Look at undocumented immigrants keeping New York great:
Undocumented immigrants contribute about $40 billion a year to New York state's gross domestic product, according to a new report.
Unauthorized immigrants are about 5 percent of the labor force in the state, are responsible for 3 percent of the state's economic output and pay more than $1 billion a year in state and local taxes, the Fiscal Policy Institute research said.
The director of the Institute's Immigration Research Initiative said that if undocumented immigrants were allowed to work legally, the state would stand to gain another $247 million in taxes a year:
"That's partly because they would have better jobs," he said, "and it's partly because now, the estimate is about half of all undocumented immigrants are filing income tax returns. If they had legal status, all of them would file."
Donald Trump has never had a problem with exploiting immigrant labor—the undocumented “Polish Brigade” helped construct his crown jewel, Trump Tower, in 1979—but he instead prefers to demonize immigrants as both job-stealers and welfare-moochers, depending on the day of the week (that kind of talk doesn’t go too well in an immigrant city—popular vote winner Hillary Clinton pummeled him 80 percent to 17 percent in NYC last November).
The fact is that undocumented immigrants aren’t just part of the fabric of America—they help keep America running. In 2016, ITEP found that undocumented workers contribute nearly $12 billion a year in taxes.
And Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, estimated that undocumented immigrants have paid “a whopping $100 billion” into the Social Security Trust Fund over a decade, despite many not being to get it back for themselves later:
Unauthorized workers usually demonstrate their employment eligibility with fake IDs and fake social security numbers. Once hired, these “questionably documented” workers, as Michael calls them, end up on the payroll and have taxes automatically taken out of their checks, like any other employee. That money then goes to the federal treasury to fund programs like Social Security and Medicare.
These hardworking undocumented immigrants would be glad to see how Trump’s contributions match up to theirs—that is, if he would just voluntarily release his tax returns.