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

Publication Date: 
August 31, 2016
This report examines what happens when “family detention” does not actually keep loved ones together and profiles the experiences of five asylum-seeking families who are divided by detention.
August 30, 2016

No one is quite sure where Donald Trump stands on immigration anymore. More precisely, experts are trying to divine what Trump would do with the 11 million undocumented immigrants now living in...

August 19, 2016

For two years, women and children from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala have been fleeing to the United States to escape the extreme violence of gangs which control large swaths of territory...

August 18, 2016

Each year, the Border Patrol—a division of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—holds hundreds of thousands of individuals in detention facilities near the U.S. southern border. These...

August 18, 2016
Today, groups made public damning evidence, including expert testimony and video stills illustrating the deplorable and unconstitutional conditions detained individuals are subjected to in Border Patrol custody in the agency’s Tucson Sector.
Publication Date: 
August 18, 2016
This report reveals that individuals are frequently held for days and sometimes even months in holding cells in Border Patrol sectors along the U.S.’ southwest border.
August 17, 2016

In November 2014, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the end of the Secure Communities program and the launch of its replacement: the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP). Under PEP...

August 16, 2016

As any serious national security expert will tell you, trying to find a potential terrorist by treating all immigrants or Muslims as security risks is far too vague to be effective. Accurate...

August 15, 2016

In protest of their families’ ongoing and prolonged detention in the Berks County Residential Center, a group of mothers began a hunger strike on Monday, August 8. They penned a letter to...

August 11, 2016

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is continuing to defend the controversial “Operation Border Guardian” program that took more than 100 Central American women and children from their homes...

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