Immigrants without legal authorization to work paid $3.1 billion in state and local taxes in New York in 2022, according to a new report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning nonprofit think tank.
The sum includes sales, property and income taxes for an estimated 676,000 immigrant New Yorkers who lack citizenship or legal residency status, according to report. If the workers were granted work permits, their tax contributions would rise to nearly $4 billion, the institute found.
New York is home to the fourth-largest concentration of undocumented immigrants in the country, behind California, Texas and Florida, per the report. That group does not include asylum-seekers.
The results counter common myths about immigrants not paying taxes and underscore the link between the country’s immigration policies and government tax coffers. They also highlight immigrant laborers’ economic contributions as national polls show waning support for immigration.
“Undocumented immigrants pay substantial amounts toward the funding of public infrastructure, institutions and services,” the report’s authors wrote. “These figures make clear that immigration policy choices have substantial implications for public revenue at all levels of government.”
The Congressional Budget Office reported in June that the recent surge in immigration will help lower federal deficits and increase revenues by more than $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
In January, the Immigrant Research Initiative, a nonprofit think tank, found that state and local tax revenues would increase by $2.6 million for each 1,000 new migrants in New York City. That was for the first year after their arrival, and the researchers suggested that the number would grow thereafter.
Across the country, undocumented immigrants paid almost $100 billion in federal, state and local taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. That represents an average of $9,000 per person, or 26.1% of their incomes, which is close to the country’s median rate.
Meanwhile, such immigrants are often barred from receiving tax credits and are less likely to claim tax refunds due to lack of awareness or immigration concerns. Researchers found that about a third of the taxes paid by undocumented immigrants go to programs, including Social Security and Medicare, from which they are excluded.
Most undocumented New Yorkers have been in the country for more than 10 years, according to an analysis of Census survey data from 2019 by the nonprofit Center for Migration Studies. The analysis indicated that a majority of undocumented immigrants in New York were from Latin America — including Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean — while another 20% were from Asia, 7% from Eastern and Western Europe, and 4% from Africa.
Former President Donald Trump has promised to carry out mass deportations of those without legal immigration status if he is reelected in November. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have blamed the former Republican president and congressional Republicans for blocking immigration reforms.