The true cost of Trump’s immigration crackdown: Who really pays?

The Trump administration has launched a sweeping immigration crackdown, ordering mass deportations and implementing fresh legal and financial restrictions on undocumented immigrants. The White House has reinstated a controversial travel ban impacting 12 countries, restricted in-state tuition for undocumented students in Texas, and begun dismantling humanitarian parole programs that protected over 500,000 immigrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua.

US President Donald Trump has argued these moves are essential to restoring law and order and securing the southern border. However, critics, including judges, lawmakers, and civil rights groups, have raised serious concerns about the legality and humanity of the tactics, particularly the erosion of due process rights in rapid deportation proceedings.

Immigrants pay more than billionaires

Amid this policy blitz, a recent report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) is turning heads in Washington. Contrary to political rhetoric portraying undocumented immigrants as a drain on the US economy, the report finds that they pay significantly more in taxes than many of the nation's wealthiest individuals and largest corporations.

In 2022 alone, undocumented immigrants contributed $96.7 billion in taxes—$51.8 billion in federal taxes and $37.3 billion in state and local taxes. Their average state and local tax rate of 10.1 per cent is higher than the 7.2 per cent paid by the top 1 per cent of earners in most states.

At the federal level, their effective tax rate of 5.27 per cent surpassed that of five billionaires profiled by ProPublica and dozens of Fortune 500 companies.

In sharp contrast, 55 of the nation’s largest corporations paid just $3.7 billion in total federal taxes on over $200 billion in profits.

Public support used and misused

The ATF report also dismantles the notion that undocumented workers are an undue burden on public resources. In 2018, they received just $2.6 billion in emergency Medicaid—only 0.4 per cent of the program’s total costs. By law, undocumented immigrants are barred from Medicaid except in life-threatening emergencies.

Meanwhile, corporations like Walmart and Amazon are offloading labour costs onto taxpayers. Just 17 major corporations had more than 40,000 workers on Medicaid and nearly 60,000 on food stamps (SNAP), a result of paying wages too low to support basic living costs.

Corporate welfare vs human labour

Perhaps most strikingly, the report notes that Elon Musk’s companies alone have received $13 billion in federal subsidies, which is five times what undocumented immigrants received in emergency aid. And yet, undocumented immigrants are over-represented in essential industries like agriculture, construction, elder care, and healthcare.

“This report confirms what we already knew,” said David Kass, Executive Director of Americans for Tax Fairness. “Trump and his billionaire backers want Americans to blame immigrants for a broken economy—when it’s billionaires and mega-corporations who are rigging the system and getting the handouts.”

As the Trump administration intensifies its efforts to deport undocumented immigrants, a new set of numbers demands attention. Far from being a burden, undocumented workers are a vital part of the US economy, paying more in taxes than the ultra-wealthy and receiving far fewer public benefits in return.