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When people debate immigration, the statistics usually get deployed as a weapon – crime rates, welfare costs, border crossings. But the same data tells a different story when you look at what immigrants actually build.
Start with the taxes. Undocumented immigrant households paid nearly ninety billion dollars in federal, state, and local taxes in 2023. That’s not a drain – that’s a contribution from people who can’t vote, can’t access most benefits, and still show up to work. They paid an estimated twenty-six billion dollars into Social Security alone, plus billions more into Medicare and unemployment insurance – programs they are largely ineligible to use. In a country where Social Security’s trust fund faces shortfalls within a decade, that money isn’t a footnote. It’s a lifeline.
Then there’s the work itself. Foreign-born workers now make up nearly nineteen percent of the civilian labor force – close to an all-time high. They are nearly thirty percent of the construction workforce, and they fill critical roles in agriculture, healthcare, and food service. Immigration has driven about half of America’s labor supply growth in recent years. The other half is just people aging out of work. Without immigration, the labor force would be shrinking, not growing – and a shrinking labor force means slower growth, higher prices, and a heavier tax burden on every worker left behind.
The entrepreneurial record is even more striking. Immigrant-founded companies include Google, Nvidia, Zoom, and Tesla. Roughly sixty percent of America’s billion-dollar startups have at least one immigrant founder. Immigrants are nearly twice as likely to start a business as native-born Americans, and they account for about a quarter of all new businesses in the country. They are not taking jobs. They are creating them.
The education numbers surprise people too. Thirty-six percent of immigrant adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher – essentially the same rate as U.S.-born adults. Among immigrants who arrived between 2020 and 2024, that figure jumps to forty-five percent. Median household income for foreign-born families is about eighty-two thousand dollars, slightly above the eighty-one thousand for U.S.- born households. These are not people arriving empty-handed. They are arriving with skills, ambition, and a willingness to work that the country desperately needs.
And the crime statistics cut the other way from the headlines. Study after study – from Texas arrest data to nationwide incarceration research – finds that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit crimes at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens. This has been true for nearly two centuries of American history. The “immigrant crime wave” is a prefabricated story, not a finding.
The Congressional Budget Office found that the recent immigration surge will boost federal revenues by hundreds of billions over the next ten years, more than covering any added spending. Economists estimate that legalizing the undocumented population would add over a trillion dollars to the economy over the next ten years as well.
Consider what happens when the door closes. In 2025, the number of foreign-born workers in the U.S. declined by more than a million in just eight months. Industries that depend on immigrant labor – construction, meatpacking, elder care – reported shortages and rising costs almost immediately. Some economists now warn that U.S. net migration could turn negative in 2026, which would threaten GDP growth, strain Social Security, and undermine long-term fiscal stability. The experiment of restriction is already running, and the early results are not encouraging.
None of this means immigration policy should be open-ended or unexamined. Every country has a right to set its own rules, and a functioning system needs enforcement, vetting, and order. But the debate should start from what the evidence shows: immigrants are net contributors, not net costs. They pay taxes, start businesses, fill jobs Americans aren’t producing enough workers to fill, and commit crimes at lower rates than the native-born. The question isn’t whether to welcome immigrants. It’s whether America is willing to keep being the place people risk everything to reach.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, former Shippensburg University Trustee, awarded numerous patents, as well as Founder and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. eLynxx provides cloud-software for automated sourcing and managing of mail marketing, swag, packaging, and all things print. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at Bill@eLynxx.com
