Enforcement

Do undocumented immigrants pay taxes?

Undocumented Immigrants play a crucial role in the U.S. economy, not only through their labor but also through substantial tax contributions that support public services and government programs.

  • In 2022, households led by undocumented immigrants paid $75.6B in total taxes. This includes:
    • $29.0B in state and local taxes
    • $46.6B in federal taxes
  • In 2022, approximately 4.5% of the U.S. workforce was undocumented.
  • 89.8% of undocumented immigrants are of working age.

Our Map the Impact tool shows the tax contributions of immigrants at the national, state and local level.

Recent Features

All Enforcement Content

March 21, 2018

Legal immigration and the number of foreigners visiting the United States has taken a serious hit within the last year, as the Trump administration makes changes to policies and procedures without...

March 20, 2018

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to their internal operations. The agency rarely discloses basic details about where their immigration detention...

March 19, 2018

The United States Senate has confirmed Kevin McAleenan to serve as Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. McAleenan has been a member of CBP leadership since 2006, serving as the port...

March 16, 2018

Contrary to much overblown rhetoric, President Trump’s preeminent symbol of immigration enforcement—The Wall—is not a cost-effective way to enhance the security of the U.S.-Mexico border. The...

March 14, 2018

Immigration enforcement has become increasingly severe, especially in the past year. Yet news coverage often merely scratches the surface of what people across the country are experiencing....

March 12, 2018

In order to effectively fight crime, law-enforcement officers must gain the trust of the communities they intend to serve. Trust encourages victims of crime, as well as potential witnesses, to...

March 9, 2018

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is pursuing a massive increase in resources for immigrant detention centers, a fundamentally flawed network of largely privatized and remote facilities...

March 7, 2018

A lawsuit challenging several California laws filed Tuesday is the U.S. Justice Department’s latest salvo in the ongoing policy and legal battle regarding “sanctuary” policies. The complaint,...

March 2, 2018

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit this week to demand the immediate release and reunification of an asylum-seeking Congolese mother and her 7 year-old daughter, who had...

March 1, 2018

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a damning report this week, finding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) improperly modified...

October 2, 2019
The American Immigration Council and Tahirih Justice Center filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal court to compel the government to release records about the Trump administration’s troubling new practice of allowing U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to screen individuals seeking asylum in the United States. The lawsuit seeks these documents to shed light on changes to the asylum screening process, CBP’s role in conducting interviews and making determinations regarding an asylum seeker’s “credible fear” of persecution, and the measures taken by CBP, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Department of Homeland Security to implement this new practice.
September 30, 2019

A federal judge blocked the expansion of a fast-track deportation program, known as “expedited removal,” minutes before the government said it would begin implementing its expansion on September...

September 28, 2019
A federal court has blocked a Trump administration policy that sought to massively expand fast-track deportations without a fair legal process such as a court hearing or access to an attorney. The American Immigration Council, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP sought the preliminary injunction, which was granted close to midnight on Friday by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.
September 26, 2019

Immigration enforcement may be a federal responsibility, but state governments have a great deal of power over the conditions under which immigrants are detained. At a time when over-crowded...

September 25, 2019

The mass deportation of immigrants from the United States under the Secure Communities program has had no appreciable impact on local crime rates. Why? Because most of the immigrants being...

September 25, 2019
This statement shares our knowledge about these problems and inform the Subcommittee of these systemic human rights and due process violations. We hope that our perspective provides insight context for this important hearing.
September 23, 2019

In the Trump administration’s rush to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, 22 archaeological sites could be damaged or entirely destroyed. This warning comes from an internal National Park...

September 20, 2019

Five mothers and their children sued the U.S. government on Thursday for forcibly separating them in 2018. The five families are among the thousands of parents and young children who were split...

September 19, 2019

In summer 2018, the Trump administration attempted to deter asylum-seeking families from coming to the United States by separating children from their parents at the southern border. It was...

September 18, 2019

At a new training facility at Fort Benning in Georgia, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly planning to build “hyper-realistic” simulations of homes, schools, courtrooms,...

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