Illegal Immigrants

[Pat Mustard]

Why not just partner with Mexico and work towards improving it's infrastructure, that seems like the practical approach. The reason your getting so many people seeking asylum is because their families can't survive in Mexico, so no matter how many laws you pass people from Mexico are still going to try and get to the US. So why not address the problem and work towards improving Mexico so the people there don't have to flee to the US. This would not only solve the immigration issue it would also be a great humanitarian move.

Most of the asylum seekers are coming from a bit further south, the likes of Honduras, Guatemala or Nicaragua. The biggest thing they've got in common is that they've been recipients of the US "let's fuck everything up" foreign policy for this last century & more.

[The Grand Nudger]

So an old friend posted this on Facebook. This could work.

I was thinking about the sudden immigration crisis and believe I have a solution. I’d get as many charter buses as I could And when these people show up, load the buses and start driving north. Release them at the Canadian border and make sure they keep going in that direction. Our friends to the north are quick to criticize so if they can do a better job, let them do it!

There is no immigration crisis, sudden or otherwise.  There is a crisis of white fright and fact free fear mongering.

My real point being, that saying "Illegals pay in 12 billion a year in taxes, and 8%" is the most positive way to frame the issue.  

Hardly, because while producing that 12b in taxes they are also contributing to GDP and our culture. It;s an outsized contribution for their numbers, inability to access the safety net, and decreased criminality compared to natives. Not for nothing..without them, our population (and thus gdp and taxes and all that goes with it) would be decreasing. We;re below the repop limit.

Immigrants subsidize your very existence.

[The Industrial Atheist]

Why do Faux news and right wing politicians have bullshit talking points?

To be clear, I don't want open borders, but I also don't like it when people wrongfully stigmatize vast groups of people. Some sources have an interest in making undocumented immigrants appear to be lazy, useless takers, because they want the voters to hate them instead of the government that redistributes the wealth from the bottom to the top and fails to do it's job competently.

My followup question was "How much do the illegal immigrants cost the US?"  For example, if they cost 100 billion dollars, it's nice that many of them pay a bit of taxes, but it's a lot of trickery to frame them as a positive addition, if they are actually a negative.

Another complication, is who's paying that 12 billion.  Are they talking migrant workers from Mexico?  Or Asian IT workers overstaying their work visas?  

My real point being, that saying "Illegals pay in 12 billion a year in taxes, and 8%" is the most positive way to frame the issue.  But you should be interested in the information and context that isn't being presented, or is being buried at the end of the article.

The unauthorized US labor force has stabilized since 2009. So the problem is not getting worse. The solution to the problem to the effect to the economy is to legalize those already here. They won't be undocumented, thus they won't be working for below minimum wage. Also they it makes it easier for them to try to work towards higher skilled jobs.

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So an old friend posted this on Facebook. This could work.

There is no immigration crisis, sudden or otherwise.  There is a crisis of white fright and fact free fear mongering.

My real point being, that saying "Illegals pay in 12 billion a year in taxes, and 8%" is the most positive way to frame the issue.  

Hardly, because while producing that 12b in taxes they are also contributing to GDP and our culture.  It;s an outsized contribution for their numbers, inability to access the safety net,  and decreased criminality compared to natives.  Not for nothing..without them, our population (and thus gdp and taxes and all that goes with it) would be decreasing.  We;re below the repop limit.

Immigrants subsidize your very existence.

Good point. Undocumented immigrants have been contributing to Social Security far more than they get out.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Why not just partner with Mexico and work towards improving it's infrastructure, that seems like the practical approach. The reason your getting so many people seeking asylum is because their families can't survive in Mexico, so no matter how many laws you pass people from Mexico are still going to try and get to the US. So why not address the problem and work towards improving Mexico so the people there don't have to flee to the US. This would not only solve the immigration issue it would also be a great humanitarian move.

Invade Mexico, get rid of their worthless leaders and criminal gangs, and run the place as a sudsidary of the U.S.

[Fireball]

Why not just partner with Mexico and work towards improving it's infrastructure, that seems like the practical approach. The reason your getting so many people seeking asylum is because their families can't survive in Mexico, so no matter how many laws you pass people from Mexico are still going to try and get to the US. So why not address the problem and work towards improving Mexico so the people there don't have to flee to the US. This would not only solve the immigration issue it would also be a great humanitarian move.

Invade Mexico, get rid of their worthless leaders and criminal gangs, and run the place as a sudsidary of the U.S.

Steal the rest of their land? Check. Do you think cheeto von tweeto could run that place any better?

[The Grand Nudger]

If we invaded and took mexico..you;d have to treat mexicans like citizens.  We know you don;t want that, lol.

[Mr.wizard]

Why is it more complicated, we are currently just throwing money at it, and we don't have a solution to stop people from coming here. The only way to stop people from coming here is to get them to want to stay where they are. It's not a problem for for people in Central America either because we could do the same thing there or they can partner with Mexico, it's the simple idea of people helping people. Right now our genius idea's are bus people to Canada and Build a ridiculously expensive wall nether addresses the actual problem.

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.

Why we send billions in foreign aid all around the world? Mexico already has a very aggressive plan for rebuilding their infrastructure but because they lack funding and are so underdeveloped it takes a very long time to get these programs completed, the US could easily invest in Mexico and Central America. Instead we are trying to build a 70 billion dollar border wall that costs 150 million dollars per year to maintain, and it wont stop immigrants from trying to get into the US.

Okay Illegal immigrants are not stealing jobs, because business owners could choose to hire american citizens. Anyone who has ever worked a job knows that when you apply for a job you are asked about citizenship and required to produce identification. Illegal immigrants do pay taxes, someone else has already posted those statistics so I won't do it again.

Also I did not propose that "we move American jobs to Mexico and pay for it through our taxes", I said nothing even close to that. What I propose is that we invest in Mexico's infrastructure to secure our borders rather than trying to build a ridiculous wall.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

If we invaded and took mexico..you;d have to treat mexicans like citizens.  We know you don;t want that, lol.

Why would we treat them like citizens?  We've been pissing on Puerto Ricans for over a century and they are actual American citizens.  We've been pissing on black Americans and they have been citizens for 150 years. And some "Mexicans" have been citizens for 169 years and they are still treated like dirt by whites who just go off the boat themselves.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pissing on them and putting them in internment camps for forced labor are different things. I think you need to get your priorities straight.

[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.