Our economy would be weaker without immigrants
Making up 21 percent of Texas workforce, they contribute $17.7B to state’s economy
It’s not yet clear how many Houstonians participated in Thursday’s grassrootsy, unofficial “Day without an Immigrant” festivities, which received lots of social media buzz and led a smattering of businesses to close their doors in protest of the Trump administration’s hostile attitude towards immigration.
It’s becoming increasingly clear, however, that the U.S. economy would be weaker if immigration were to be cut off and those living here illegally expelled. Texas would likely feel the impact quite keenly.
Immigrants — about half of whom are undocumented — make up about 21 percent of Texas’ workforce, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Immigrants in the country illegally contributed $17.7 billion to the state’s economic output, a 2006 analysis by the Texas comptroller’s office found, and pay more in taxes to the state than they consume in services.
Nationally, immigrants contribute 3 percent of America’s economic output — a number that would rise if they gained legal status, according to economists, since it would give them access to better job opportunities.
Researchers from the University of Chicago and Harvard Business School found that technology areas with greater involvement from foreign-born inventors generated more patents, suggesting that immigrants contributed more to innovation than U.S.-born citizens.
Of course, it would help to have more data on how immigrants affect the Texas economy and finances. In that spirit, state Sen. Don Huffines , R-Dallas, has filed a bill that would require a biannual accounting of the costs to the state of immigrants.
“Texans deserve a formalized and ongoing process by which we can account for the costs taxpayers bear as a result of the federal government’s failures to secure the border and to provide for a functioning system of legal immigration,” Huffines said.
Huffines is probably right that a functioning system of legal immigration would improve the productivity of immigrants as well as the state’s finances. But even under the status quo, it’s likely that ongoing studies would find immigrants in Texas to be a net benefit, not a cost.