-term spending extensions, legislators finally passed an appropriations bill April 14, more than six months into the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

The 2011 budget, which spends about $3.8 trillion, “took up an awful lot of our time this year. We could have been dealing with next year’s budget, energy, tax policy,” said Stutzman, a member of the House Budget Committee.

After a two-week spring recess, Congress will reconvene in May and dive back into the fiscal fray. It must soon vote on whether to raise the $14.3 trillion national debt ceiling that the government is about to reach. Lawmakers also will be tussling over a half-dozen budget proposals for fiscal 2012, including a version approved April 15 by the House. They will battle over whether to cut spending for the military, Medicare and Social Security.Read more...

Published in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

Published on Wed, Apr 27, 2011

While a mandatory federal deportation program headed to Montgomery County takes a more balanced approach to illegal immigration than other measures, its presence could make day-to-day law enforcement more difficult for Montgomery's police.

In September, the county is expected to begin participating in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Secure Communities program, which scans and stores the fingerprints of anyone brought to the county jail. The database is sent to the FBI and ICE, which check to see if the person is wanted for a federal crime or listed as an illegal immigrant. If he or she is found to be in the country illegally, he or she can be turned over to ICE officials and deported.

Montgomery County and Baltimore city are the only remaining Maryland jurisdictions not participating and ICE hopes to expand the program nationwide by 2013.

The program has multiple problems, not the least of which is an undetermined impact on county policing.

According to data from ICE, the Secure Communities program in Maryland has been responsible for the deportation of 293 illegal immigrants as of March 31. The bulk of those — 223 — came from Prince George's County; however, 145 people, or 65 percent, had no criminal record, and the reasons they were brought to jail were too minor for prosecutors to pursue. Nationwide, of the 248,000 database hits in fiscal 2010, 15 percent were for those accused of felonies.

The county already engages in a similar practice to Secure Communities, where police report all those arrested for serious crimes, such as murder and rape, to ICE. It is then ICE's responsibility to check the immigration status of the submitted names.

With Secure Communities' track record of deporting minor offenders or non-offenders, who might otherwise be valuable resources to police, it's difficult to see how the program is worthwhile.Read more...

Published in the Maryland Gazette

Published on Tue, Apr 26, 2011

The budget recently approved by Congress to keep the federal government running through the 2011 fiscal year includes a series of cuts to major federal immigration agencies that will impact immigrants and immigration programs over the next year.

According to the American Immigration Council:

The bar on spending for immigrant integration programs, present in the initial budget passed by the House (H.R. 1), was not present in the final 2011 budget (H.R. 1473) signed by the President. Immigrant integration funding is a great investment for the U.S.—the costs are minimal, and the benefits can be huge. If well-integrated, immigrants are entrepreneurs and innovators who can help revitalize communities.

The council adds that “the 2011 budget cuts U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) by more than a third ($87.7 million) from 2010 funding, whereas the initial budget would have increased USCIS funding by $41.2 million.”

Citizenship and Immigration Services is the government agency that oversees lawful immigration to the United States.

The Council also states that “immigration enforcement remains the biggest part of the budget, despite what restrictionists might have you think. The 2011 budget appropriates $8.2 billion for Customs and Border Protection salaries and expenses, $574.2 million for border fencing, infrastructure, and technology, and $5.4 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement salaries and expenses.”

Earlier this year, the National Immigration Forum and the Immigration Policy Center — the research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council — released reports that state that as part of broad immigration reform, border security and enforcement spending has to be shifted to avoid the ineffective use of billions of taxpayer dollars.

Published in the Florida Independent

Published on Tue, Apr 19, 2011

As you nurse your tax-day hangover, we bring you news from the flip side.

Despite what Lou Dobbs might have told you, turns out illegal immigrants do pay taxes. Lots of them.

The Immigration Policy Center, citing the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, put up some sobering figures.

California gets the most out of its undocumented workers apparently:

The Golden State pulled in $2.7 billion in taxes from households headed by illegals in 2010. That includes sales taxes, property taxes and some income taxes.

ITEP says that at least half of undocumenteds pay property taxes.

