US Immigration Myths

Here are some of the most common immigration myths floating around the web and in the news.

  1. Immigrants come here to live off of our social services
  2. Immigrants don’t pay taxes
  3. Undocumented Immigrants are Criminals
  4. Immigrants come here to have babies so they will be citizens
  5. Why should we pay for their healthcare?
  6. Immigrants don’t even try to learn english, making us learn Spanish instead.
  7. Most immigrants don’t show up for court.
  8. Immigrants take American’s jobs.
  9. More Immigrants = More Poverty

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Immigrants come here to live off of our social services

  • Immigrants are not eligible for almost all of our social services. They come here to work. 83% of immigrants have households where at least one adult is working at least one job. U.S. Citizens come in a little lower, at about 80%.

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Immigrants don’t pay taxes

  • Everyone pays taxes, unless they are getting paid cash under the table, and that would go for citizens as well. The fact is most undocumented immigrants will never benefit from the taxes they do pay because they are not eligible for the services their tax money supports.

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Undocumented Immigrants are Criminals

  • Entering Without Inspection is a misdemeanor. That is like saying everyone who ever got a speeding or parking ticket is a criminal too.

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Immigrants come here to have babies so they will be citizens

  • This is just silly. It would be extremely difficult and dangerous for someone to make such a journey, and be successful at it while pregnant. Add to that the fact that waiting for their unborn children to become 18 years olf to even become eligible to do so, they will still need to show proof of financial responsibility, as well as maintaining the sponsees will not pose a possible financial liability in the future.

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Why should we pay for their healthcare?

  • Due to their low pay and unlikely access to medical plans through employers, most immigrants do lack medical insurance, and because of this, they also rarely go to dhe doctors because they cannot afford it. And this is not the whole story. Because of their relatively small numbers, immigrants actually make up a much smaller percentage of total uninsured medical costs than citizens each year.

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Immigrants don’t even try to learn english, making us learn Spanish instead.

  • The english speaking rate for first generation immigrants has historically been low. If you can remember learning english yourself, it wasn’t all that easy. The percentage dramatically increases with second generation immigrants, and by the third generation they are just as literate in english as any other American, often not even speaking the “mother” tongue. Add to this the fact that many guest workers often go back home after a short perod of time, they do not feel the need to learn english, and many of the immigrants people see who do not speak English are new arrivals, so it just seems like immigrants refuse to learn English. Statistically, with centuries of historical proof, this is just not true.

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Most immigrants don’t show up for court.

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Immigrants take American’s jobs.

  • No one can deny immigrants, or anyone else, can take a job someone else may want. That is a fact in a competitive society, but it is also overly stated by the right. Most Americans don’t want the jobs immigrants come here for. An article written by the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting showed that when Alabama created the harshest laws against immigrants ever forced many immigrants to relocate to florida, the agricultural sector in Alabama had 11 Americans apply for jobs vacated by immigrants. ELEVEN. Out of those 11, only one showed up for work to pick tomatoes. He did not return the next day. The work immigrants do is hard and unthankful, yet they do it because even this work is better than no work where they came from, or life here is better than the threat of death and violence from back home. Americans have welfare and unemployment they can fall back on. Not so for immigrants. For some Americans, no work is better than no work. Should we blame the immigrants for this?

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More Immigrants = More Poverty.

  • Poverty levels have remained consistent with our willingness to pay low wages in order to keep product and service levels competitive. If we were willing to pay more for products and services, you would think that wages would go up and poverty would go down, but due to the fact that businesses like to pocket profits, that seems unlikely to say the least. Here is an article studying poverty on both Americans and immigrants and shows that the increase in immigrants does not correlate to increased poverty.

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