I set out finish this post today and realized that it’s Father’s day. I’d rather write about dadhood, but on this day, apparently, I’m expected to attend a few things, so there’s not much time to start over. The following rant will have to suffice 🙂

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Recently, according to many who work in US immigration and border control, there has been an unprecedented surge of people at our southern border, posing an equally unprecedented problem for our system of control and its agents.

As you might guess, I’ve gotten myself sucked into myriad debates on social media with folk who don’t feel as I do about immigration.

A friend of mine recently posted that Biden’s border policy will destroy the United States, alleging that 4 million people will cross the border illegally this year. He then declared that a vote for Biden is tantmount to sedition.

I chided him for posting hate speech and off we went.

Turns out that this is complicated issue; fact checking immigration numbers isn’t easy. There’s much emotion to be exploited by the media here. Many of the articles I came across rely more on hearsay and theory than raw data.

While I did make some interesting discoveries, what follows is little more than an armchair analasys. It might even be biased if you can believe that. Either way, I missed much, surely, but hopefully this is helfpul to anyone seeking to get a clearer picture of immigration in the US, especially as it pertains to undocumented folk.

A “Flood” of People

Will millions cross our borders illegally in 2023, and get away with it?

Here, the argument from anti-liberal America is that our country can only handle so many people. Adding illegal immigrants will tip us over the edge. If we let too many people in, the argument goes, we’ll run out of room, resources, etc.

According to Border Patrol Chief Paul Ortiz, (you’ll have to scroll through his feed to get the numbers) an average of 12,500 immigrants per week have snuck in undetected since Feb 2023. The numbers fluxuate, especially when there’s a humanitarian crisis within “walking” distance of our Southern border, but if we go with the above number, about 500K illegal immigrants will sneak in this year.

Customs and Border Patrol reports that 600K “gotaways” entered the country in 2022.

In honor of whatever ignorance I bring to the data, let’s double that: 1 million undocumented immigrants enter the country each year. That’s an increase of ~0.3% to the US population annually.

Is that a flood?

Maybe.

But you can’t answer that question until you’ve also considered the number of people who emigrate from the US (births and deaths tend to cancel each other out). The term “Net Migration Rate” seeks to represent that, i.e., the total number of people who have immigrated minus the number who have emigrated.

The current US net migration rate is estimated to be 2.748 per 1,000 people: for every 1000, we gain ~3, adding about 1 million to our population each year, a growth rate of 0.3%.

That’s not a far cry from poplation growth estimates that put us at ~0.4% growth over the past 5 years, a number that’s projected to decrease.

That certainly isn’t 4 Million a year.

A “Flood” of Criminals

Some media outlets seem convinced that scads of violent criminals are hiding within this current influx of “gotaways.” By lifting title 42, the Biden administration gave an open invitation for even more immigrants to flood our border, inviting an unthinkable number of n’er-do-wells to cross illegally.

If that’s true, my vote for Biden was truly treasonous.

Turns out that undocumented immigrant crime rates in the US are also tricky to research. I found a couple of studies claiming that this group commits crime at lower rates than documented citizens, but the Center for Immigration Studies responded specifically to these, claiming that undocumented folks actually commit more crime than the rest of us. (check these articles here, here, and here).

I couldn’t find much beyond these, so I turned to overall crime rates in the US. If undocumented immigrants are mostly criminal, and Donald Trump throttled immigration like no president before him, overall crime rates in the US should’ve dropped significantly during his presidency.

They didn’t.

Murder and non-neglegent manslaughter cases rose by almost 80% while violent crime, forcible rape and others ticked up slightly.

I didn’t find nearly enough data to prove, much less suggest, that most undocumented immigrants are criminals, or that they add significantly to America’s crime problem.

A “Flood of Taxpayers”

The IRS claims that undocumented immigrants contribute significant tax dollars –  via sales, income, and property taxes – each year.

I initially called BS on that one. How can an illegal immigrant pay taxes? Sure, they’re consumers and must pay sales tax like the rest of us. But how do they buy houses, or pay income tax? Most of the time they’re paid in cash, under the table. And they’re typically not the wealthiest people; why would they give up any portion of their income?

The Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) initiative allows undocumented folk to pay taxes while restricting border patrol and immigration agencies from accessing any personal information that might be used against them. Consider a few key points from the IRS:

• • • ITINs are a tax processing number issued by the IRS for taxpayers who are not eligible to obtain SSNs
    • Individuals eligible for an ITIN include:
      – Unauthorized immigrants,
      – Lawfully present individuals, and
      – U.S. resident aliens/nonresident aliens

Regarding motivation, the IRS asserts that “tax compliance casts a favorable light on an individual seeking a discretionary U.S. immigration benefit.”

How much do they contribute?:

In tax year 2019, the IRS received over two million returns with the primary taxpayer using an ITIN, with total tax computed after credits of approximately $2.8 billion. For the same tax year, the IRS received about 544,000 returns filed by primary taxpayers with an SSN and a secondary taxpayer with an ITIN. These returns reported over $3 billion in tax after credits were applied.

I might be missing something, but in 2019, there were only 148.3 million “legitimate” tax returns filed in the US.

But that’s just income tax, we also have to consider what they pay in sales and property tax. The Institution on Taxation and Economic Policy estimates that undocumented immigrants contribute $11.74 billion per year in total taxes.

I’ve heard much from Conservative media about how Biden’s lax immigration policy is draining America of her finances, and how undocumented immigrates are taking and not giving back. Again, I couldn’t find much data to support anything other than the idea that they might be paying their taxes better than we do.

Personally, Biden’s immigration policy doesn’t frighten me. With regard to immigration in general, America’s current trajectory is not pointed anywhere near destruction.

At the same time, immigration is a complicated thing. No reasonable person would push for a completely open-door policy, but what do we do when millions of people park themselves at our southern border because their country has become too dangerous to live in?

Tell them to go away?

I struggle here.

As a Christian, I believe that the plight of any nation hangs on the Almighty’s whim, and said Almighty’s holy book has some things to say to about immigrants, regardless of whatever “status” us mere mortals might confer upon them.

When an immigrant resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The immigrant residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God. ~ Lev 19:33-34

Christian history has no shortage of God-fearing Bible-believers being jerks to people who come from somewhere else. So you can imagine why “God’s Word” might offer, from time to time, the “status” that God confers upon immigrants, regardles of their made up, imaginary, DIY status.

Regarding how many people we “should” let in, I have more to think on. Again, i hope what I’ve managed to conjure to this point helps you towards a clearer understanding.

Happy Father’s Day y’all.