Other states that pull in decent income from our lowest-class, lowest-paid, non-rights-having workers:

• Texas: $1.6 billion.
• Florida: $806.8 million.
• New York: $662.4 million.
• Illinois: $499.2 million.

Nationwide, undocumented-led households poured $11.2 billion in tax coffers, according to ITEP.

So go ahead, blame the illegals for everything. We all know they provide the easiest scapegoat to just about any problem.

Published in the LA Weekly

Published on Tue, Apr 19, 2011

It's a familiar refrain: Undocumented immigrants come to the United States, contribute nothing and benefit handsomely from the Nanny State. And it's dead wrong.

In fact, according to estimates by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy and the Immigration Policy Center, households headed by undocumented immigrants paid more than $157 million in sales and property taxes here in Tennessee in 2010. Nationwide, they paid an estimated $11 billion in state and local taxes.

A 2005 Economic Report to the President points out that half of all undocumented immigrants are "believed to be working on the books," meaning they contribute to the tax rolls but remain ineligible for nearly every federal public assistance program. Even if their employer withholds Social Security taxes, they'll never benefit from a system they pay into.

Tennessee lawmakers are proposing legislation this session that would seek to make every facet of life in the state even more inhospitable for undocumented immigrants (see Thursday's Scene). But they might consider the numbers, especially this one: Tennessee ranks 14th on the list of 50 for most taxes paid by those with no legal right to be here.

Published in the Nashville Scene

Published on Mon, Apr 18, 2011

To mark the tax-filing deadline, the Immigration Policy Center released a report on Monday estimating that unauthorized immigrants paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes last year, including $807 million in Florida.

The Florida total includes $69 million in property tax and $737 million in sales tax. Unauthorized immigrants also pay income taxes, but Florida has no state income tax.

The report compiled by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy estimated taxes by households headed by unauthorized immigrants in 2010.

"These figures should be kept in mind as politicians and commentators continue with the seemingly endless debate over what to do with unauthorized immigrants already living in the United States," said the Immigration Policy Center, a research group based in Washington. "In spite of the fact that they lack legal status, these immigrants -- and their family members -- are adding value to the U.S. economy; not only as taxpayers, but as workers, consumers, and entrepreneurs."

Some advocates for stricter immigration enforcement say that unauthorized foreign residents drain states and communities, in part by crowding schools and public health facilities. The report released Monday was designed to counter those complaints.

Researchers and politicians, meanwhile, continue to debate whether illegal immigration helps or hurts the economy of states like Florida. Immigrants pay taxes and provide labor while also tapping public resources.

Published in the Florida Sun Sentinel

Published on Mon, Apr 18, 2011

Illegal immigrants in Maryland will pay $275 million in state and local taxes this year, according to a study released Monday by a Washington group that advocates for immigrants. The report ranks Maryland as the 11th-highest state in the nation in collecting tax receipts from unauthorized immigrants.

Maryland comes in after California, Florida and New York but ahead of Nevada and New Mexico. The state will collect $76 million in state income taxes, $22 million in property taxes and $177 million in sales taxes in the 2010 tax year, according to the Immigration Policy Center study.

The report’s authors acknowledge that “it is difficult to know precisely how much these families pay in taxes, because the spending and income behavior of these families is not as well documented as is the case for U.S. citizens.” The study’s release was timed to coincide with Monday’s deadline to file state and federal income taxes.

“Tax Day is an appropriate time to underscore the often-overlooked fact that unauthorized immigrants pay taxes,” according to an Immigration Policy Center release sent Monday. “Add this all up and it amounts to billions in revenue to state and local governments.”

In all, the group estimates that households headed by illegal immigrants will pay $11.2 billion in state and local taxes in 2010.

The Immigration Policy Center supported a proposal in Congress known as the DREAM Act that would have created a path to citizenship for some immigrants if they spent two years in the military or in college. The proposal failed. The group's estimates are based on a model developed by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, whose board includes four academics as well as the co-editor of the liberal American Prospect and a union official.Read more...

Published in the Baltimore Sun

Published on Fri, Apr 15, 2011

SAN DIEGO — The Washington-based Immigration Policy Center advocates a centrist policy of enforcement coupled with a path to citizenship. It has released a report card on the Obama Administration.

