There are a handful of existing estimates on the number of persons in the United States who lack an immigration status. These persons are often referred to as undocumented immigrants, unauthorized immigrants, or irregular migrants. The four most recent and commonly cited statistics on the size of the unauthorized immigrant population come from:

• the Migration Policy Institute, which has estimated the population at 13.7 million in 20231
• the Center for Migration Studies, which has estimated the population at 11.7 million in 20232
• the Pew Research Center, which has estimated the population at 11 million in 2022, accounting for 3.3% of the total U.S. population and 23% of the total foreign-born population3
• the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which estimated the population at 11.0 million in 20224

Figure A shows all the existing estimates from these four sources as a time series for the years for which they are available. All estimates show a decline in population, which occurred during the years of the Great Recession. The estimates available for 2023 are from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the Center for Migration Studies, which both show an increase in the size of the unauthorized immigrant population since 2022.5

Existing research shows that a significant share of the current unauthorized immigrant population has resided in the United States for many years. A 2024 DHS report found that 79% of unauthorized immigrants—nearly 8 in 10—have resided in the United States since before 2010 for at least a dozen years).6

The Pew Research Center recently reported on the geographic distribution of unauthorized immigrants in the United States and highlighted their top six states of residence:7

• California (1.8 million)
• Texas (1.6 million)
• Florida (1.2 million)
• New York (650,000)
• New Jersey (475,000)
• Illinois (400,000)

The Pew authors also note that unauthorized immigrants have become less geographically concentrated among U.S. states, with the top six states previously accounting for 80% of the unauthorized population in 1990, but only 56% in 2022.8

Notes

1. Jennifer Van Hook, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, and Julia Gelatt, The Unauthorized Immigrant Population Expands amid Record U.S.-Mexico Border Arrivals, Migration Policy Institute, February 2025.

2. Robert Warren, US Undocumented Population Increased to 11.7 Million in July 2023: Provisional CMS Estimates Derived from CPS Data, Center for Migration Studies, September 5, 2024.

3. Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad, “What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2024.

4. Bryan Baker and Robert Warren, Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2018–January 2022, Office of Homeland Security Statistics, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, April 2024.

5. See for example, Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson, New Immigration Estimates Help Make Sense of the Pace of Employment, The Hamilton Project, The Brookings Institution, March 7, 2024; Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, Julia Gelatt, and Jennifer Van Hook, “Diverse Flows Drive Increase in U.S. Unauthorized Immigrant Population,” Commentaries, Migration Policy Institute, July 2024.

6. Bryan Baker and Robert Warren, Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population Residing in the United States: January 2018–January 2022, Office of Homeland Security Statistics, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, April 2024.

7. Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad, “What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2024.

8. Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad, “What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2024.

Table 1, which comes from the Migration Policy Institute,9 shows the top-10 countries of origin for the unauthorized immigrant population in 2023. Forty percent of all unauthorized immigrants hail from Mexico, at 5.5 million out of the total 13.7 million. The share from Mexico has declined over the years, decreasing from 62% in 2010.10

Other top countries of origin are Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador in Central America; Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Ecuador in South America; and the Philippines and India being the top countries of origin outside of the Western Hemisphere.

Table 2, which also comes from the Migration Policy Institute,11 shows the regions of birth of unauthorized immigrants in the United States as of 2023. It shows that more than two-thirds are from Mexico and Central America (68%). There are also 1.7 million unauthorized immigrants from South America; 851,000 from Asia; 504,000 from Europe, Canada, and Oceania combined; 575,000 from the Caribbean; and 415,000 from Africa.

Notes

9. Adapted from Table 2 in Jennifer Van Hook, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, and Julia Gelatt, The Unauthorized Immigrant Population Expands amid Record U.S.-Mexico Border Arrivals, Migration Policy Institute, February 2025.

10. See Table 2 in Jennifer Van Hook, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, and Julia Gelatt, The Unauthorized Immigrant Population Expands amid Record U.S.-Mexico Border Arrivals, Migration Policy Institute, February 2025.

11. Adapted from Table 1 in Jennifer Van Hook, Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, and Julia Gelatt, The Unauthorized Immigrant Population Expands amid Record U.S.-Mexico Border Arrivals, Migration Policy Institute, February 2025.

According to the Pew Research Center, the total number of unauthorized immigrants in the labor force was 8.3 million in 2022, which represented just under 5% of the total U.S. workforce and 3% of the total U.S. population.

