Number Game on Illegal Immigrants: 11 Million or Still Counting?

The Official Data in US claims it is harder to get into the US and sneaking in being hardest. Strict enforcement practices have pushed a lot of people in more remote areas of their native lands. Yet they all believe their future is in the United States and they can shape the country.

So the question of how many undocumented immigrants are in the US gives the answer 11 million. Illegal migration peaked between 1990 to 2007 as more people came than leaving. So the numbers were growing steadily. Things changed when recession set in and people influx plummeted. It has been said that the objective of illegal immigrants is settling down.

Mostly all unauthorized immigrant population is grouped with families and children. Nearly 21 percent of non-immigrant households are couples with children. But nuclear families In households of illegal immigrants is 47 percent, according to the data.

About 21 percent of illegal immigrants fall below the poverty line. The number of new immigrants declined in recent years. It was impacted by the recession and tougher border practices.

Illegal Immigration Curbs

The Congressional Office CBO propagates that U.S. Senate-passed immigration bill will reduce the flow of illegal immigrants, but the U. S. -Mexico border security costs will shoot up.

The bill seeks to double the number of federal agents along the border and fencing the 700 mile border. This would reduce people entering the United States from Mexico without documentation by one-third to one-half.

It also claims if the bill is enacted deficits will be down by $158 billion from 2014 to 2023. Let us wait as July 10 is the date House Republicans are due to discuss how to proceed with immigration policy.

Yet the immigration bill’s fate is unclear in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. Many House Republicans have concerns on the path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants.

Campaign of Tax Amnesty Looks Untenable

Many Op Ed columnists in American newspapers keep predicting that the new Immigration Bill has a hidden agenda to grant "tax amnesty" to illegal immigrants as the present bill is very vague on paying ‘back taxes’.

But the bill seems to be rock solid that immigrants have to clear a tax liability before qualifying for provisional legal status and pay taxes prior to renewing their legal status.

It was Dan Stein, an anti-immigration lobbyist charged the bipartisan group of senators for subverting immigration tax laws   by extending a tax amnesty to illegal immigrants with the bill’s hazy language that does not squarely address ‘back taxes’ and the methodology of tax assessment. His thesis was that taxes assessed was not same as taxes owed and this loophole will let many illegal immigrants get away without paying anything.

But these arguments fall flat if we consider that immigration tax laws assessment takes place only when the IRS official finds a person owing money thanks to that individual filing a tax return or IRS itself audits an individual  to know how much the person owes by way of taxes.

In the new bill aliens have to only pay taxes assessed by the IRS at the time of applying for registered provisional immigrant or RPI status. In case the IRS had no knowledge that the individual was working in the US, there would be no tax liability and the alien also will be at a loss in satisfying the purpose of getting RPI status.

Federal Tax Liability

Immigrants applying for provisional legal status pay taxes and will not receive provisional status until a federal tax liability is established by the Secretary of the Treasury. This discretion gives the IRS the power to decide how tax liability can be administered to immigrants seeking the legal status. 

OBAMA AIMS ACCOMMODATION THAN CONFRONTATION

According to Illegal Immigration statistics the number of illegal immigrants present in the US is 11 million and the issue of their integration into the mainstream continues to divide American society.

While one section says illegal immigration benefits the US by way of additional tax revenue, expansion of the low-cost labour pool and increased money in circulation.

Dismissing the allegations of criminality the advocates of Illegal Immigration statistics contend that they are also driven by an American dream and  perform jobs that other Americans won’t take up and opposition to immigration is blatant racism.

Opponents of illegal immigration say they are law breakers and crossed the US border without proper documentation or overstayed their visa's period and should be deported and not rewarded with a path to citizenship and access to social services. They argue illegal residents are criminals and pose a socio-economic burden on the taxpaying Americans.

The largest components that impose a deficit on the state exchequer on the basis of spending for illegal immigrants are,

• Medicaid

• Medical treatment for uninsured

• Food stamps

• Free school lunches

• Federal prison and court systems

• Federal aid to schools

In terms of education, the illegal aliens face the charge of a drain on the American Treasury because 60 percent of them lack a high school degree.

Obama Stand

President Barack Obama has reiterated his humane stand on the matter and declared that he is not for shipping back 12 million people. But he was emphatic that he wanted them out of the shadows. “We’re going to make them pay a fine, they are going to learn English, they are going to have to go to the back of the line but they will have a pathway to citizenship over the course of 10 years”, asserted Obama.

Obama immigration reform for students came in the form of holding out an opportunity for them to live and work legally in the United States. The President’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has been a positive and enlightening initiative to groom a new generation of Americans as equal partners in the society sans any stigma of illegality.