Correcting the Record: False or Misleading Statements on Immigration

During the 2024 campaign season, numerous false or misleading statements have been made about immigration which deserve correction. Below is a list of false and misleading statements and the response from the Center for Migration Studies of New York.

Assertion: There are 15-20 million undocumented immigrants living in the country.

Response: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has asserted that his deportation plan would remove 15-20 million undocumented persons from the country. This is strongly overstated. According to estimates from the Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS), 10.9 million undocumented immigrants reside in the United States, based on Census Bureau and American Community Service (ACS) data. Other organizations, including the Department of Homeland Security, have produced similar estimates.

Moreover, over 40 percent of the undocumented population in the country are individuals who have overstayed their visas, not entered through the US-Mexico border. Finally, while the number of undocumented in the country increased by 650,000 from 2020-2022, other undocumented individuals and families, especially from Mexico and Asian countries, have been leaving the United States.

Assertion: More than 10 million undocumented immigrants have flooded across our border during the Biden administration, while the Trump administration saw the lowest number of crossings in United States history.

Response: This is a misleading statement, as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) characterizes border crossings as “encounters,” when migrants are encountered by the Border Patrol and can be returned. According to DHS, over 4 million of migrants encountered have been returned and 20-25 percent encountered are repeat offenders, severely lowering the total amount during the Biden administration.

In addition, the asylum-seekers who have been released into the country lawfully, having been vetted and processed by DHS and given a notice to appear for court proceedings. The number of migrants who have crossed undetected into the United States is much lower.

Annual apprehensions at the border increased nearly 15 percent under President Trump until the border was closed under Title 42 in 2020. Moreover, the Trump administration released a higher percentage of migrants into the country than the Biden administration, by 52.2 percent to 48.6 percent over a two-year period.

Assertion: Immigrants take jobs from US citizen workers, who have lost thousands of jobs to them.

Response: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, jobs for US citizen workers have increased by 7.2 million since February 2021, while the employment of foreign-born workers, both legal and undocumented, has grown 5 million. Studies also show that immigrants, legal or undocumented, complement the US workforce and have helped increase jobs over the past few years, while also keeping inflation down.

Assertion: Undocumented immigrants are going to bankrupt Social Security and Medicare.

Response. The opposite is true. Undocumented immigrants who work pay $16 billion a year into the Social Security and Medicare systems and, because of their legal status, are not eligible to collect any benefits. Without the contributions of undocumented immigrants to both systems, they would likely grow insolvent within a shorter amount of time.

Assertion: Undocumented immigrants have led to a national housing crisis.

Response: While the number of undocumented immigrants in the country has increased the demand for rental or other temporary housing, immigrant workers help produce housing, comprising 25 percent of the construction workforce. Deporting undocumented workers would hurt the housing market, as 1.3 million hold mortgages that would fail if they were deported. About 3 million undocumented persons, or nearly 30 percent, own a housing property, compared to 65 percent of US citizens.

Assertion: Illegal aliens vote in elections.

Response: Federal law bans non-citizens from voting in federal elections, including for president, vice-president, and Congress. Non-citizens who attempt to vote can face fines and deportation. Thirty-six states require voters to show some form of identification when they vote.

Assertion: Immigrants commit violent crime more than US citizens and make our communities unsafe.

Response: Studies have shown consistently over the years that immigrant communities are safer than nonimmigrant communities in the nation, and that immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than US citizens. In fact, as the number of immigrants to the country has increased, crime in the United States has dropped.

Assertion: I came to the country legally and those who do not should be deported.

Response: A large majority of migrants arriving at the US-Mexico border are asylum-seekers, and are thus in compliance with United States and international law, which legally allows them to arrive at an international border and ask for protection. Asylum-seekers who pass a “credible fear” test are paroled into the country, and thus have legal status.

Moreover, there are limited legal pathways for immigrants to enter the United States, particularly for low-skilled immigrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border. Despite citing personal stories of family members coming legally to the country, some Republicans have opposed programs which permit legal entry to the country, including the use of humanitarian parole, asylum protection, the creation of legal pathways that lead to permanent status, and the refugee admissions program.

Assertion: It is in the country’s best interest to deport all undocumented immigrants.

Response: The proposal by former President Trump for a mass deportation campaign would be expensive, hurt the economy, and violate the rights of legal immigrants and US-citizens. A CMS study responding to this proposal in 2017 found that a mass deportation program would impoverish US families and separate US-citizen children from their parents. Important industries, such as agriculture and construction, would be harmed, exacerbating a national labor crisis.

As undocumented workers make up 5 percent of the US workforce, or 8.1 million people, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States would be reduced by 2.6 percent, or $4.7 trillion dollars, if all undocumented immigrants were removed. Estimates have shown that such an operation would cost half a trillion dollars in taxpayer’s money, and that $6 billion in taxes paid by undocumented workers would be lost to the United States Treasury. In contrast, providing long-term undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship would increase the national GDP by $1.7 trillion over ten years.

A mass deportation campaign also would create a police state, in which legal residents and US citizens would be profiled and harassed by enforcement officials, including military personnel. A big question, for example, is how law enforcement would identify undocumented immigrants, given that most immigrants, regardless of their legal status, have an I-9 form and tax identification number. The prospect of camps operated by the US Military detaining migrants would conjure images of the Japanese internment camps during World War II.

July 24, 2024