Pew notes that unauthorized immigrants are overrepresented in the labor force because “relatively few children or elderly adults” are part of the population, which are “groups that tend not to be in the labor force.”12 The number of unauthorized immigrants in the workforce was 3.6 million in 1995, hitting a peak of 8.3 million in 2008 and 2011, before returning to the high of 8.3 million in 2022.13

The Pew Research Center also has detailed data on the distribution of unauthorized immigrant workers by U.S. state, which show that the states with the highest shares of unauthorized immigrants as a percentage of the total workforce were Nevada at 8.6%, Texas at 8.1%, Florida and New Jersey at 7.5%, and California at 7.2%. The states with the lowest shares of unauthorized immigrants as a share of the workforce were Maine, Montana, Vermont, and West Virginia, which each had a workforce in which less than 1% of all workers were unauthorized immigrants.14

Notes

12. Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad, “What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2024.

13. Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad, “What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2024.

14. See downloadable data table, Unauthorized Immigrants in the Labor Force for States, 2022 [Excel file], Jeffrey S. Passel and Jens Manuel Krogstad, “What We Know About Unauthorized Immigrants Living in the U.S.,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2024.

A 2022 estimate from the Center for Migration Policy’s data tool on the unauthorized immigrant population15 is represented in Table 1 and shows that 74.1% of the unauthorized immigrant population were employed in 2022, with 3.1% unemployed, and 22.8% who were not in the labor force at the time.

The major occupations of employment were services in which 25.5% of unauthorized immigrants were employed; maintenance at 24.8%; management, business, science, and arts at 19.1%; production, transportation, and material moving at 18.3%; and sales and office occupations at 11.3%.

Notes

15. Center for Migration Studies, Estimates of Undocumented and Eligible-to-Naturalize Populations by State [data tool], last visited April 11, 2025. To derive the estimates, the Center for Migration Studies developed a series of statistical procedures based on microdata collected by the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. For more information, see the methodology page, Center for Migration Studies, “About the Data: Estimates of the Undocumented Population,” last visited April 11, 2025. 

There is a broad consensus that immigration reduces overall budget deficits (or the present value of the long-run net fiscal impact of immigration overall, at all levels of government combined, is small but positive). As detailed in a 2017 National Academies of Sciences report and related research, the net effect is positive over the lifetimes of immigrants, their children, and grandchildren.16

The long-run fiscal impact of immigration overall at the federal level is strongly positive; however, without proper support, there can be negative impacts at the state and local levels, particularly in the short term. There is also a clear understanding that while the negative state and local impacts are largely concentrated in the states and localities that receive most of the new immigrants, the federal impact is shared evenly across the nation.

This set of facts strongly suggests that small policy changes that smooth out the fiscal costs and benefits better across levels of government and geographies can lead to win-win outcomes. For example, federal grants—particularly for state and local budget stress related to immigration flows (like K–12 education)—could be increased. The federal government already transfers nearly $1 trillion every year to state and local governments through a wide array of programs. Increasing the allocation of some of these to share the federal fiscal benefits of immigration more widely would be a trivial matter in economic terms but could make a major impact on states and localities.

If we examine just the net fiscal impact of unauthorized immigrants, even this is positive, despite the fact that lacking work authorization also means being trapped in low-wage work and being unable to adequately assert one’s labor and employment rights. A prime reason the net contribution is, nonetheless, positive is that many unauthorized immigrants pay income taxes and have Social Security taxes withheld yet are generally ineligible for government benefits and services.17 A better solution would be an immigration reform that granted work authorization, which would allow many people to rise to higher-paid jobs and increase both tax revenues and eligibility for benefits by this population.

There are some exceptions to this rule, such as when unauthorized immigrant children receive public K–12 education. Some states also allow unauthorized immigrants to attend state colleges at in-state tuition rates. But education spending delivers high social rates of return generally. Including the benefits of this investment in education would make the net cost of providing public education to all children (including unauthorized immigrants) much smaller or even negative. Some forms of public spending on education even have net positive fiscal benefits over the long run.18

Despite being ineligible for most government benefits and services, unauthorized immigrants still pay taxes. In the most recent study, unauthorized immigrants paid just under $100 billion in federal, state, and local taxes, with just under $60 billion of these going to the federal government.19 All pay sales taxes in states that have such taxes and property taxes either directly if they own a home or wrapped up in rent if they are renters. Additionally, most unauthorized immigrant workers also pay payroll and income taxes. The Social Security Administration estimates that 75% of unauthorized immigrants are on formal payrolls, using Social Security numbers that were not issued to them.20 Many others are misclassified as independent contractors and, therefore, pay their taxes directly.

