ID and Tax: The Solution to The Problem of Illegal Immigration in America

With an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in America today, it’s safe to say our broken and outdated immigration system has failed. While the government failed to enforce and secure our border for the last 30 years, it also failed to create legal pathways of immigration to allow the entry of the number of workers required to meet the dynamic needs of our economy.

We now have a situation where many undocumented immigrants are exploited by unethical employers who list them as independent contractors and often pay them in cash to avoid paying taxes. This undercuts law-abiding businesses and workers. In Texas, it is estimated that about 50% of construction workers are undocumented, and over 40% of construction workers are misclassified as independent contractors. The only way to stop this labor fraud while meeting the needs of our economy and benefiting the everyday American worker, consumer, and business owner, is a system to ID and tax undocumented immigrants living and working in America.

The American-born population did not grow fast enough in the last 30 years to fill the increasing number of jobs at the rate that our nation's booming economy demanded, so immigrants filled in the gaps. At 4.2% unemployment, the lowest rate America has seen in 17 years, we have essentially run out of available and willing American workers to fill the growing number of jobs in our rapidly expanding American businesses. It is essential that we operate as a nation of law and order, but we cannot simply “deport them all” because the continued growth of the United States’ economy has become dependent on the labor provided by undocumented people.

The ID and Tax plan will solve the problem of 11 million undocumented immigrants while providing adequate resources and policies to stop illegal immigration from now on.

The first step is to issue a bio-metric ID to all the undocumented immigrants working under the radar. By issuing a new form of ID that uniquely identifies each individual and cannot be counterfeited or faked, we will know exactly who is here, be able to keep track of the income they are receiving and taxes they are paying, and run essential criminal background checks to ensure public safety. 

After allowing the undocumented some time to get their IDs and find legal employment, any of them who decide to remain undocumented past a certain point in time would be targeted for deportation. By allowing law-abiding and hardworking undocumented immigrants to earn legal status, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, resources won’t be wasted and instead can be realigned to more effectively pursue criminal aliens and freeloaders.

To earn legal status and repay debts to American tax payers, any recently-legalized immigrants that had been working in the U.S. without paying taxes will have their income taxed at a higher rate than American citizens for a certain number of years. Those who choose to employ these newly documented workers will also be required to pay slightly higher employment taxes.

This policy will reverse the current situation in which any non-taxpaying illegals and corrupt employers are subsidized by American taxpayers. American workers will once again have the kind of solid footing they need to compete in the labor market while US economic productivity continues to benefit from the newly-legalized workers. 

Additionally, our government will generate new funding and will save the money it once wasted on searching for the hardworking and tax paying immigrants who are beneficial to our economy. This funding generated by the ID and Tax plan could be utilized efficiently to pay for a wall at strategic points along the southern border and to hire additional border enforcement officials and improve their equipment and resources. It could also help enforce a new policy included in the ID and Tax plan that would enforce and expedite deportations on any illegal immigration occurring from visa overstays in the future. In these ways, the ID and Tax plan would solve the problem of the 11 million undocumented that we have in the U.S. while ensuring illegal immigration is stopped in the future, all without making American taxpayers foot the bill or increasing the national debt.   

The ID and Tax plan is a win-win for every ethical American worker, consumer, and business involved. It is the only solution to the problem of 11 million undocumented immigrants in America that will increase and maintain law and order, decrease and crack down on current and future illegal immigration, and benefit all Americans through economic stability, jobs, and growth.

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