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: 
October 1, 2004
Over a thousand noncitizens face indefinite detention in the United States on the basis of a meaningless legal technicality.
Publication Date: 
May 1, 2004
In response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. government began a campaign of aggressive immigration enforcement targeted at Muslims, Arabs and South Asians. Rather than first...
Publication Date: 
December 1, 2003
In the hours following the deadly terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States government took the extraordinary step of sealing U.S. borders to traffic and trade by grounding all...
Publication Date: 
May 1, 2003
After September 11th, efforts to reach an immigration accord with Mexico came to a halt. As a result, the Bush administration continues a poorly conceived border-enforcement strategy from the 1990s...
Publication Date: 
October 1, 2002
In the aftermath of the horrific events of September 11, 2001, our leaders have begun exercising extraordinary powers to ensure our collective safety, sacrificing the personal liberties of some,...
For the undocumented in America there is little doubt that the iniquities of the father are visited upon the child. On November 7th, for instance, an astounding 71 percent of voters in Arizona passed...
On August 22, 2014, the American Immigration Council, in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, the National Immigration Law Center, Van Der Hout Brigagliano & Nightingale LLP, and Jenner & Block, filed this lawsuit in the federal district court for the District of Columbia. The case was a systemic challenge to the policies denying a fair deportation process to mothers and children detained in the Artesia Family Residential Center who had fled extreme violence, death threats, rape, and persecution in Central America and come to the United States seeking safety.

Advocates in states along the northern border of the United States have reported that Border Patrol agents frequently “assist” other law enforcement agencies by serving...

Based on reports from immigration advocates, CBP officers do not always provide noncitizens with information regarding the consequences of accepting voluntary return...

American Immigration Council and AILA’s Connecticut chapter initially sought records related to CAP through a FOIA request to ICE in December 2011. When ICE refused to release records responsive to the request, Plaintiffs filed suit under FOIA for declaratory and injunctive relief to compel the disclosure and release of agency records improperly withheld by DHS and its component ICE

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