Unauthorized immigrants also pay into Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance via automatic payroll deductions, but most will never be able to claim these benefits. In 2005, it was estimated that unauthorized immigrants paid about $7 billion per year in Social Security taxes that they will never be able to reclaim.21 A more recent estimate comes from the former chief actuary of the Social Security Administration who estimated in 2014 that unauthorized immigrant workers pay an annual net contribution of $12 billion to the Social Security Trust Fund.22

Unauthorized immigrants are also unlikely to receive any income credits available through the tax code or a tax refund if they overpaid in their regular payroll withholdings. The Tax Policy Center estimates that 78% of American households that earned less than $33,000 did not owe any federal income taxes in 2011.23 Many low-income taxpayers only paid marginal amounts if they owed anything. Because of their low income levels, most unauthorized immigrants would likely fall into one of these categories. A significant portion of unauthorized immigrants file taxes using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs),24 which generally makes them ineligible for most federal income tax credits (though they would be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit). Further, many unauthorized immigrants don’t file tax returns at all because they fear being detected for lacking status and being deported. If they don’t file tax returns, they are never refunded the money that was automatically withheld from their paychecks.

If today’s unauthorized immigrants were given the opportunity to gain legal status and a path to citizenship, we could expect several changes. With work authorization, they would earn higher wages and make employment gains.25 That would result in higher tax revenues. There would be a higher rate of filing tax returns if the fear of deportation were removed and people were more comfortable providing information to the government. At the same time, this population would become eligible for benefits from which they are currently excluded. In other words, they would become like all other Americans, paying what they owed in taxes and getting the benefits they are eligible for.

Notes

16. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration, National Academies Press, 2017.

17. See for example, Jordan Rau, “Immigrants Contribute More To Medicare Than They Take Out, Study Finds,” KFF Health News, May 29, 2013.

18. Robert Lynch and Kavya Vaghul, The Benefits and Costs of Investing in Early Childhood Education: The Fiscal, Economic, and Societal Gains of a Universal Prekindergarten Program in the United States, 2016–2050, The Washington Center for Equitable Growth, December 2, 2015.

19. Carl Davis, Marco Guzman, and Emma Sifre, Tax Payments by Undocumented Immigrants, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), July 2024.

20. Eduardo Porter, “Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security with Billions,” New York Times, April 5, 2005.

21. Eduardo Porter, “Illegal Immigrants Are Bolstering Social Security with Billions,” New York Times, April 5, 2005.

22. Roy Germano, “Unauthorized Immigrants Paid $100 Billion into Social Security over Last Decade,” Vice News, August 4, 2014; Nina Roberts, “Undocumented Immigrants Quietly Pay Billions into Social Security and Receive No Benefits,” Marketplace, January 28, 2019.

23. Tax Policy Center, “T11-0176: Baseline Distribution of Tax Units That Pay No Income Tax by Cash Income Percentile; Current Law, 2011,” July 13, 2011.

24. See for example, Nina Bernstein, “Tax Returns Rise for Immigrants in U.S. Illegally,” New York Times, April 16, 2007.

25. See discussion in Daniel Costa, Josh Bivens, Ben Zipperer, and Monique Morrissey, The U.S. Benefits from Immigration but Policy Reforms Needed to Maximize Gains: Recommendations and a Review of Key Issues to Ensure Fair Wages and Labor Standards for All Workers, Economic Policy Institute, October 4, 2024.

Unauthorized immigrants are, by and large, ineligible for public support and social insurance programs because of their immigration status. They are excluded, for example, from such programs as non-emergency Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and most housing assistance programs. Unauthorized immigrants are also ineligible for subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and cannot purchase insurance through the ACA Marketplace (i.e., exchanges).

Under current federal law, the general rule is that even lawful permanent residents (green card holders) must wait five years before using most public benefits.26 There are a few narrow exceptions to this rule, which allow immigrants to be eligible for certain benefits regardless of immigration status; those programs include emergency Medicaid (if otherwise ineligible for their state’s Medicaid program), programs that provide immunizations and/or treatment of communicable disease symptoms, and school breakfast and lunch programs.27 Under federal law, all children have equal access to public education at the elementary and secondary level, regardless of their immigration status or that of their parents.

