COMMON MYTHS ABOUT IMMIGRATION
​LEARN THE FACTS
​

What do you say to your neighbor who makes untrue statements about immigrants and immigration?

Myths and misinformation about immigration often receive more attention than the facts. Have you heard any of the statements below? Do you know the truth? Read the answers.

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Myth #1:​  By allowing more immigrants into our country, American citizens will lose jobs.
The facts on this mistaken belief are among the most documented:

• The majority of economists agree that immigrants help the economy and boost wages for most workers. In addition, a recent study quoted in Forbes magazine by Madeline Zavodny, professor at the University of North Florida, studied data from 248 municipalities and found that in areas with more immigrants, economies were more dynamic and experienced faster growth. She discovered that from 2010 to 2019, foreign-born workers were responsible for one-fourth of an increase in employment.

 

• Even among the few economists who believe migrants may lower wages, they think that is true only for workers at manual jobs that require little education. However, at worst, most believe the decrease is only 1.7% to 2%, while migrants actually boost wages overall.

 

• What’s more, immigrants often do dangerous, but essential jobs that most Americans do not want to do. The workers who lost their lives in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March are a good example. Those men, who were filling potholes on the bridge in the dark hours of the early morning with traffic speeding by, were from Mexico and Central America. In the Baltimore-Washington [D.C.] area, 40% of construction workers are immigrants.

 

• Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Project, an economic research group at the Brookings Institution, stated that current employment gains could not have happened—and cannot be sustained—without immigration.

 

• Although the U.S. population is not aging as quickly as the populations in many European countries, nonetheless we do not have enough younger people to make up for the rising number of baby boomers who are retiring. We need immigrants.

 

• Immigrants are twice as likely as native-born Americans to start a new business, employing themselves and others.

 

• If all undocumented immigrant laborers were to leave the U.S., our economy would stagnate and our living standards would decline.

Sources:
Stuart Anderson, “Immigrants Make Economies More Dynamic, Increase Employment Growth,” Forbes magazine online, February 23, 2023.
​Alex Nowrasteh, “The Most Common Arguments Against Immigration and Why They’re Wrong,” brochure by the CATO Institute, pages 4 and 5.
 Jean Marbella, “’We are the workforce that this country needs’: Key Bridge crew died doing essential labor,” The Baltimore Sun, April 6, 2024, page 1.
Jeanna Smialek, “Immigrants in Maine are Filling a Labor Gap. It May Be a Prelude for the U.S.,” New York Times, April 12, 2024.
 Stuart Anderson, “U.S. Risks Decline and Stagnation Without Immigrants,” Forbes magazine online August 23, 2023.
 Courtenay Brown, “New Immigration Reality: the economy needs workers,” Axios, April 28, 2024.

Myth # 2: Immigrants vote illegally and change the outcomes of elections.
Election experts agree that there is no evidence at all of widespread voting by non-citizens. To vote in federal, state, and local elections, you must be a U.S. citizen. (A few localities allow non-citizens to vote on local issues, but that is rare.)

• Modern-day fraud is very rare. It would also be irrational: one vote would not be worth the risk of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

 

• However, based on this unsubstantiated claim, voting laws have become even more restrictive. In February 2023, the Brennan Center reported that in the previous year alone, 150 restrictive voting bills and 27 bills on election interference were proposed in various states.

 

• The Associated Press has also reported that non-citizens voting in federal elections isn’t an issue.

Sources:
“Chicken Little in the Voting Booth: The Non-Existent Problem of Non-Citizen ‘Voter Fraud’,” paper by the Immigration Policy Center of the American Immigration Council, October 2012.
Nicholas Riccardi, “Non-citizen voting isn’t an issue in federal elections, regardless of conspiracy theories. Here’s why,” APnews.com, April 12, 2024.
USA.gov website: www.usa.gov/who-can-vote

Myth #3: Undocumented immigrants are a drain on government resources.
Contrary to the idea that immigrants drain government resources, both documented and undocumented immigrants actually contribute far more in taxes than they receive in benefits.

