Other statistics & information

(Presented at the 2010 Asian Summit on January 17, 2010:

• Taxes:  est. $90-140 billion/year that immigrants pay in local, state and federal taxes
• Social Security: The Social Security Suspense File collects between $7-9 billion/year from workers who do not have a “real” social security number (considered to be undocumented workers) – those workers will never see the benefit of what they’ve paid into the system
• Welfare:  undocumented immigrants pay in est. $20-30 billion more in taxes than what they use in government services; other than emergency care, undocumented immigrants and many legal immigrants (who have not worked for 40 quarters) do not qualify for federal benefits
• Jobs: since the early 1900s, the largest waves of immigrants coming to the US coincided with the country’s lowest unemployment and economic growth.  Immigrants create jobs:  ie. Silicon Valley companies were started by Indians and Chinese & netted $19.5 billion in sales & created 73,000 jobs in 2000. 
• Workforce: 70% of all immigrants arriving in the US arrive at their prime working age & are transplanted into society.  Our government has spent nothing on their education, and yet, according to Allan Greenspan, the net gain from these workers is $10 billion/year – he adds that this workforce will contribute $500 billion to the Social Security Suspense File in the next 20 years.  1/5 immigrants is a doctor; 2/5 is a medical scientist; 1/5 is a computer specialist; ¼ is an astronomer; 17% of the workers w/ BAs in Science & Engineering are immigrants – 29% w/ MAs & 39% w/ PhDs (Migration Policy Institute)
• The State of Florida earns $9 billion/year in agriculture, yet wages for workers, a significant percentage of those who are undocumented, are continually depressed as in the case of tomato pickers who earn $50/day if they can pick 2 tons of tomatoes in a day – proportionally, they earn less in 2010 than they did 30 years ago.   
• Population:  in 1960, non-Hispanic whites were 85% of the country’s population; in 2005, they were 67%; in 2050, they will be 47% of the population, and the current Asian population in the US is expected to triple.  (Pew Research Center stats).
• Backlog:  4-5 million family members are/have been waiting in the immigration backlog, of which 1.5 million are Asians
• Undocumented:  1.2 million of 12 million undocumented immigrants are Asians.  40% of the undocumented population have entered the country legally and have violated the terms of their admission/visa – this, in and of itself is NOT a criminal act, but a civil violation of administrative rules – to address an individual who has lost or is without immigration status as “an illegal” is misleading, legally deficient and incorrectly assumes a criminal context.

Angelina M. Castro, Esq.

Director

Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, Inc.

Office:  800 Virginia Ave., Suite 61, Ft. Pierce, FL 34982

Mailing: PO Box 3808, Ft. Pierce, FL 34948-3808

Tel. (772)489-4660, x105

Fax (772)489-4667

Email: ACastro@fiacfla.org

Website: www.fiacfla.org