Immigrants are people who intend to make their permanent home in this country. Although many people believe millions of undocumented Mexicans live in the United States, in reality the number is between 250,000 and 300,000 in any given year. Immigrants take jobs away from U.S. native-born workers. Immigrants generally create job opportunities for others. When the local impact is negative, it is very small.
Immigrants pay far more in taxes than they use in public services.
In 1995, the National Research Council, at the request of the bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, convened a panel of experts to assess the economic, demographic, and fiscal impact of immigration in the United States. Misperceptions about the positive effect that documented and undocumented immigrants have on the U.S. economy has led to fear and negative attitudes toward immigrants. Most immigrants live on welfare. Based on 1990 census figures, 20.4 percent of immigrants were on welfare, compared with 26.2 percent of U.S. native-born. In 1993, the U.S. Department of Commerce released We the American Foreign Born , part of a series of reports on different segments of the U.S. population.