• With very few exceptions (e.g., refugees, those granted asylum), only adults who have lawful permanent resident status (green card holders) can qualify for most means-tested federal public programs—but even then, they have to have been here for five years—before they are eligible for means-tested programs such as Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps), and other programs.

 

• Immigrants do not qualify for health exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, although 26 states do provide some state aid through their health insurance programs. (In July, Washington state will allow undocumented immigrants to be covered by Apple Heath, but no federal dollars can be applied. Currently, only 13,000 immigrants are signed up.) States are allowed to make exceptions to the five-year rule for undocumented immigrant children and pregnant women, but that exception is not universal.

 

• What’s more, undocumented immigrants pay billions in taxes. In 2019 alone, the IRS said this amounted about $6 billion. Plus, they pay Social Security taxes, which they are ineligible to claim.

 

• Finally, even when they are qualified, legal immigrants use federal public benefit programs at lower rates than U.S.-born citizens.

 Sources:
National Immigration Forum paper, “Fact Sheet: Immigrants and Public Benefits,” published August 21, 2018.”Immigrants and Medicaid & CHIP,” Healthcare.gov.
 “Undocumented immigrants are paying their taxes today, too,” by Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN.com, April 18, 2023.

Myth #4: Immigrants are criminals who increase crime rates where they settle.
The opposite is true. While a few rare crimes committed by undocumented people may get media attention, immigrants are actually less likely to commit legal offenses than citizens. For example, one study in 2020 that analyzed crime data from Texas, which has a high number of immigrants and tracks immigration status, found:

• U.S. citizens are 2 times as likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times as likely to be charged with drug offenses, and 4 times as likely to be arrested for property crimes, per 100,000 of population. The authors state today that there is no current data contrary to that information.

 

• An article in the Annual Review of Criminology in January 2018 confirmed that cities with more immigrants and their descendants had less, not more crime.

 

• In a 2004 updated study, Stanford economist Ran Abramitzky showed that immigrants have a lower incarceration rate over the last 150 years than American citizens, based on Census data.

Sources:
Michael T. Light, Jinging He, and Jason P. Robey, “Comparing Crime Rates Between Undocumented Immigrants, Legal Immigrants, and Native-Born U.S. Citizens in Texas,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS), Volume 17, December 2020.  
Nick Smith and Cassie Buchman, “U.S. Citizens most likely to be arrested for violent crime,”NewsNation, February 17, 2022.
Krysten Crawford, “The mythical tie between immigration and crime, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), July 21, 2023.
“Graham C. Ousey and Charis E. Kubrin, Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue,” Annual Review of Criminology, January 2018, pages 63-64.
Glenn Kessler, “The truth about illegal immigration and crime,” The Washington Post, February 29, 2024.

​Myth #5: Immigrants are terrorists who would destroy our country.
In fact, most immigrants are ordinary people, many with families, who are desperate, fleeing murderous gangs, war, or other life-threatening conditions.

• As the Cato Institute reported on a survey of crime reports from 1975 to 2022: “The annual chance of an American being murdered in a terrorist attack by a refugee is about 1 in 3 billion.”

 

• An abstract published by the National Institute of Health Online stated, that increased undocumented immigration is not associated with terrorist attacks, radicalization or terrorism prosecutions.

 

• The National Institute of Justice says there have been more nationalistic, militia and white supremacist attacks than any other form of terrorism.

 

• CBS News online reported that although people have been detained at the southern border who are on the terrorist watch list, that includes family members of people affiliated with domestic terrorist groups in their countries, such as guerrilla fighters in Central and South America. [The people that immigrants are fleeing.] Although many people are screened from those watchlists, they are not released without extensive vetting, and they represent only 0.01% of undocumented migrants who attempt to enter each year.

