Undocumented immigrants are paying their taxes today, too

Publisher’s note: A version of this story published for the first time in 2019.

Cnn
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It is a surprising fact which is often neglected in the debate on immigration.

Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in federal taxes each year, between the declarations of income filed and the taxes deducted from the payroll checks, the experts say.

Here is an overview why – and how – it happens.

National Immigration Law Center breaks down a certain number of reasons for which undocumented immigrants pay taxes, in particular:

• This shows that they comply with federal tax laws.

• This can help them demonstrate a “good moral character” if they later have the possibility of legalizing their immigration status.

• Income declaration files could be used to document professional history and presence in the United States, steps that can help them be eligible for legal immigration status in the future if legislators adopt immigration reform.

Critics of illegal immigration have long argued that undocumented immigrants who pay taxes are able to do so because they use stolen social security numbers. But millions of federal taxes are paid each year by people who have no social security numbers at all.

Instead, they deposit using what is called an individual taxpayer identification number (ITIN).

The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington -based reflection group, notes that “most experts think that the vast majority of income tax declarations filed with ITIN today are filed by undocumented immigrants”.

Some non-citizens who have legally immigrant in the United States also pay taxes using this method.

In 2019, according to the IRS, more than 2.5 million income declarations were produced using the ITIN, representing nearly $ 6 billion in taxes.

In addition to income statements, officials believe that undocumented immigrants also contribute to social security billions each year through payroll tax deductions. In 2010, for example, Social Security Administration estimated that the payments of unauthorized workers represented approximately $ 12 billion in social security tax revenue.

In recent years, the publications of defenders of immigrants’ rights on Facebook, Twitter and Tiktok during the tax season have drawn attention to the issue.

“Undocumented immigrants pay billions of taxes to finance programs to which they cannot access it,” the National Immigration Law Center wrote in a series of recent publications on social networks.

In 2017, the Belén post on its payment tax experience became viral.

“Do you want to tell me again how I should be expelled, not contribute anything and only from this country while the people richest at 1% of this country steal you every day?” wrote Sisa, who was a student in Arizona at the time.

The beneficiary of the delayed action program for children’s arrivals later told CNN that she thought it was important to express himself.

“I wanted to show people that we are here and that we come from all over the world, and that we contribute more than people think we do it,” she said.

Jose Antonio Vargas, the journalist who has become a award-winning activist for the Pulitzer Prize who transformed his difficulties as an unparalleled upheaval in a plea platform, took a break from the finalization of his taxes in 2019 to share his experience on Twitter.

“Yes,” he wrote, “undocumented immigrants help finance the very systems that hold us and deport us.”