Across the nation, undocumented immigrants are paying taxes that help fund public services or benefits that they are largely barred from or are discouraged from accessing.
A recent report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) shows that undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state and local taxes in the U.S. in 2022.
That means, each person contributed about $8,889 in tax revenue.
About 11 million undocumented individuals resided in the U.S. in 2022, according to a Pew Research Center report. That's up from 10.5 million in 2021, reversing a downward trend between 2007-2019, the report states.
Florida has consistently been home to one of the largest immigrant populations, as well as one of the largest unauthorized immigrant populations in the nation. So it's no surprise that the state is among the states collecting the most taxes from the latter group as well.
In 2022, about 747,000 undocumented immigrants paid $1.8 billion in state and local taxes, putting Florida in fourth place when it comes to tax dollars collected.
ITEP's report also found that if undocumented immigrants were granted legal work authorization, their wages would rise and tax compliance would increase as well, thereby raising their tax contributions by $40.2 billion nationwide.
Florida would see an additional $154.3 million in state and local tax revenue.
In addition, due to the state's upside down tax code, undocumented immigrants end up paying a larger share of their income toward taxes, 7.9%, than the wealthiest one percent of residents, who pay 2.7%.
"This means hundreds of thousands of everyday people are paying more than their share to public services they cannot even access," writes the Florida Policy Institute (FPI) in a blogpost about the ITEP report. "Meanwhile, those with the most to give — and the most to gain — pay the least as a share of their income."
FPI is a non-profit that advocates for more humane immigration policies. They argue that welcoming immigrants would allow Floridians to contribute further.
"Harsh anti-immigrant policies like 2023’s SB 1718 — which Florida is still paying for — do more harm than good," writes Alexis Tsoukalas, FPI's senior policy analyst. "They waste state dollars and cause residents to live in fear and threat of constant discrimination."
SB 1718, a sweeping anti-immigration bill, made it unlawful to knowingly hire undocumented labor among other restrictions.
FPI estimated that the policy would cost the state's economy $12.6 billion in one year by pushing those without documented status out of the workforce.
Below, Tsoukalas shares more about the broader impacts of undocumented immigrants on the economy.
Why are these numbers significant?
Alexis Tsoukalas: There is a misunderstanding that if you are an undocumented immigrant, you are not paying taxes or contributing financially necessarily to the economy, which couldn't be further from the truth.
Primarily, the way that Florida gets revenue from all of its residents, but including undocumented immigrants, is through state and local sales tax, so things that you pay anytime you buy something, Florida collected the fourth highest amount of taxes from these immigrants.
Immigration is a top election issue, and debates over immigration have raised questions about immigrants, particularly undocumented individuals accessing public resources. Governor Ron DeSantis has championed laws to make sure "taxpayers are not footing the bill for illegal immigration."
How does this report fit into that conversation, and what do we know about undocumented immigrants being able to use certain public resources?
Public benefits — which we call the safety net — most of the safety net is unavailable to undocumented immigrants, with a few exceptions. Some states have added funds or programs to allow these immigrants to access what the federal government will not allow them to, but Florida is not one of them and undocumented immigrants are not eligible for SNAP, or what used to be known as food stamps, except during a disaster.
They're also ineligible for Medicaid, except in an emergency where they require emergency care, then the federal government will reimburse Florida hospitals for serving in an emergency situation only.
And the last point is, school breakfast programs and WIC — which are for Women, Infants and Children — that is a federal program. That is open to children regardless of their status. The idea being, these are children, and we need to focus on this vulnerable population, regardless of whether they have a documented status or not.
But there's over 30 different public programs that come down from the federal government, and some states have their own versions of those, and, by and large, a large majority of those are not available to undocumented immigrants.
It seems like calculating the cost benefit of immigration is obviously very complicated, and the ITEP report tells part of this story. What else do you want to say about the broader impacts of undocumented immigrants?
It's easy to label someone as undocumented or documented, and the reality is that someone's status can be in flux and can change. It's not always fixed. That is a title that the federal immigration system puts on people, but that doesn't change their inherent value and contributions to society. When people are here and living in our communities and our state, they're our friends and our neighbors, and it's important that we include them.
And we know that they're working, if they're able and of age. We know that they're contributing to taxes. That helps us show their economic worth. But the economic picture is important, but I want to reiterate that ultimately, we're talking about people — just working people, everyday people. And even those who don't work, like children or retirees, have inherent value and they deserve to feel safe and included.