Similarly, at the state and local level, unauthorized immigrants are generally ineligible for government benefits, contracts, licenses, grants, and loans, although exceptions similar to the federal ones apply, for example, for immunization and treatment of communicable diseases. However, some states have created programs to fill some of these gaps, with some key examples being “excluded worker” programs to provide unemployment insurance to workers without an immigration status28 created during the COVID-19 pandemic. Some states also extend health care benefits to undocumented immigrants who meet other eligibility requirements.29

Notes

26. For a comprehensive review of eligibility of for public benefits by immigration status, see Valerie Lacarte, Julia Gelatt, and Ashley Podplesky, Immigrants’ Eligibility for U.S. Public Benefits: A Primer, Migration Policy Institute, January 2024.

27. For more background, see Tanya Broder and Gabrielle Lessard, “Overview of Immigrant Eligibility for Federal Programs” National Immigration Law Center, May 1, 2024.

28. See for example, New York State, “Nearly $30 Million in Final Excluded Workers Fund Payments to Be Sent to New Yorkers in Need,” NY Department of Labor, December 23, 2022, and for more background see National Employment Law Project, “Excluded Worker Programs,” Policy and Data Brief, November 14, 2023.

29. See for example, Kristen Hwang, “California Expands Health Insurance to All Eligible Undocumented Adults,” CalMatters, December 28, 2023 (updated January 19, 2024).

Deporting the entire unauthorized immigrant population would require astronomical direct resources and costs,30 and even aside from the additional humanitarian concerns, it would disrupt and hurt the economy and the jobs situation in the United States.31

It would cause unnecessary mass suffering if the United States were to forcibly separate the estimated 28.2 million people (1 out of every 12 U.S. residents) who live in mixed-status households, which include 11.3 million U.S. citizens. And it would be impossible to conduct this kind of massive and intrusive police action without spillover effects on families and communities far beyond just those who are unauthorized.

In terms of the costs, we should recall that over the past decade, the U.S. government has already appropriated huge sums of money for immigration enforcement—between $20 and $30 billion per year33 (mostly to fund two agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection). The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, nevertheless, noted in 2010 that it believed that the amount Congress appropriates to it is sufficient to remove approximately 400,000 unauthorized immigrants per year34 (about 3.6% of the total population of 11 million at the time). An analysis by Robert Shapiro in May 2024 attempted to calculate the total cost for a mass deportation program, finding that “[u]sing the latest DHS estimates, the taxpayer costs to deport 11 million people would come to $265 billion—without including their American children or the costs to build and maintain large detention camps.”35 The American Immigration Council also estimated a mass deportation program would cost at least $315 billion.36

There would also be devastating short- and long-term costs in terms of jobs and income. A group of researchers recently estimated the impact of deportations that took place through the Secure Communities program, a county-based immigration enforcement program. They found that the program had a negative impact on employment (i.e., it reduced employment) for U.S.-citizen workers, regardless of their skill level.37 In terms of concrete jobs numbers, one economist noted that their results “impl[ied] that for every one million unauthorized immigrant workers seized and deported from the United States, 88,000 US native workers were driven out of employment.”38

Mass deportations could also have a negative impact on wages and salaries. The aforementioned analysis by Shapiro found that a “mass deportation program could depress national wage and salary income by $317.2 billion or 2.7 percent of labor income in 2023.”39 The impact on certain key industries would also be devastating. For example, roughly half of all crop farmworkers are unauthorized. Deporting them would leave U.S. farmers with too few workers, endangering the nation’s food supply. Overall, it is clear that deporting millions of people will shrink the economy, which will have a negative impact on all workers.

While mass deportation would entail huge costs and likely zero benefits, multiple studies have shown that there are large economic benefits if we regularize the unauthorized immigrant population by providing them with a permanent immigration status and a path to citizenship—to the tune of hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars.40 Regularization will create jobs, raise wages, and improve labor standards for all workers.

And it’s also important to understand that while unauthorized immigrant workers add to the supply of labor, they also consume goods and services, thereby generating economic activity and creating jobs. One way to think of this is to remember that the labor force is growing all the time, and that’s fine because the economy expands too. We all understand this intuitively; that’s why we don’t worry when new graduates enter the labor force. We know those new graduates pay rent and buy food, cars, and clothes. By the same token, unauthorized immigrants are not just workers; they are also consumers. We could remove them, which would indeed reduce the number of workers, but it would also reduce the jobs created by the economic activity they generate. The right choice is to regularize the status of unauthorized immigrants who are already here, so they can continue to help the country realize its economic potential.

