ALBANY — Undocumented immigrants in New York are responsible for $40 billion of the state’s economic output, a new report says.
New York is home to 4.5 million immigrants, about 817,000 of whom are undocumented, according to the report released Thursday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy and the New York-based Fiscal Policy Institute, a union-backed think tank.
Of the undocumented immigrants, 575,000 are in New York City, 107,000 on Long Island, and 111,000 in the Hudson Valley, the report said.
The $40 billion in economic output statewide tied to unauthorized immigrants represents 3% of the state’s Gross Domestic Product, the report says.
That percentage number is higher in certain sectors — 11% in the leisure and hospitality sectors and 9% in agriculture, construction, and the sector that includes nail salons, car washes, dry cleaners, and a cluster of other services.
Nationally, undocumented immigrants annually pay $11.74 billion in state, local sales, excise, property and income taxes. In New York alone, it’s about $1.1 billion. Half of undocumented immigrants file income tax returns using taxpayer identification, rather than social security, numbers.
About the same share have payroll taxes withheld.
The report also estimates that New York’s unauthorized immigrants pay $565 million in sales taxes and related excise taxes, $183 milliion in personal income taxes, and $355 million in porperty taxes.
“A program of mass deportation would not only be a humanitarian disaster, it would also put these substantial economic and tax contributions at risk,” the report said.
The report acknowledges that the estimates “represent a best approximation of the taxes families headed by undocumentedimmigrants likely pay.”
David Dyssegaard Kallick, director of the Fiscal Policy Institute’s Immigration Research Initiative, acknowledged to the Daily News that that “there is a significant margin of error in the estimates” but said that “we’re pretty confident they’re in the right ballpark.”
“Unauthorized immigrants are making a much larger contribution to the New York State economy and to taxes than is generally recognized,” the report said.
State Conservative Party Chairman Michael Long said he does not know whether the report’s numbers are accurate, but argued that claims of mass deportations are just fearmongering.
Long said: “It’s a constant lie that anti-Trump forces constantly keep talking about.There is no talk of any mass deportations. The President has been talking about those who continue to break the law in other ways, whether it’s gang related, theft, drugs. That’s what’s being talked about.”