When discrimination outweighs immigrants’ economic contributions

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Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:

As thousands of federal employees are fired and thousands of immigrants are deported, the economic contributions of those immigrants that Donald Trump wants to remove are essential due to their federal, state, and local tax payments, and contributions to the solvency of vital programs like Social Security and Medicare.

The combination of unemployed people, the elimination of economic resources that immigrants provide, and the scarcity of labor in key industries due to deportation does not bode well for our economy. Add to that the trade war initiated by Trump, and the inflation and product shortages it can generate. Not to mention the fact that Trump wants to finance the machinery of his indiscriminate deportations through cuts to key programs like Medicaid and food stamps, among others, which America’s Voice denounces in its new campaign, “At What Cost?”

The campaign seeks to pressure Members of Congress to reject cuts to important health, nutrition, and public safety programs, which Trump wants to use to pay for the separation of families.

On Tuesday, Trump offered a long and disconcerting maiden speech, plagued with lies, before a joint session of Congress. As was expected, he only referred to immigrants in the context of criminals, gang members, and drug traffickers.

He promoted his “gold card” for investors, saying that the $5 million that it costs would bring money to pay the national debt, as if immigrants in the United States, with and without documents, contribute nothing to the economy.

This proves that his anti-immigrant crusade is based on discrimination against people of color since, to the contrary, a real businessman would not discard the billions of dollars that those immigrants without documents contribute to the country’s economy every year. Common sense suggests that legalizing that workforce would be more beneficial for the economy, but racism outweighs logic in this administration.

The facts speak for themselves. Trump, for example, revoked TPS for more than 300,000 Venezuelans and half a million Haitians. Other groups assisted by the program, which offers protection from deportation and work permits, are in Trump’s sights.

Three organizations and four TPS beneficiaries filed a lawsuit against DHS in Massachusetts, stating that the decisions to end TPS were motivated by “discrimination based on [the beneficiaries’] race, ethnicity, and country of origin,” Univision reported.

According to the American Immigration Council, “In 2021 alone, TPS holders contributed more than $2.2 billion in taxes, including almost $1 billion to state and local governments. They also held $8 billion in spending power, which supports countless U.S. businesses when spent on items like groceries, haircuts, or rent.”

Other groups at risk are Dreamers protected by DACA. According to an analysis from Boundless Immigration, “DACA recipients contribute an estimated $1.7 billion a year in state and local taxes, including personal income, sales, and property taxes.” They also “contribute $2.1 billion to Social Security and Medicare annually.”

And, in general, all undocumented people inject billions of dollars into the economy every year. “In 2022 alone, undocumented immigrant households paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and $29.3 billion in state and local taxes. Undocumented immigrants also contributed $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare,” according to the American Immigration Council.

Trump promised to lower the cost of living and other services for U.S. Americans, but his obsessive offensive against immigrants, which dramatically reduces the number of taxpayers filling government coffers and eliminates labor in vital economic sectors, like agriculture, will have the opposite effect.

Time will tell whether, once Trump’s policies harm their pocketbooks and quality of life, his loyal followers will wake up. Or if their prejudice weighs more than the economic well-being of their families and the country.

“America is back,” Trump declared. Back to disgrace.

The original Spanish version is here.