The center cites tension between enforcement and reform priorities, and calls out Obama's failure to fulfill his promise of comprehensive reform.

"While the president on the one hand is saying that he understands that we need immigration reform, his focus has been deporting people," said Michele Waslin, a senior policy analyst with the center. "And in some cases, deporting those very people that he really hopes to legalize someday."

The center cites a record number of deportations under Obama and criticizes the lack of effort to find ways for longtime, productive undocumented immigrants and their children to remain in the country.

"The president has said several times that all he can do is enforce the law. When we think that the president certainly has other executive powers--there are things that can be done administratively within current law that would also help to reform the system from within," Waslin said.

She added the chances of an Obama-led immigration reform by the end of his first term are minimal.

On the other hand, summarizing the president's performance on immigration issues, the conservative Center for Immigration Studies believes it's been all for show.

Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said that the Obama administration has increased deportations and security at the border. But it has not gone far enough given the reality of increasing violence in Mexico.

"The unspoken factor underlying much of the immigration debate is the ongoing, low-level civil war within Mexico," said Krikorian. "Every time another ditch full of 100 bodies is found, makes the cause of weakening enforcement that much more difficult."Read more...

Published in the KPBS

Published on Tue, Apr 19, 2011

A new study released by the Immigration Policy Center for tax day shows that at least half of the undocumented immigrants in this country pay income taxes. Add that to the sales and property taxes that those undocumented persons also pay and undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than most wealthy Americans.

The total amount of tax revenue collected in state and local taxes is approximately $11.2 billion, including $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes and $8.4 billion in sales taxes.

The numbers don't come as much of a surprise to those who track immigration policy. According to Wendy Sefsaf, communications director for the American Immigration Council, the current political movement to restrict, criminalize and punish immigrants will come at a steep price to states.

According to Sefsaf "[t]he restrictionist movement in the U.S. spends all their time letting everyone know how much [undocumented immigrants] cost us, and they try to ignore the fact that they contribute. We are not trying to say there are not costs associated with people. There are costs associated with everyone. But we are trying to balance out the debate."

States like Florida, for example, which collects about $806.8 million from unauthorized immigrants and does not have a state income tax would certainly feel the impact should a significant amount of that population leave. That revenue comes from immigrants buying groceries, rent and other necessities subject to sales and property taxes.

The bottom line is to suggest that undocumented immigrants are nothing but a revenue suck on states is simply wrong. While that will likely not change the conversation for those who have committed to making attacking immigrants the wedge issue of the moment, as Sefsaf notes, the only way to have an honest conversation about changing immigration policy is with a full set of facts.

Published in the Care 2.com

Published on Tue, Apr 19, 2011

A study, the first of its kind, shows that undocumented immigrants pay sales taxes and property taxes, and at least half pay an income tax.

According to an Immigration Policy Center report released yesterday, tax day, the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy has estimated the state and local taxes paid in 2010 by households that are headed by unauthorized immigrants.

The report indicates:

These households may include members who are U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. Collectively, these households paid $11.2 billion in state and local taxes. That included $1.2 billion in personal income taxes, $1.6 billion in property taxes, and $8.4 billion in sales taxes.

The report shows that Florida collects $806.8 million, the third highest in the nation, in property and sales tax revenue from households headed by unauthorized immigrants. Florida does not have a state income tax.

Wendy Sefsaf, communications director for the American Immigration Council, tells The Florida Independent that the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy runs scenarios about what impacts states tax revenue. Sefsaf adds that the institute is able to take their models, databases and assumptions on different groups and come up with tax contributions and that is what they did for the undocumented.

Sefsaf adds these number have never been examined, because the unauthorized population is hard to track and “we make a lot of guesses of their contribution.”

“The restrictionist movement in the U.S. spends all their time letting everyone know how much [undocumented immigrants] cost us, and they try to ignore the fact that they contribute, Sefsaf says. “We are not trying to say there are not costs associated with people, there are costs associated with everyone, but we are trying to balance out the debate. We can have a debate about who can stay and who has to go, but we have to do that with a full plate of information.”Read more...

Published in the American Independent