Illegal Immigrants

[FlyingNarwhal]

There's a lot of different factors if your talking improving Mexico's infrastructure.  One thing we could definitely do to help would be ending the War on Drugs.  That would go a long way to help dismantling the cartels in Mexico and in turn make it safer.  We've also already tried working a deal with Mexico where we would send immigrants to them.  They'll take back their own citizens but they won't take immigrants from other Central & South American countries.

Spending money on another country's infrastructure is a step too far though in my opinion, especially one that shares a border with us.  The amount of money it would cost to make significant changes that would have some kind of impact would be astronomical.  We're also talking about creating jobs in Mexico, if you're doing it right the US would basically be spending money to potentially have businesses leave the US or at the very least make us less competitive on a global scale.

You have to think, the whole reason people are angry about illegal immigrants coming to this country is because they are taking American jobs and not paying taxes.  What your proposing is that the US should help to move American jobs to Mexico and we pay for it in our taxes as well.  It would probably face way more opposition then illegal immigration already does.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/201...s-in-taxes

Immigrants illegally in the U.S. collectively contribute nearly $12 billion each year to state and local tax coffers, according to a new report that challenges recent election cycle rhetoric. 

http://immigrationimpact.com/2017/04/17/...pay-taxes/

Nationwide, undocumented immigrants pay an average of 8 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, which is higher than the top 1 percent of taxpayers who pay 5.4 percent.

So both articles used the Institute of Taxation & Economic Policy as their sources, I extrapolated some basic info directly from their report on the topic.

• 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States as of 2013
  
• Undocumented immigrants contribute significantly to state and local taxes, collectively paying an estimated $11.64 billion a year
  
• Undocumented immigrants nationwide pay on average an estimated 8 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes
  
• Average undocumented family income $30,100
  
• Average size of family unit of undocumented immigrants in the US is 2.29 people
  

Now lets look at the same statistics in regard to the US population:

• 315 million total population in the US in 2013 (304 million if you subtract the amount of illegal immigrants) https://www.census.gov/popclock/
  
• State tax revenue in 2013 was $846.2 billion (keep in mind this does not include local taxes, as was included in taxes paid by illegal immigrants) https://www2.census.gov/govs/statetax/2013stcreport.pdf
  
• 80% of US households pay over 8.7%, interesting fact the 20% of the population with incomes between $19,000 - $35,000 (within the same range as illegal immigrant family households) pays on average about 9.9% in state taxes. https://itep.org/whopays/
  
• Average household income in 2014 was $73,298 https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/per.../93002252/
  
• Average size of US household in 2013 is 2.54 people.https://www.statista.com/statistics/1836...in-the-us/
  

So with both these data sets we can start to dial in and see the differences:

• Illegal immigrants pay on average $1,058.18 per capita.  US citizens pay on average $2,686.35 per capita.
  
• Average tax rate for illegal immigrants is 3.52% per capita, and 8.05% per household.  Average tax rate for US citizens is 3.66% per capita, and 9.30% per household.
  

Now lets keep in mind that the above information might be a little bit skewed for a few reasons.  One being that more than 60% of the US population makes more than the average illegal immigrant household.  Lets also not forget that the we are comparing illegal immigrant state & local taxes to just state taxes for US citizens.  I also cited this source in my claim that 80% of US households pay over 8.7% in state taxes, and 20% of the population that was in the same income bracket pays on average 9.9%.



As i mentioned before, the difference we see does not even include the local taxes that American citizens pay.  That means that Americans in the same income bracket are paying 25% more on average in just state taxes, against what illegal immigrants are paying for in both state and local taxes.  When you start to think what the differences are in federal income tax or healthcare benefits, its clear that while illegal immigrants are paying taxes, they are not nearly paying enough.


Now I am all for making sure the people that earn more pay their fair share in taxes.  I'd be in favor of closing tax loopholes, abolishing income tax and significantly raising sales tax instead.  But that's another discussion.