Notes

30. American Immigration Council, Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy, October 2, 2024.

31. A deportation is formally known as a “removal,” and the terms are often used interchangeably.

32. Phillip Connor, “28 Million People, Including Nearly 20 Million Latinos, Are at Risk of Family Separation,” FWD.US (blog post), October 24, 2024.

33. Daniel Costa, Josh Bivens, Ben Zipperer, and Monique Morrissey, The U.S. Benefits from Immigration but Policy Reforms Needed to Maximize Gains: Recommendations and a Review of Key Issues to Ensure Fair Wages and Labor Standards for All Workers, Economic Policy Institute, October 2024; Daniel Costa, Threatening Migrants and Shortchanging Workers: Immigration Is the Government’s Top Federal Law Enforcement Priority, While Labor Standards Enforcement Agencies Are Starved for Funding and Too Understaffed to Adequately Protect Workers, Economic Policy Institute, December 2022.

34. Marcus Stern, “Director John Morton Explains ICE’s Priorities on Deportation,” ProPublica, September 9, 2010.

35. Robert J. Shapiro, “Trump’s Plans for Mass Deportation Would Be an Economic Disaster,” Washington Monthly, May 21, 2024.

36. American Immigration Council, Mass Deportation: Devastating Costs to America, Its Budget and Economy, October 2, 2024.

37. Chloe N. East, Philip Luck, Hani Mansour, and Andrea Velasquez, “The Labor Market Effects of Immigration Enforcement,” IZA DP no. 11486, IZA Institute of Labor Economics, April 2018.

38. Michael A. Clemens, “Trump’s Proposed Mass Deportations Would Backfire on US Workers,” Realtime Economics, Peterson Institute for International Economics, March 6, 2024.

39. Robert J. Shapiro, “Trump’s Plans for Mass Deportation Would Be an Economic Disaster,” Washington Monthly, May 21, 2024.

40. See for example, Giovanni Peri and Reem Zaiour, Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants Would Boost U.S. Economic Growth, Center for American Progress, June 14, 2021; Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda, Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform, Center for American Progress, January 7, 2010; Congressional Budget Office, “S. 744, Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,” Cost Estimate, June 18, 2013. See also a broad discussion of this literature in Daniel Costa, Josh Bivens, Ben Zipperer, and Monique Morrissey, The U.S. Benefits from Immigration but Policy Reforms Needed to Maximize Gains: Recommendations and a Review of Key Issues to Ensure Fair Wages and Labor Standards for All Workers, Economic Policy Institute, October 2024.

The best solution—and the only durable one—for the unauthorized immigrant population is for Congress to pass legislation that regularizes the status of unauthorized immigrants by allowing them to adjust to lawful permanent resident status (in other words, provide them with a path to citizenship) and for the president to sign it. Only Congress has the power to provide a permanent immigration status to an individual or a group of individuals; it cannot be granted by the executive branch alone.

However, the executive branch does have a number of options to protect unauthorized immigrants from deportation through various forms of administrative relief. Because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has limited resources to detain and remove individuals who lack a lawful immigration status, DHS can determine that a particular individual is not a priority for an enforcement action. For those who are low priorities, the administration can extend temporary relief that affords a measure of safety to immigrants who don’t have criminal records and are long-term residents of the United States, or whose presence benefits the United States, or who have long resided in and/or have strong family ties to the United States for example. The forms of temporary protection include work authorization, which can be critical to reducing workplace exploitation, thus benefitting all workers in industries in which immigrants are concentrated. They also allow DHS to use its limited enforcement resources on persons who pose the greatest threats to the security of the United States.

One form of temporary immigration relief is deferred action, which is a discretionary determination to postpone the deportation of an individual who would otherwise be subject to removal. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) can grant deferred action as an act of prosecutorial discretion, as it is based on the executive branch’s discretion to enforce the law. While individuals with deferred action are considered to be lawfully present in the United States during the period of deferred action, it does not confer upon them any lawful immigration status. Individuals who have been granted deferred action are eligible to apply for an Employment Authorization Document (EAD).

Under the parole provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Secretary of DHS also has discretionary authority allowing DHS to permit someone who does not otherwise have a valid immigration status to enter or reside in the United States temporarily for urgent humanitarian reasons or when the entry is determined to be for significant public benefit. Three DHS agencies have parole authority: USCIS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. While parole gives the recipient either permission to reside in or enter the United States—known as “parole-in-place” for persons already in the United States—it is not considered a formal admission to the United States. Parolees, like individuals with deferred action, are eligible to apply for an EAD.

