Immigration restrictionists know a pathway to citizenship will have budget implications. The Senate Parliamentarian should check their priors.
By: Liz Mair
Tags: Immigration, Budget, Senate, Reconciliation, Infrastructure

Immigration restrictionists know a pathway to citizenship will have budget implications. The Senate Parliamentarian should check their priors. Liz Mair Just now·4 min read

Immigration restrictionists — notably the big organizations founded and funded by major population control advocates like John Tanton and Cordelia Scaife May, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) — want a pathway to citizenship kept out of the Democratic infrastructure bill.

This is unsurprising, and not news. But what is interesting is that these groups, via Lee Francis Cissna — a figure with ties to and beloved of the anti-immigration and anti-pathway to citizenship Center for Immigration Studies, among others — is reportedly the point man making the case to the Senate Parliamentarian that this version of immigration reform should not pass muster for reconciliation purposes. Cissna’s argument will presumably be that a pathway to citizenship will have no budgetary impact or that it will be incidental to policy provisions (it’s hard to see what else his case could be to the Senate Parliamentarian). This is notable, because much of CIS’ own output has long argued that legalizing unlawful immigrants and putting them and others on a pathway to citizenship would have budgetary implications, both from the taxation and spending sides of the equation.

At least as far back as 2008, CIS was conceding in testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rightsthat employers of unlawful immigrants “exploit illegal immigrant workers by paying them less than the minimum wage and not paying them overtime wages because they are fearful of revealing their vulnerable status if they were to complain,” a situation that CIS argued does not apply with regard to actual U.S. citizens. While one would like to believe that in thirteen years, much has changed on this front, the reality is that it has not changed either much or enough, depending on your perspective — and certainly CIS doesn’t think it has. In 2021, CIS argued that “Unscrupulous employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens obtain an unfair advantage against their competitors by reducing their payroll expenses.”

This point is key to understanding why a pathway to citizenship could have a big budgetary impact: If unlawful immigrants legalize and get on a pathway to citizenship, not only will their earnings go up. So will the amount they pay in payroll taxes.

While it is a restrictionist trope that unlawful immigrants do not currently pay any payroll or federal income taxes (in fact, many do, using Employer Identification Numbers and other people’s Social Security Numbers), it is true that not all do. Once these immigrants are able to come out of the shadows and legalize, it is certain that far more — probably close to all — will start paying, and using their own Social Security Numbers to boot.

That matters in and of itself, but it especially matters since right now, a bunch of them are not being paid minimum wage or overtime — and CIS knows and has argued this.

How many, though? It is hard to estimate, but per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “in 2020… about 865,000 workers had wages below the federal minimum.” Some of those might be exploited US citizens not asserting their rights, but odds are, most are unlawful immigrants afraid to do so for fear of retribution by their employers. Set aside that with a pathway to citizenship, more people being paid minimum wage or better will inevitably start paying payroll taxes; those currently being exploited and underpaid by their employers will almost certainly see their base pay rise since they will be empowered to report abuse without fear of retribution. That means extra payroll tax money will flow that way, too.

For immigrants in states with high minimum wages, the effect could be even more pronounced. Which states have the highest numbers of unlawful immigrants? According to Pew Research data from 2016, California (whose minimum wage is $14 an hour, or $13 an hour for small employers), Florida (whose minimum wage will soon be $10 an hour), New York (whose minimum wage is $12.50 an hour), New Jersey (whose minimum wage is $11–12 an hour), Illinois (whose minimum wage is $11 an hour) — plus Texas, whose minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. Depending on what unlawful immigrants are currently being paid in these states (and, sure, many but not all are being paid minimum wage by employers who don’t want to double their legal trouble if they get busted employing them), the bump in pay — and therefore the bump in payroll taxes paid to the US Treasury — could be notable.

CIS, and Cissna, know this and are going to have a difficult time arguing that it is not so in view of the organization’s history. Moreover, since CIS has made a habit of claiming that legalization and/or a pathway to citizenship would spur vastly more uptake of benefits and/or entitlements by immigrants (an assertion that is undercut at least in part by actual data regarding benefits and entitlement usage by immigrants), it’s hard to believe they, specifically, will argue with a straight face that a significant budgetary impact would not flow from introducing a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 7–8 million immigrants or that any impact would be merely “incidental.” If they do, the Senate Parliamentarian should certainly check their priors.

Ultimately, to adapt the saying slightly, Senate Parliamentarian gonna Senate Parliamentarian. But we should be conscious of the arguments that Cissna’s organization has advanced that make clear that immigration policy has direct, and major, impacts on what money the federal government takes in and what it expends — even if those of us who want to see a pathway to citizenship made law disagree about whether immigrants are a net economic asset or burden.

Liz Mair is the founder, owner and president of Mair Strategies LLC. She is a longtime proponent of pro-immigration policy and reforms, including a pathway to citizenship for unlawful immigrants.