Sources:
“Terrorism and Immigration,” by Alex Nowrasteh, August 22, 2023, publication by the Cato Institute, page 21.
Michael T. Light and Julia T. Thomas, “Undocumented Immigration and Terrorism: Is there a Connection?” Social Science Research, Volume 94, February 2021.
Steven Chermak, Matthew DeMichele, Jeff Gruenewald, Michael Jensen, Raven Lewis, and Basia E. Lopez, “What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism,” National Institute of Justice Journal, January 4, 2024.
“Are terrorists trying to enter the U.S. through the southern border? Here are the facts," CBS News, October 11, 2023.

Myth #6: More immigrants are coming to the U.S. than anywhere else, and they are overwhelming our country.
This myth almost seems true—if you only look at raw numbers. But the nations with the highest numbers are not the ones where migrants represent a large part of the population.  

• In 2020, the U.S. had more migrants than any other country at 51 million—but that represents only about 15.1% of the total population. That’s a much smaller percentage than 24 other countries or territories that have a million or more people.

 

• Globally, migration is rising due to wars, internal conflicts, gangs, and natural disasters,  some caused by the increasing effects of climate change. People that come to the U.S. are not leaving their homes just to pursue “the American dream.”

 

• Asia and Europe have the most international migrants, both continents having more than 85 million each.

Sources:
Anusha Natarajan, Mohamad Moslimani, and Mark Hugo Lopez, “Key facts about recent trends in global migration,” Pew Research Center, December 16, 2022.
Rob Jordan, “How does climate change affect migration?,” Stanford/Doerr School of Sustainability, Stanford University.edu, June 2, 2021. 

Myth #7: The U.S. currently has an open border with Mexico.
If this myth weren’t so serious and harmful, it would be laughable. The U.S. southern border is hardly “open.”

• The U.S. hasn’t had an open border since the 1920s.

 

• The government has quadrupled the number of Border Patrol agents since 1992. Today there are 20,000 of them, as well as many more advanced surveillance systems.

 

• There are very strict requirements to be admitted to the U.S. as either a refugee or an asylum seeker, who has to be a victim of persecution. According to Luis Miranda, Assistant Secretary for Communications with the Department of Homeland Security, 80% of asylum seekers have been deported, expelled, or sent back to Mexico.

​ Sources:
Russell Contreras, “Axios Explains: The myth of a U.S.-Mexico ‘open border,’ ”Axios, October 17, 2023.
Salvador Rivera, “Border Report,” Fox 5 News online, KUSI News, San Diego, February 8, 2024.

Myth #8: Our drug crisis is largely caused by immigrants who bring them into the country.
This myth is often repeated, but nothing could be further from the truth. Data on drug seizures by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents from January 2012 through December 2022, analyzed by Reuters discovered:

• The majority of drugs, including fentanyl, were intercepted at legal points of entry, not at other places along the border.

 

• Data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission shows that 77% of drug traffickers are U.S. citizens.

 

• Even when cartels use “mules” who carry drugs over the border, they look for U.S. citizens who routinely drive back and forth between the U.S. and Mexico, so they are less likely to attract attention. Often these people are addicts themselves, and so are easily coerced.

 
Of course, drugs also enter in maritime and other shipments, international mail, plane luggage, and drones, but the large majority of smugglers (and the consumers) of those drugs are U.S. citizens.

 Sources:
Jackie Botts, “Measuring drug seizures at the southern border: How Reuters analyzed the data?”, Reuters, August 9, 2023.
David J. Bier, “77% of Drug Traffickers Are U.S. Citizens, Not Illegal Immigrants,” Cato Institute blog, July 3,2019.
“Who is sneaking fentanyl across the southern border? Hint: It’s not the migrants,” NPR.org, August 9, 2023.

Myth #9: Immigrants bring diseases into this country, such as the recent measles outbreak.
Epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, in her newsletter of April 11, 2024, says that the data does not support the idea that our recent measles outbreak was caused by immigrants.

• It is overwhelmingly U.S. citizens who travel abroad who bring diseases into our country. For example, in our last big measles year of 2019, 98% of the cases were spread by U.S. citizens who returned home from abroad.

