IMMIGRATION FACTS

FACT: In 2000, slightly more than 10 percent of the U.S. population was foreign-born, compared to 15% in 1915.

FACT: There are over 150 million migrants in the world today. The U.S. receives less than 2% of the world’s migrants on an annual basis.

FACT: The number of documented immigrants admitted in 1998 totaled 660,000, the lowest level since 1988. 54% of these were female.

FACT: The majority of immigrants come to the U.S. legally. About eight of 11 legal immigrants come to join close family members.

FACT: Immigrants provide more to the nation’s economy and government services than they use, adding about $10 billion each year to the U.S. economy and paying at least $133 billion in taxes, according to a 1998 study, A Fiscal Portrait of the Newest Americans, by the National Immigration Forum and the Cato Institute. The typical immigrant and his or her descendants pay an estimated $80,000 more in taxes that they will receive in local, state, and federal benefits over their lifetime.

FACT: The total net benefit (taxes paid over benefits received) to the Social Security system in today’s dollars from continuing current levels of immigration is nearly $500 billion for the 1998-2022 period.

FACT: Citizens, legal permanent residents, and undocumented workers alike enjoy the same workplace rights under such key labor laws as the National Labor Relations Act, the Railway Labor Act, Occupational Safety and Health Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Such laws include the requirement of minimum wage and overtime, providing a workplace free of discrimination based on race, gender, religion and ethnicity, and the right to form and join unions, no matter what you’re immigration status is.

FACT: In 1999, an estimated 85% of the nation’s wealth was held in the hands of the top 20% of the U.S. population, while the bottom 20% held just 0.5% of the wealth.

Sources: The AFL-CIO, and the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights “Bridge” Curriculum