Title: Myths and facts about immigration to the United States - RationalWiki
Headings: Myths and facts about immigration to the United States
Myths and facts about immigration to the United States
Contents
The myths
"Illegal immigrants do not pay taxes"
"Immigrants come here to get 'welfare'"
"Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries"
"Immigrants take jobs and opportunities away from Americans"
"Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy"
"Immigrants don’t want to learn English or become Americans"
"Most immigrants cross the border illegally"
"Weak U.S. border enforcement has led to high levels of illegal immigration"
Illegal immigrants are the source of many communicable diseases
"Illegal immigrants cause crime"
"The government is not enforcing existing immigration laws"
Problems that arise when blanket deportation is attempted
In a nutshell
See also
External links
References

Content: The largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with the lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth, however there was no welfare state at that time and only minimal regulation of the economy. Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers, and foreign-born students fill seats in graduate programs in U.S. universities. In Silicon Valley by 2003, companies founded by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs. By 2012, nearly 15 percent of start-ups were founded by entrepreneurs native to India. Illegal immigrants, as well as legal immigrants with little job skills or language skills often take the work seen by most Americans as "beneath them." Janitorial services, crop pickers and garbage collectors need workers, and they do not find them from high-school-educated, English-speaking citizens. As a demonstration of this fact, in Georgia, a 2011 crackdown on illegal immigrants caused many to be deported and more to flee the state. This caused a shortage of labor on the state's farms, indicating that illegal immigrants in that state do not compete very much with Americans for jobs. "Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy"
Immigrants actually wield considerable economic power. In 2014, there were 8.7 million foreign-born homeowners, and immigrants contributed $32.9 billion into the Medicare trust versus the -$68.7 billion deficit generated by natural-born Americans.