Immigration

blog March 5, 2025
Trump’s Address to Congress Obscures His Actual Tax Agenda

In last night’s address to Congress, President Trump spent more time insulting Americans, lying, and bragging than he did talking about taxes. But regardless of what President Trump and Elon…
blog January 6, 2025
Undocumented Immigrants Pay More Than Their Fair Share of Taxes

Undocumented immigrants help fund teacher salaries, road and bridge repairs and other local quality-of-life improvements. They also pay into vital programs that make up our social safety net (including Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance) even though they will likely never see any benefits from these programs — because, in most circumstances, they are legally prohibited from accessing them.
blog December 17, 2024
ITEP’s Top Charts of 2024

As we close out 2024, we want to lift up the tax charts we published this year that received the most engagement from readers. Covering federal, state, and local tax work, here are our top charts of 2024.
map August 1, 2024
State and Local Tax Contributions by Undocumented Immigrants

Undocumented immigrants pay taxes that help fund public infrastructure, institutions, and services in every U.S. state. Nearly 39 percent of the total tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants in 2022 ($37.3 billion) went to state and local governments.
news release July 30, 2024
Study: Undocumented Immigrants Contribute Nearly $100 Billion in Taxes a Year

Contact: Jon Whiten ([email protected]) Immigration policies have taken center stage in public debates this year, but much of the conversation has been driven by emotion, not data. A new in-depth…
report July 30, 2024
Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants

Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Providing access to work authorization for undocumented immigrants would increase their tax contributions both because their wages would rise and because their rates of tax compliance would increase.
report July 17, 2024
Improving Refundable Tax Credits by Making Them Immigrant-Inclusive

Undocumented immigrants who work and pay taxes but don’t have a valid Social Security number for either themselves or their children are excluded from federal EITC and CTC benefits. Fortunately, several states have stepped in to ensure undocumented immigrants are not left behind by the gaps in the federal EITC and CTC. State lawmakers should continue to ensure that immigrants who are otherwise eligible for these tax credits receive them.
blog July 7, 2021
Congress Should Follow States’ Lead on Inclusive Economic Recovery

President Joe Biden’s American Families and Jobs plans intend to “build back better” and create a more inclusive economy. To fully live up to this ideal, the final plan must include undocumented people and their families.
brief June 17, 2021
ITIN Filer Data Gap: How Changing Laws, Lack of Data Disaggregation Limit Inclusive Tax Policy

Like U.S. citizens, noncitizens who live, work, or invest in the United States must file local, state and federal taxes. But in order to file personal income taxes, they must first be issued a processing number called an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) by the IRS. These numbers are issued to both legal permanent residents and nonresidents who are not eligible for Social Security numbers. ITINs do not imply immigration status, nor can they be used for immigration enforcement purposes, but they can be used to create burdensome barriers that make it difficult for ITIN holders to file taxes and to impose additional eligibility restrictions on benefits that exclude ITIN filers. The time is now to focus on integrating all ITIN filers, regardless of immigration status, into our tax policies. But a lack of information on the ITIN population creates large gaps in our understanding of these filers and the role they play in the U.S. tax system.
blog April 27, 2021
Inclusive Child Tax Credit Reform Would Restore Benefit to 1 Million Young ‘Dreamers’

As the Biden administration maps out the next steps in America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic—through what is now being called the American Families Plan—it should make sure a proposed expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) includes undocumented children who have largely been left out of federal relief packages this past year. Prior to 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act, all children regardless of their immigration status received the credit as long as their parents met the income eligibility requirements. This change essentially excluded around 1 million children and their families.
blog June 26, 2020
Beyond SCOTUS: States Recognize Need for More Inclusive Immigrant Policy

The U.S. Supreme Court last week halted an effort by the Trump administration that would have stripped DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients of their lawful status in the…
brief May 14, 2020
Analysis: How the HEROES Act Would Reach ITIN Filers

The HEROES Act, filed by the House Democrats this week, includes a new one-time payment of $1,200 per adult and child and extends the payment to ITIN filers and their families. The bill also includes a retroactive change to the CARES Act ensuring ITIN filers will also receive the initial payment under the CARES Act. ITEP estimates more than 4.3 million adults and 3.5 million children would benefit from this change.
ITEP Work in Action May 14, 2020
Fiscal Policy Institute: Unemployment Insurance Taxes Paid for Undocumented Workers in NYS

