Editor’s Note: A version of this story first published in 2019.
CNN
—
This is a surprising fact that is often overlooked in the immigration debate.
Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in federal taxes each year, between filed tax returns and taxes deducted from paychecks, experts estimate.
Here’s a look at why – and how it happens.
The National Immigration Law Center analyzes a number of reasons why undocumented immigrants pay taxes, including:
• This shows that they comply with federal tax laws.
• This can help them demonstrate their “good moral character” if they are later given the opportunity to legalize their immigration status.
• Tax returns could be used to document employment history and presence in the United States, steps that could help them qualify for legal immigration status in the future if lawmakers pass immigration reform.
Critics of illegal immigration have long argued that undocumented immigrants who pay taxes do so using stolen Social Security numbers. Yet millions of dollars in federal taxes are paid each year by people who do not have Social Security numbers.
Instead, they file their return using what’s called an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).
The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington-based think tank, notes that “most experts estimate that the vast majority of tax returns filed today with ITINs are filed by undocumented immigrants.”
Some non-citizens who have immigrated to the United States legally also pay taxes using this method.
In 2019, according to the IRS, more than 2.5 million tax returns were filed using ITINs, representing nearly $6 billion in taxes.
In addition to tax returns, officials estimate that undocumented immigrants also contribute billions of dollars to Social Security each year through payroll withholding. In 2010, for example, the Social Security Administration estimated that payments from undocumented workers contributed about $12 billion in tax revenue to Social Security.
In recent years, posts by immigrant rights advocates on Facebook, Twitter and TikTok during tax season have drawn attention to the issue.
“Undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes to fund programs they don’t have access to,” the National Immigration Law Center wrote in a series of recent social media posts.
In 2017, Belén Sisa’s post about her experience paying taxes went viral.
“You want to tell me again how I should be deported, contribute nothing and just enjoy this country while the top 1% of this country steal from you every day?” wrote Sisa, who was a college student in Arizona at the time.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient later told CNN she felt it was important to speak out.
“I wanted to show people that we are here, that we come from all over the world and that we contribute more than people think,” she said.
José Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and activist who turned his struggles as an undocumented immigrant into an advocacy platform, took a break from finalizing his taxes in 2019 to share his experience on Twitter.
“Yes,” he wrote, “undocumented immigrants help fund the very systems that detain and deport us.”
