The Truth About Immigration
Combating myths in an era of intensified attacks
Since Trump’s return to office in January, his administration has unleashed an aggressive wave of anti-immigrant attacks—from mass deportations and militarized borders to shuttered asylum programs, anti-immigrant rhetoric, and policies that are intensifying across the political spectrum. While Trump’s rhetoric is more overtly hostile, already promising consequences for sanctuary cities, targeting immigrants has been a bipartisan effort; the Biden administration deported over four million people and maintained many policies from Trump’s first term. In this climate of escalating attacks on immigrant communities, it’s crucial to examine and debunk the persistent myths used to justify these policies and manufacture consent. From false claims about immigrants stealing jobs and draining public resources to inflammatory rhetoric about crime and border “invasions,” these myths divide workers and obscure how both parties’ advance policies that create and worsen migration crises. By understanding the truths that these myths conceal, we can better unite in the fight against exploitation.
Common myths vs. reality
Myth 1: Immigrants are “stealing” jobs from U.S.-born workers
Reality: Research shows that immigrants typically fill positions that employers struggle to fill with U.S.-born workers. This includes both high-skill jobs in technology and science, as well as labor-intensive work like agriculture and eldercare. Two major trends—higher levels of education and an aging population—have resulted in fewer U.S.-born workers willing or available to take low-paying jobs. Across all industries and occupations, immigrants who are naturalized citizens and noncitizens are outnumbered by workers born in the United States.
Undocumented immigrants make up only about five percent of the U.S. workforce, primarily in service, farming, and construction jobs. Employers hyper-exploit undocumented workers by paying lower wages, denying benefits, and ignoring worker-safety laws, even though all workers deserve equal protections, benefits, and fair wages, regardless of their immigration status. There’s deep hypocrisy in how the state aggressively criminalizes and deports undocumented workers while turning a blind eye to the employers who knowingly hire and exploit them. The solution is not to blame immigrant workers but to ensure that all workers have full labor rights and protections under the law.
The myth that immigrants “steal jobs” serves the interests of the rich and powerful by dividing workers against each other, preventing workers from uniting against their common exploitation. When employers can threaten undocumented workers with deportation and deny them basic rights, it drives down wages and working conditions for all workers. So, while U.S. citizens can benefit from relatively low prices on food and other goods produced by immigrant labor, this comes at the cost of worker exploitation. The capitalist state maintains this system by criminalizing immigrant workers while protecting the employers who profit from their labor. This creates a permanent underclass of vulnerable workers who can be more easily exploited while pitting native-born and immigrant workers against each other—all to maximize profits for the capitalist class. The real solution lies in workers of all backgrounds uniting to fight exploitation and demand equal rights and protections for all.
Myth 2: Undocumented immigrants don’t pay taxes and burden public resources, including housing
Reality: Undocumented immigrants contribute significantly to public coffers through multiple channels. They pay taxes whenever they buy taxable goods like gas, clothes, or appliances. They contribute to property taxes—a main source of school funding—when buying or renting housing. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that undocumented immigrants pay an estimated $37.3 billion in state and local taxes annually. More than a third of the tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants go toward payroll taxes for benefits that they’ll never receive, like Social Security and Medicare.
Meanwhile, most public benefits are unavailable to undocumented immigrants. They cannot receive welfare, food stamps, Section 8 housing aid, or most other federal assistance. Under the 1996 welfare law, most government programs require proof of documentation. Even immigrants with legal documents must wait more than five years in the United States before becoming eligible.
Politicians often claim that there isn’t enough housing for residents, let alone immigrants. This “housing crisis,” however, is manufactured by capitalism itself. There are currently 28 vacant homes for every one person experiencing homelessness in the U.S. In cities like New York, countless luxury apartments sit empty while people sleep on the streets. The problem isn’t lack of housing—it’s that under capitalism, housing is treated as a commodity for profit rather than a human right. This affects all workers, but immigrants often face the worst conditions due to discrimination and lack of documentation.
