Immigration Clearinghouse

A  interesting articles are out today, thoroughly debunking the time worn rhetoric from groups such as ALIPAC, FAIR and NUMBERSUSA about the value and worth of illegal immigrants in American society and the workplace.

A new study released Wednesday concludes that undocumented immigrant workers do not drain jobs or tax dollars and have a neutral impact on the U.S. economy, reports Lynsi Burton of the Hearst Newspaper Groups, Washington Bureau in todays San Francisco Chronicle.

Because illegal immigrants occupy a small share of the workforce – about 5 percent – and work low-skilled jobs at lower wages than other workers, their overall influence on the economy is trivial, according to the report, sponsored by the Migration Policy Institute, a pro-immigration think tank in Washington.

“The fate of the U.S. economy does not rest on what we do on illegal immigration,” said Gordon Hanson, author of the report and economics professor at the UC San Diego.

Undocumented immigrants contribute just 0.03 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, with that gain going to employers who save money on cheap labor, the report says, while their cost to the economy is 0.10 percent of GDP, which mainly comes from public education and publicly funded emergency health care.

Read the complete article here:

What the article fails to mention is the positive impact the illegal worker has on the American economy. Income taxes withheld from wages which are never claimed. Ditto for Social Security and Medicare deductions, these estimated to be in the neighborhood of $8-10 Billion dollars annually. Take into consideration also the property taxes paid (in the form of rent), sales tax paid point of sale, and this group actually contributes to the economy, in positive ways.