 

• Although there has been an increase in immigrants this year, the majority of cases still involve infections brought in by Americans.

 

• As an aside, Mexico, which is often vilified by some, has a higher vaccination rate than the U.S.

 

• Dr. Paul Spiegel, who directs the Center for Humanitarian Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, says that there is no evidence that immigrants are spreading disease.

Sources:
Katelyln Jetelina, Your Local Epidemiologist, Translating Public Health Science for Everyday Use newsletter, April 11, 2024.
Maggie Fox, “Migrants don’t bring disease: In fact, they help fight it,” NBCnews.com, December 5, 2018.

Myth #10: Today's immigrants do not assimilate into U.S. society as they did in the past.
​When experts compare today’s immigrants with those of the past, their assimilation into U.S. society is very similar.

• Current immigrants are becoming part of American society in the same way as previous immigrants. Just as in the past, even if migrants arrive poor, the next generation is much more successful.

 

• A report by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, state that children of immigrants not only demonstrate upward mobility, they are among those who contribute most to the economy.

 

• Today’s immigrants are also learning English at a rate that is also much the same as previous immigrants, with migrant children becoming fluent by adulthood.

Sources:
Idrees Kahloon, “Economists Love Immigration. Why Do So Many Americans Hate It?,” The New Yorker magazine, June 5, 2023.
Abramitzky, Ran, Leah Boustan, and Katherine Eriksson. 2020. "Do Immigrants Assimilate More Slowly Today Than in the Past?" American Economic Review: Insights, 2 (1): 125-41.

Myth #11: Migrants could just get in line and enter legally as my ancestors did.
Why don’t migrants simply get in line and enter legally? Simply put, because for most there is no line!

• The majority of immigrants are sponsored by family members who are U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, or by employers. Family-based visas are limited to immediate family members and can be affected by quotas, depending on the country migrants are coming from. Wait times can be 20 years or more!* In fiscal year 2022, 58% of green card recipients were family or family-sponsored.  

 

• As noted previously, 80 percent of asylum seekers are turned away or deported.

 

• An undocumented immigrant who is already here has no way of achieving legal status. They cannot apply to change their status. If they leave the country and have not had legal status for more than 180 days but less than a year, they are barred from re-entering the U.S. for three years. If they have had no legal status for more than a year, they are barred for ten years. Thus, even if a visa became available, it wouldn’t help most undocumented immigrants, since they might have to spend ten years away from their families before they could even apply to re-enter.

 

• People who immigrated here in the late 1800s or early 1900s were mostly white Europeans. Back then, if you were mentally sound, not an anarchist, and had no communicable diseases, you could be admitted. Only 1% were denied entry. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and labor laws prohibited Chinese laborers and other Asians from entering. Until the 1920s, however, there were no caps and limitations on immigration. If your ancestors were among those early immigrants, they most likely could not pass today's requirements. 

* For example, Getting a visa for an unmarried adult child of a U.S. naturalized citizen would take an estimated 50 years if they came from Mexico, 16 years if from the Philippines, and 14 years for all other countries. For a married child, the figures would be 161 years, 155 years,
and 33 years. It would take 224 years for the sibling of an adult citizen to get a family-based visa if they were from Mexico.

Sources:
“Why Don’t Immigrants Apply for Citizenship?,” fact sheet from the American Immigration Council, October 7, 2021.
“Did My Family Really Come ‘Legally’?,” fact sheet from the American Immigration Council, August 10, 2016.
Jeanne Batalova, “Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States,” Migration Policy Institute online, March 13, 2024.
Jorge Loweree, "Do Politicians Realize How Difficult and Rare Immigrating to the U.S. Legally Actually Is?," The New York Times, August 14, 2024.

To see the actual statistics on how many immigrants are granted visas,
read this piece in The New York Times.

Think it's easy to get a green card? Play the Green Card Game from the Cato Institute.
(Yes, that Cato Institute--the libertarian think tank that is typically conservative.)