In the midst of a pandemic, there has been a growing call for undocumented immigrants, who make up five percent of the New York State labor force, to be covered…
blog April 17, 2020
Morally and Economically, Including Undocumented Immigrants Is the Right Thing to Do

Undocumented immigrants pay taxes and play an integral part in the social and economic welfare of our country, yet Congress left them almost entirely out of the CARES Act package. Fortunately, immigrants, workers and their allies are helping policymakers advance better policy approaches.
blog May 4, 2018
In the Face of the Trump Administration’s Anti-Immigrant Agenda, We Must Rely on Evidence to Highlight the Contributions of and Dispel Myths About Dreamers

Immigrants face tremendous uncertainty and little hope under the Trump Administration. The administration’s actions—banning travel from residents of primarily Muslim countries, the deportation of Christian Iraqi asylum seekers, and the…
report April 30, 2018
State & Local Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants

This report specifically examines the state and local tax contributions of undocumented immigrants who are currently enrolled or immediately eligible for DACA and the fiscal implications of various policy changes. The report includes information on the national impact (Chart 1) and provides a state-by-state breakdown (Appendices 1 and 2).
blog January 16, 2018
We Must Protect Dreamers

Last week, a federal court judge in California ruled that the Trump administration cannot end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) while the case works its way through the courts. Although this is reassuring news for the roughly 685,000 young people currently enrolled or seeking renewals for their DACA status it does not extend protections to new applicants, and it does not lessen the need for congressional action to protect Dreamers.
blog December 13, 2017
All I Want for Christmas is a Clean DREAM Act

As 2017 draws to close, Congress has yet to take legislative action to protect Dreamers. The young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, and are largely working or in school, were protected by President Obama’s 2012 executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). But in September, President Trump announced that he would end DACA in March 2018. Instead of honoring the work authorizations and protection from deportation that currently shields more than 685,000 young people, President Trump punted their lives and livelihood to a woefully divided Congress which is expected to take up legislation to address the issue this month.
December 13, 2017
Updated Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants

In September 2017, US Citizenship and Immigration Services released updated enrollment data for the program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The updated data included estimates of the number of former DACA enrollees that were now legal permanent residents and those that failed to reapply or their reapplication was denied. The table below provides updated estimates of their tax contributions.
blog May 23, 2017
Trump Budget Plan Would Eliminate Child Tax Credits for Working Families Due to Parents’ Immigration Status

As ITEP has detailed, undocumented immigrants are taxpayers, contributing close to $12 billion a year in state and local taxes while also paying federal payroll, income, and excise taxes. In spite of these facts, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget director, has spread erroneous information to validate the administration’s cruel proposal to strip a proven anti-poverty benefit from undocumented immigrants and their children.
ITEP Work in Action May 5, 2017
Maryland’s Money Matters: ‘Dreamers’ Make Important Contributions to Maryland

It is unclear, as of now, whether the Trump administration will choose to end protections for young adults who came to the U.S. as children and have legal status through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. If the administration elects to end the program, thousands of Marylanders could lose their jobs and ability to attend college, many business could lose valued workers, and Maryland could lose nearly $14 million annually in state and local tax revenue.
ITEP Work in Action May 3, 2017
The Progressive Pulse: Young Undocumented Immigrants’ Tax Contributions Would Drop by Nearly Half Without the Protection of the DACA Program

Young immigrants eligible for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) annually contribute $2 billion in state and local taxes, according to new analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The ITEP report finds that this number would drop by nearly half without DACA protection at a time when the Trump Administration has sent mixed signals on whether it intends to honor the DACA executive order in the long term.
blog April 27, 2017
Undocumented Immigrants’ Tax Contributions in California: County-by-County Analysis

Guest Blogger; Josue Chavarin, Program Associate at the California Endowment California’s counties gain hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from undocumented residents— collectively over $1.53 billion according to…
report April 25, 2017
State & Local Tax Contributions of Young Undocumented Immigrants (2017)

This report specifically examines the state and local tax contributions of undocumented immigrants who are currently enrolled or immediately eligible for DACA and the fiscal implications of various policy changes. The report includes information on the national impact (Table 1) and provides a state-by-state breakdown (Appendix 1).
ITEP Work in Action April 25, 2017
Fiscal Policy Institute: Immigrant Youth Add $140 Million to New York Tax Revenues

The report, conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and co-released in New York by the Fiscal Policy Institute, focuses on the executive order known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The executive order first went into effect in 2012, and in New York State, of the estimated 820,000 undocumented immigrants, about 76,000 are eligible for DACA.