Another important form of immigration relief that is determined by the executive branch but authorized by U.S. law is Temporary Protected Status (TPS). The Secretary of Homeland Security consults with the Secretary of State to assess if a particular nation warrants a TPS designation, often for cases of ongoing armed conflict or environmental disaster, as specified by law. A foreign national from a country designated for TPS who arrived prior to the designation is eligible to register for TPS for a period up to 18 months at a time, giving them protection from removal, as well as work authorization eligibility, allowing them to work for as long as the TPS designation is in place.

There is also a blanket form of administrative immigration relief that can been provided for humanitarian purposes, known as Deferred Enforced Departure (DED). DED is similar to TPS but instead of being authorized by statute, DED designations of a country derive from the president’s foreign policy authority, and there are no explicit criteria for making a determination, although DED has normally been used in situations of war, civil unrest, or natural disasters in foreign nations. Persons who qualify under a DED designation are generally eligible to apply for an Employment Authorization Document allowing them to work.

All persons in the United States have—at least on paper—basic labor and employment rights under U.S. law, which in theory, should protect them from lawbreaking employers. However, the extent to which those rights are able to be exercised and the extent to which they are enforceable in practice depends very much on immigration status because of the power that employers have over workers vis-à-vis that immigration status and because of how employers can exploit that power. If workers lack a regular immigration status or only have a temporary one that employers can control (for instance, through a temporary work visa), they can use the fear of retaliation and deportation against workers to underpay them, not provide required safety equipment, or break other workplace laws.

However, having a regular immigration status with a work permit—or better yet, a permanent immigration status like a green card—and the rights that accompany it, allow workers to have workplace rights and exercise them in practice. That, in turn, leads to higher wages and improved labor standards. There is a growing body of literature examining the link between immigration status and workplace rights, and on the impact that immigration status can have on wages and labor standards. This literature is discussed in more depth in EPI’s 2024 report on immigration,41 but below are some examples of the impact that gaining a regular immigration status can have on wages and working conditions:

• In a 2021 study, Peri and Zaiour found that a legalization program that led to a green card and citizenship for all unauthorized immigrants would, in five years, lead to a wage gain of 10%, amounting to $4,300 per year. They then calculated that if all those who earned a green card became naturalized citizens five years later, they would see an increase in their annual wages of 32.4%, amounting to an increase of $14,000 per year.42
• Pastor and Scroggins found in 2012 that citizenship would boost individual earnings of workers by 8% to 11%, “leading to a potential $21–45 billion increase in cumulative earnings over ten years that will have ripple effects on the national economy.”43
• Smith, Kramer, and Singer, in a 1996 report conducted for the U.S. Department of Labor, found that after four or five years of gaining a green card, the real hourly wages of persons who had their immigration status regularized increased on average by 15.1% (13.2% for men and 20.5% for women).44
• A 2012 paper by Mukhopadhyay and Oxborrow looked at college-educated migrant workers on temporary H-1B visas. They found that “H-1B workers are paid less than native workers” and that the wage gain associated with obtaining an employment-based green card was $11,860 per year.45
• A 2024 survey of recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), conducted by Wong et al. and published by the Center for American Progress, showed that DACA and the work permit and temporary status it grants led to 59.1% of respondents moving to a job with better pay, 47.3% moving to a job with better working conditions, 47.5% moving to a job that “better fits [their] education and training,” 57.3% moving to a job with health insurance or other benefits, and 19.6% of respondents obtaining professional licenses.46
• Wong et al. also measured the impact of DACA and work permits on wages, finding that “[d]ata from the past nine years show that DACA has had a significant and positive effect on wages: Recipients’ average hourly wage more than doubled from $11.92 to $31.52 per hour—an increase of 164.4 percent—after receiving DACA.”47

Notes

41. See discussion in Daniel Costa, Josh Bivens, Ben Zipperer, and Monique Morrissey, The U.S. Benefits from Immigration but Policy Reforms Needed to Maximize Gains: Recommendations and a Review of Key Issues to Ensure Fair Wages and Labor Standards for All Workers, Economic Policy Institute, October 2024.

42. Giovanni Peri and Reem Zaiour, Citizenship for Undocumented Immigrants Would Boost U.S. Economic Growth, Center for American Progress, June 14, 2021.