Far from being a burden, undocumented immigrants are vital to the U.S. economy. Mass deportation would reduce Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 4.2 percent to 6.8 percent, trillions of dollars lost in a reduction comparable to the Great Recession. Key industries would face severe disruption: construction would lose one in eight workers, agriculture would lose nearly 28 percent of workers in crucial roles, and hospitality would lose one in 14 workers. These losses would trigger widespread unemployment and moreover be catastrophic (an actual burden) to both the U.S. economy and workforce.
Myth 3: There is an “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border
Reality: The rhetoric of “invasion” is deliberately inflammatory and false, designed to justify increased militarization and repression at the border. This language portrays migrants—who are primarily families and workers seeking safety or better lives—as an aggressive force, when in reality they are often fleeing violence and poverty. While border encounters did spike in late 2023, reaching over 300,000 in December, this was driven largely by global economic strains during the pandemic. By January 2024, encounters plummeted to about 176,000, eventually falling to a three-year low.
Trump has weaponized this “invasion” narrative by declaring a national emergency at the southern border on his first day back in office. This declaration enables unprecedented militarization, including deployment of U.S. troops and a recent agreement with Mexico to send 10,000 Mexican troops to police the border. Trump’s designation of cartels as “terrorist organizations” further expands military powers and could justify new interventions south of the border. The massive migration from Central America results from decades of neoliberal policies imposed by U.S. imperialism, keeping the region trapped in cycles of poverty and violence. From military coups to structural adjustment plans through the International Monetary Fund, U.S. policies have transformed Latin America while exacerbating climate degradation and social instability. Both parties have supported these interventionist policies that create the conditions forcing people to flee their homes.
Myth 4: Rising crime rates justify increased policing and deportation of immigrant communities
Reality: The narrative of rising crime and the need for increased policing and deportation is a deliberate fearmongering tactic used to justify state violence against working-class people. While politicians and media outlets stoke panic about violent crime, FBI data shows that from 1990 to 2013, violent crime rates declined 48 percent, and property crime fell 41 percent, even as the immigrant population more than tripled. Additionally, high-immigration areas tend to have lower crime rates. “Sanctuary counties” average 35.5 fewer crimes per 10,000 people compared to non-sanctuary counties. The truth is that not only are immigrants less likely to commit crimes, but there is little evidence to even prove a rise in crime rates.
The targeting of immigrant communities through deportation and police violence is not about public safety—it’s about control and exploitation of immigrants. The same capitalist system that profits from immigrant labor simultaneously uses law enforcement to terrorize these communities.
Immigrants come to this country primarily to work, reunite with family members, or escape dangerous situations—often caused by U.S. imperialism itself. They make up five percent of the workforce and have deep roots in their communities—cooking in restaurants, providing healthcare, fixing infrastructure, building houses, and farming the land. Many haven’t seen their families in their countries of origin for years or decades as they’ve built lives here.
Claims about targeting “violent offenders” are an attempt to divide working people and justify mass deportation. These campaigns themselves create violence by tearing apart families and communities—parents, children, siblings, friends, classmates, and coworkers who have built lives in the United States. About 5.1 million U.S. citizen children live with an undocumented family member. Separating family members would lead to tremendous emotional stress and could also cause economic hardship for many of these mixed-status families who might lose their breadwinners.
The violence comes not from immigrant communities but from the system that tears families apart while protecting the corporate executives who profit from immigrant labor. Rather than accepting narratives that criminalize any section of the working class, we must unite against the capitalist system, which uses police and deportation to control working people.
Myth 5: It’s easy to enter the U.S. legally today, just as it was for
previous generations
Reality: Today’s immigration system is far more complex and restrictive than in the past. For about the first 100 years, the United States maintained an “open immigration system” that allowed any able-bodied immigrant to enter. The biggest obstacle then was simply getting here. And, in fact, it was only in 2003 when the shift occurred where immigration control was placed under the newly created Department of Homeland Security, fundamentally recasting immigration as a “national security” threat rather than a normal part of human movement and social development.
