My father had many sayings which have stuck with me throughout my life. He always had advice for me — even when it was unwanted — and he was a regular source of counsel.
When I was an adolescent, he informed me thusly: “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what kind of clothing you wear or what car you drive. What matters is your integrity, because your word is all you really have.”
That principle was drilled into me, along with one I was taught while enlisted in the U.S. Army: Integrity is doing the right thing, regardless of the outcome — good or bad.
As a result, I have been and continue to be passionate about social justice. I believe that history has clearly demonstrated that separate but equal is not equality, and a system that favors one group over another is destined to fail.
It’s important to note, because during this election year — much like the last two presidential elections — there has been so much rhetoric surrounding immigration and illegal immigration.
I wanted to share some other information to consider.
The Social Security Administration has found in studies of payroll taxes paid by illegal immigrants and their employers has a “net positive effect” on Social Security because a large portion of those benefits will never be recovered.
The Social Security Administration issued a report in 2013 on the effects of unauthorized immigration on Social Security trust funds.
The report stated, “While unauthorized immigrants worked and contributed as much as $13 billion in payroll taxes to the OASDI program in 2010, only about $1 billion in benefit payments during 2010 are attributable to unauthorized work. Thus, we estimate that earnings by unauthorized immigrants result in a net positive effect on Social Security financial status generally, and that this effect contributed roughly $12 billion to the cash flow of the program for 2010. We estimate that future years will experience a continuation of this positive impact on the trust funds.”
This is one of many studies cited as the basis for a July 2024 study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-profit, liberal think tank.
They state undocumented immigrants paid nearly $26 billion into Social Security coffers in a single year, 2022, as well as $6 billion into Medicare in 2022. Neither of those programs are available to illegal immigrants. In total, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion, or roughly $9,000 per person, in taxes in 2022.
According to ITEP, of that $96.7 billion in taxes paid by undocumented immigrants in 2022, $59.4 billion was paid to the federal government and the remaining $37.3 billion was paid to state and local authorities. In 40 states, undocumented immigrants were found to pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households living in the same state.
This happens when someone comes to the country illegally and works under an assumed identity including fake social security cards.
Additionally, Stanford University has conducted research that reports undocumented immigrants are statistically less likely to commit serious crimes. That research dates back to the 1960s, and says immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born people. Conservative/Libertarian think-tank CATO Institute found that, in Texas, 2019, undocumented immigrants were 37.1% less likely to be convicted of a crime.
The Marshall Project found that between 2007 and 2016, there was no link between undocumented immigrants and a rise in violent or property crime.
Emotions are stirred when people proclaim “We should take care of our veterans before we take care of illegals.” We do. Undocumented immigrants cannot receive any kind of social welfare at all, because they are non-citizens without the proper paperwork/social security number.
One thing we learned in school is that anecdotal evidence is not the scientific method.
Facts speak for themselves, even when they aren’t convenient.
Jonathon Dawe is a staff writer at the Daily American Republic. He can be reached at jdawe@ darnews.com.