43. Manuel Pastor and Justin Scoggins, Citizen Gain: The Economic Benefits of Naturalization for Immigrants and the Economy, Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, University of Southern California, December 2012.

44. Shirley J. Smith, Roger G. Kramer, and Audrey Singer, Characteristics and Labor Market Behavior of the Legalized Population Five Years Following Legalization, U.S. Department of Labor, 1996.

45. Sankar Mukhopadhyay and David Oxborrow, “The Value of an Employment-Based Green Card,” Demography 49: 219–237, February 2012.

46. Tom K. Wong, Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, Diana Pliego, Karen Fierro Ruiz, Silva Mathema, Trinh Q. Truong, and Rosa Barrientos-Ferrer, 2023 Survey of DACA Recipients Highlights Economic Advancement, Continued Uncertainty amid Legal Limbo, Center for American Progress, March 25, 2024.

47. Tom K. Wong, Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, Diana Pliego, Karen Fierro Ruiz, Silva Mathema, Trinh Q. Truong, and Rosa Barrientos-Ferrer, 2023 Survey of DACA Recipients Highlights Economic Advancement, Continued Uncertainty amid Legal Limbo, Center for American Progress, March 25, 2024.

The most rigorous work on the effect of immigration on wages finds extremely modest effects for native-born workers, including those with low levels of education. A review by Giovanni Peri of more than 270 estimates from 27 published studies found that the average effect of immigration on native-born wages is essentially zero.48

Two-thirds of these studies were clustered around zero, finding small positive or small negative effects. The comprehensive National Academies of Science review from 2017 found that “when measured over a period of more than 10 years, the impact of immigration on the wages of natives overall is very small.”49 A recent study by Alessandro Caiumi and Giovanni Peri found even more positive effects, with immigration raising the wages of the average U.S.-born worker, even those with lower levels of education.50

There are several reasons why immigration does not significantly depress U.S.-born workers’ wages at the macro level. One is that while immigration increases the supply of labor available to employers, it does not necessarily push down market wages because immigration also increases the demand for goods and services, as immigrants purchase food and housing, raising the overall demand for labor. Capital investment adjusts to the change in population, reducing the possibility of negative effects on average wages.

Figure A shows estimates from Caiumi and Peri of the effect on wages by education level for U.S.-born workers stemming from immigration flows from 2000–2022.51 The estimates are very small, but positive: Over more than two decades, immigration has raised the average U.S.-born worker’s wage by 0.8%. Workers with a high school diploma or less education saw slightly larger increases in the range of 2.8% to 3.2%. The estimated impact for college-educated workers is slightly negative, but its effect translates into less than 4 cents per hour over more than two decades.52

It is important to note that the above results are for U.S.-born workers only. Previous research by Ottaviano and Peri (from 2012) showed that wage effects of larger immigration flows were more negative for immigrant workers who already resided in the United States.53 This is likely still true,54 as newly arriving immigrants are more likely to possess skills that are similar to those of previous immigrant arrivals. This fact reinforces our emphasis that immigration policies must ensure that immigrant workers arrive in the United States with full labor and workplace rights.

Moreover, because these studies assess immigration at the macro level, they may obscure important differentials in impact based on the immigration status of workers. For example, a recent EPI report discusses the impact of immigration status on wages and working conditions.55 EPI has also published research that demonstrates how work visa programs may permit employers to underpay migrant workers relative to average wage rates, and there is evidence that industries with high concentrations of unauthorized immigrant workers also experience high rates of wage theft and other violations that can undermine standards more broadly.56

Notes

48. Giovanni Peri, “Do Immigrant Workers Depress the Wages of Native Workers?” IZA World of Labor 42: 1–10, May 2014.

49. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, The Economic and Fiscal Consequences of Immigration, National Academies Press, 2017.

50. Alessandro Caiumi and Giovanni Peri, “Immigration’s Effect on US Wages and Employment Redux,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper no. 32389, April 2024.

51. Alessandro Caiumi and Giovanni Peri, “Immigration’s Effect on US Wages and Employment Redux,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper no. 32389, April 2024.

52. The mean wage in 2023 for those with a college degree or higher level of education was $47.72, and a 0.075% change translates into less than $0.04 per hour.

53. Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano and Giovanni Peri, “Rethinking the Effect of Immigration on Wages,” Journal of the European Economic Association 10, no. 1: 152–197, February 1, 2012.

54. See for example, Heidi Shierholz, Immigration and Wages: Methodological Advancements Confirm Modest Gains for Native Workers, Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper #255, February 2010.

