Correcting the Record: Busting the Immigration Myths Trumpeted By Republican Candidates on the 2024 Campaign Trial 

WASHINGTON — As they have done time and time again, Republican candidates will use the spotlight tonight to continue pandering to the MAGA base by spreading intentional misinformation on immigration and relying on nativist fear-mongering. Below are examples of the myths we can anticipate tonight on the debate stage.

MYTH: Undocumented immigrants are a burden to the economy, take Americans’ jobs, and don’t pay taxes.

FACT: Immigrants actively boost our economy and play integral roles in essential sectors. Undocumented immigrants hold a critical percentage of jobs in farming, domestic labor and childcare, and pay billions of dollars in taxes each year.

• Providing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders, farm workers, and essential workers would boost GDP by $1.5 trillion over 10 years, create over 400,000 new jobs, and increase wages for all American workers by $600. Undocumented immigrants would also contribute an added $149 billion of spending power each year if they were U.S. citizens — resulting in an additional $39 billion in combined federal, payroll, state, and local taxes each year.

• TPS-eligible individuals contribute some $22 billion in wages to the U.S. economy each year, and work in more than 600,000 jobs.

• The White House Council of Economic Advisors released a report earlier this year that detailed how increased immigration is a key way to address U.S. labor needs, from supply issues due to an aging working population and decreased birth rates, to the U.S.’s ability to boost innovation and remain competitive in the global market.

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, 69% of undocumented immigrants worked in roles deemed “essential” — and continue to work as farmworkers, domestic workers, and childcare workers, helping to put food on our tables, take care of the elderly and sick, and take care of our children.

• Undocumented immigrants pay billions of dollars in federal taxes annually, between tax returns filed and taxes deducted from paychecks.

MYTH: Democrats and Biden support “open borders.”

FACT: Perhaps one of the GOP’s favorite lines of attack against Democrats, and one readily used by failed GOP candidates during the 2022 midterm cycle, has been found to be plainly false by independent fact-checkers.

• President Biden inherited an immigration system in tatters. The Trump administration cut off legal pathways to citizenship, leaving would-be migrants with fewer lawful methods of entering the country. They cut funding to Central American countries in 2019 as they splurged on an ineffective, costly, incomplete wall.

• Handcuffed by a Congress that refuses to provide the leadership to reform our broken immigration system or to provide the resources needed to deal with a growing post-pandemic surge of migration throughout the Americas, the Biden administration has used just about all the tools available to it. The administration put in place a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy to manage migrants encountered at our border by increasing its personnel capacity to process new arrivals, evaluate asylum requests, and quickly remove those who do not qualify for protection. The Biden administration is also working with countries in the Western hemisphere to address migration, address the root causes, and crack down on cartels and human smugglers. The Biden administration has taken over 400 immigration related executive actions.

• Instead of working with Democrats to manage our borders, a majority of Republicans voted against critical infrastructure funding to modernize ports of entry.

MYTH: Biden’s “open border” policy encourages the inflow of drugs like fentanyl into our communities.

FACT: Right-wing elected officials and other bad actors use this empirically false claim — that immigrants bring drugs into the country — to divide us and sow distrust towards immigrants.

• Most fentanyl–90%–is seized at official and legal ports of entry, not between them, and most traffickers are American citizens. Immigrants accounted for less than 9 percent of fentanyl trafficking convictions in FY21, compared to more than 86% for American citizens.

MYTH: Americans want a tough “crackdown” on immigration.

FACT: Sixty-three percent of Americans support humane immigration policies and want a balanced approach that incorporates border management and pathways to citizenship for the undocumented.

• A popular approach to immigration with voters from both parties includes increasing border security and policies that provide pathways to citizenship for Dreamers and other eligible immigrants.

• Seventy-six percent of voters want a way for Dreamers to gain legal status and a pathway to citizenship, and 64% support the Biden administration using its Temporary Protected Status (TPS) authority.

• Extremist immigration policies proposed by Governors Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott are largely viewed as “going too far” — putting these kinds of inhumane approaches to immigration far outside the mainstream.

• A recent bipartisan Univision poll found that a majority of Latino voters (77%) support creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Bottomline: Republicans are more interested in scoring political points than in pursuing bipartisan solutions. GOP leaders focus their efforts on exploiting the issue for political theater; opposing solutions, endangering lives, spewing baseless lies, and ultimately creating division instead of working towards practical solutions the majority of Americans support.

As the nation approaches 2024, it is imperative that our leaders focus on delivering for our nation and for its immigrant communities. Voters want policies that prioritize the dignity of immigrants and boost our economy— not the cruelty and extremism on offer from Republican candidates for president.

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The Immigration Hub is a national organization dedicated to advancing fair and just immigration policies through strategic leadership, innovative communications strategies, legislative advocacy and collaborative partnerships.