Current immigration policy is highly selective and increasingly hostile to asylum seekers. The Trump administration’s shutdown of the CBP One app—the only way people could apply for U.S. asylum—left hundreds-of-thousands of immigrants stranded at the border with no way to enter legally. Nearly 280,000 people logged into the app daily, and last year nearly one million people had scheduled appointments. With a single executive order, previously scheduled asylum interviews were canceled without recourse, leaving families separated and people stranded thousands of miles from home with nowhere to go.
The legal immigration process is arduous, complicated, and backlogged. Generally, permission to enter and stay requires one of the following: highly specialized skills with a job offer in an understaffed field, proven political persecution, joining close family already here, or winning the green card lottery. For refugees, screening can take 18 to 24 months and involves multiple background checks, fingerprinting, interviews, and health screenings. Many immigrants who arrived in previous generations would not qualify under current rules.
Myth 6: Trump will be “tough” on immigration while Democrats are too “weak” to secure the border
Reality: The attack on immigration is a thoroughly bipartisan project. Under the Biden administration, deportations increased exponentially, with Biden deporting over four million people, five times more than Trump in his first term, using the same Title 42 policy. Both parties have supported militarizing the border, expanding ICE and Border Patrol budgets, and maintaining aggressive deportation policies.
The Democratic Party and Biden administration increasingly tried/are currently trying to prove they are “tougher” on immigration, proposing increased budgets for ICE and Border Patrol, sending troops to the border, and turning away refugees at the border. This escalation of attacks on immigrants by both major parties reveals how immigration enforcement has become increasingly militarized regardless of which party holds power.
The persistence of anti-immigrant furor is deeply tied to the crisis of neoliberalism and the failure of both parties to provide structural solutions to economic problems. Rather than address the root causes—including U.S. imperialism’s role in creating conditions that force people to flee their homes—both parties scapegoat immigrants for social and economic problems. While Trump’s rhetoric may be more openly hostile, the Democrats have increasingly shifted right on immigration, proving they are just as willing to criminalize immigrants and militarize the border. For the working class to improve its standards of living, increase the share of income, and exact from the capitalist class better benefits and working conditions, the best strategy is to reject both parties’ anti-immigrant policies and build solidarity between immigrants and U.S.-born workers within and across borders.
The path forward
These myths and attacks on immigrants mark the beginning of a broader assault on the working class as a whole and the intensification of capitalist exploitation. The resistance emerging against this offensive—from immigrant communities in the streets to teachers and healthcare workers refusing to comply with anti-immigrant orders—provides a blueprint for future struggles against both Trump and the advance of the Far Right.
Capital flows freely across borders while workers face walls and militarized zones. As socialists, we recognize that open borders for all people is not just an ethical imperative but a necessary step toward genuine international worker solidarity. While corporations operate globally without restriction, workers are denied the right to move and work freely, more often than not, out of necessity due to imperial exploitation and violence forcing them to flee their homes. Our struggle for immigrant rights is therefore inseparable from our opposition to the imperialism that drives displacement in the first place. We fight not only for the free movement of people today, but also for a world without borders, a world where borders no longer divide the international working class.
And so, dispelling these persistent myths about immigration is crucial, especially as Trump and the Far Right escalate their xenophobic attacks. These myths serve to divide workers, obscure the real causes of economic hardship, and justify increasingly violent state repression against immigrant communities. By exposing these lies, we can better unite workers across borders to fight for immigrant rights and against the capitalist system that creates and perpetuates these crises.
Rather than allowing xenophobic rhetoric to divide us, workers must unite across borders to protect immigrants’ rights and fight against capitalist exploitation. Only through solidarity between immigrant and U.S.-born workers can we effectively fight back against the politicians and corporations that profit from exploitation while trying to pit workers against each other. The path forward requires rejecting both parties’ anti-immigrant policies and building a movement that fights for full rights and dignity for all workers, regardless of immigration status.
This extends from the protests of immigrant communities in the streets to the teachers and healthcare workers who have stated clearly that they will not comply with orders to criminalize immigrants. As we face increased attacks on democratic rights and growing state repression, these workers must join together to fight for immigrants’ rights, fight for a world without borders, and build working-class power against capitalism.
—Left Voice, February 15, 2025