55. Daniel Costa, Josh Bivens, Ben Zipperer, and Monique Morrissey, The U.S. Benefits from Immigration but Policy Reforms Needed to Maximize Gains: Recommendations and a Review of Key Issues to Ensure Fair Wages and Labor Standards for All Workers, Economic Policy Institute, October 2024.

56. See for example, Daniel Costa and Ron Hira, H-1B Visas and Prevailing Wage Levels: A Majority of H-1B Employers—Including Major U.S. Tech Firms—Use the Program to Pay Migrant Workers Well Below Market Wages, Economic Policy Institute, May 2020; Ron Hira and Daniel Costa, New Evidence of Widespread Wage Theft in the H-1B Visa Program: Corporate Document Reveals How Tech Firms Ignore the Law and Systematically Rob Migrant Workers, Economic Policy Institute, December 2021; Annette Bernhardt et al., Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America’s Cities, Center for Urban Economic Development, National Employment Law Project, and UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, September 2009.

To the extent that there are challenges with respect to the nexus of immigration and wages, it is not related to the scale of immigration flows, nor to the characteristics of immigrants, but instead from employers who take advantage of migrant and immigrant workers who lack an immigration status or only have a temporary or precarious status. One need look no further than the landmark study and survey of 4,300 workers in three major cities that found that unauthorized immigrants were more than twice as likely to be victims of wage theft for minimum wage violations than U.S.-born citizens (37.1% to 15.6%).57 Further, the study found that an astounding 84.9% of unauthorized immigrants were not paid the overtime wages they worked for and were legally entitled to.

Employers also take advantage of temporary work visa programs in which workers have limited rights and are tied to one employer.58 Immigration policy with respect to work visas often intentionally gives employers “monopsony power” over workers—tying workers to a single employer and short-circuiting their ability to shop around for better jobs.59 This monopsony power prevents migrants with work visas from getting better jobs and raising their wages, which can have negative spillover effects on U.S.-born workers in the same sectors.

A useful framework for thinking about this is that any situation where workers’ individual bargaining power is reduced is going to put downward pressure on their wages, and therefore, also on the wages of workers in similar occupations and industries. (See more discussion about this in the previous subsection.) The simple policy solution for this is to provide legal status to unauthorized immigrants and to provide a quick path to a permanent status to those who only have a temporary or precarious status. Doing so will allow all immigrant workers to have full workplace rights and hold lawbreaking employers accountable, as well as to more easily join and form unions without fear of retaliation.

To explain further, migrants employed in temporary work visa programs who don’t have the legal right to change employers have greatly reduced bargaining power. If their employer violates their rights and breaks the law, they have very little recourse to hold their employers accountable. If these workers are fired, they become deportable and lose their right to work and remain in the United States. Additionally, some “prevailing” wage rules in temporary work visa programs often allow employers to pay migrants a lower wage than the market rate.

It’s a similar story for unauthorized immigrants. They face real and practical constraints on their bargaining power and labor and employment rights. For example, if they complain about workplace safety violations or about being paid less than the minimum wage, an employer can fire them or threaten them with deportation.

For both groups of workers, their weak bargaining position affects the wages and working conditions of all workers—both native- and foreign-born—in the occupations in which they are employed. Degrading wages and working conditions for one group drags them down for all groups. Granting a permanent immigration status and workplace rights to these workers, however, will raise wages and improve conditions, not just for the workers themselves, but also the native-born workers who work alongside them.

Notes

57. Annette Bernhardt et al., Broken Laws, Unprotected Workers: Violations of Employment and Labor Laws in America’s Cities, Center for Urban Economic Development, National Employment Law Project, and UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, 2009.

58. For more background, see Daniel Costa, Employers Increase Their Profits and Put Downward Pressure on Wages and Labor Standards by Exploiting Migrant Workers, Economic Policy Institute, August 2019.

59. Bivens and Shierholz broadly define “monopsony power” as “the leverage enjoyed by employers to set their workers’ pay.” See Josh Bivens and Heidi Shierholz, What Labor Market Changes Have Generated Inequality and Wage Suppression?: Employer Power Is Significant but Largely Constant, Whereas Workers’ Power Has Been Eroded by Policy Actions, Economic Policy Institute, December 2018. See also Eric M. Gibbons et al., “Monopsony Power and Guest Worker Programs,” IZA Institute of Labor Economics, Discussion Paper no. 12096, January 2019.