MYTH VS. FACT

Northampton, MA  
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Facts Inside: 
 
 
Immigrants commit LESS crime 
  than everyone else 
They DO pay taxes, yet often 
  can’t use public services 
When immigrants win, we ALL 
  win (except the 1%) 
...and more! 
 
MYTH VS. FACT 
Art by Melanie Cervantes (dignidadrebelde.com)
 
stated reason was “national security”: they might 
be  Nazi  spies,  the  government  said.  Today, 
we’re  told  the  same  thing  about  displaced      
Syrians and Iraqis: that they could be  terrorists. 
By  the  end  of  2016  the  United  States  had       
admitted only 18,007 Syrian  refugees  —  out  of 
11 million displaced Syrians.   
 
 
 
 
Throughout U.S. history, immigrants have faced  
hostility from “nativists.” The Irish were once a   
favorite target, as this old sign from Boston suggests. 
 
MYTH: The United States doesn’t 
owe foreigners anything  
FACT:  U.S.  foreign  policy  is  largely           
responsible  for  the  conditions  that  produce     
migrants  and  refugees.  In  Latin  America,  our 
government  has  historically  opposed  efforts  to 
redistribute  wealth,  instead  supporting  right-
wing  tyrants  who  kill  and  torture  dissidents.  In 
Guatemala  in  1954,  the  U.S.  helped  overthrow 
an elected government, ushering in forty years of 
state violence that killed over 200,000 people. In 
El  Salvador  in  the  1980s,  it  funded  a  military 
government  that  murdered  75,000  people.     
Economically,  the  United  States  has  supported 
pro-corporate  policies  that  destroy  local       
economies  and  undermine  workers’  wages. 
NAFTA flooded the Mexican market with cheap 
U.S.  corn,  destroying  1.9  million  agricultural 
jobs (at the same time that it also hurt workers in 
the  United States).
6
  
 
The U.S. role in the Middle East has been even 
more destructive. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq 
killed  or  displaced  millions  of  people  and 
SO U R CE S 
 
1  
W. A. Ewing,  et al.,  “The  Criminalization  of  Immigrants in the  United  States,” American 
Immigration Council, July 2015.  See also R. Adelman, et al., “Urban Crime Rates and the 
Changing Face of Immigration,” Journal of Ethnicity in Criminal Justice 15, no. 1 (2017). 
2  
A. Nowrasteh, “Syrian Refugees and the Precautionary Principle,” Cato Institute, Jan. 28, 
2017; K. Newland, “The U.S. Record Shows Refugees Are Not a Threat,” Migration Policy 
Institute,  Oct. 2015  (emph.  added); K.  Eichenwald,  “Right-Wing  Extremists Are a Bigger 
Threat to America Than ISIS,” Newsweek, Feb. 4, 2016.  
3
 L. Zallman, et al., “Immigrants Contributed an Estimated $115.2 Billion More to the Medicare 
Trust Fund Than They Took Out in 2002-09,” Health Affairs 32, no. 6 (2013); D. Costa, et al., 
“Facts about Immigration and the U.S. Economy,” Economic Policy Institute, Aug. 12, 2014.  
4 
J.  L.  Hotchkiss,  et  al.,  “The  Wage  Impact  of  Undocumented  Workers:  Evidence  from 
Administrative Data,” Southern Economic Journal 81, no. 4 (2015). 
5
 American Immigration Council, “Why Don’t They Just Get in Line?” Aug. 2016. 
6
  M.  Weisbrot, et  al.,  Did  NAFTA  Help Mexico?  An  Update  after  23  Years  (Center  for 
Economic and Policy Research, 2017). 
7
 M. Reich, Racial Inequality: A Political-Economic Analysis (Princeton U. Press, 1981). 
plunged the region into sectarian chaos, fueling the 
rise  of  ISIS  and  other  extremists.  Climate  chaos  
—  a  problem  to  which  U.S.  polluters  have        
contributed more than anyone else — is part of the 
reason  for  the  Syrian  civil  war  and  will  generate 
higher and higher numbers of refugees in the years 
to  come.  U.S.  elites  bear  heavy  blame  for  the   
Middle  East  refugee  crisis  and  they  must  take    
responsibility for their actions. 
 
So what can we do about it?  
 
Only  when  immigrants  and  the  native-born  unite 
can  we  achieve  justice.  When  diverse  groups  of 
workers  organize  together  against  the  bosses,  the 
entire working class benefits in the form of higher 
wages.  Research  has  shown  that  greater  racial        
equality  among  workers  correlates  with  higher 
wages across the board — including for whites.
7
  
 
We  must  organize  all  working  people  in  one  big 
coalition.  That  requires  fighting  against  racism, 
sexism, homophobia, and U.S. imperialism, as well 
as the class exploitation that victimizes us all. We 
must  defend  the  most  vulnerable  workers  among 
us against deportation, wage theft, hate crimes, and 
all  other  injustice.  To  get  involved  in  western  
Massachusetts,  find  the  Pioneer  Valley  Workers 
Center on Facebook. 

Myths tend to survive because

they’re useful to powerful people.

Myths about immigrants and refugees are no

exception. Bosses like to pit workers against

each other. Corporations want the freedom to

cross national borders, but they don’t want

workers to be able to do the same. They want

immigration that serves their needs, but they

don’t want immigrants with rights — it’s

better to have undocumented workers who are

terrified of deportation and resented by native-

born workers. Political leaders, meanwhile,

love to scapegoat immigrants and refugees to

distract us from our real problems.

Of the many myths about foreign-born people,

these are some of the most common.

MYTH: Immigrants are more prone

to violent crime

FACT: Immigrants are far less likely than

others to engage in crime. The native-born are

incarcerated at much higher rates than immi-

grants. In fact, violent crime rates have

dropped by 48 percent since 1990 — just as

the number of undocumented immigrants was

rising from 3.5 million to 11.2 million.

Are refugees terrorists? From 1975 to 2015, a

U.S. citizen’s chance of dying at the hands of a

refugee terrorist was 1 in 3.6 billion a year. In

2015 the Migration Policy Institute reported

that “the United States has resettled 784,000

refugees since September 11, 2001,” and

“exactly three resettled refugees have been

arrested for planning terrorist activities”; of

those, “two were not planning an attack in the

United States and the plans of the third were

barely credible.” Most of the terrorist attacks

on U.S. soil are committed by white, non-

Muslim, right-wing extremists.

MYTH: Immigrants don’t pay taxes

FACT: All undocumented immigrants pay sales

taxes and property taxes. Most also pay income

and payroll taxes, since their employers list them

on payrolls using fake Social Security numbers.

However, they are usually ineligible for Social

Security benefits, food stamps, welfare, and

unemployment insurance. As a result, virtually all

undocumented immigrants pay more in taxes than

they will ever receive in the form of social

services and benefits.

MYTH: Immigrants steal jobs from

U.S. workers and drag down wages

FACT: Increased immigration has only small

effects on employment and wages, and those

effects are likely positive. When immigrants spend

money, they create demand in the economy,

leading to the creation of more jobs. As for wages,

a 2015 study found that higher immigrant

employment has a positive impact on the wages of

non-immigrant workers, probably because it

increases the range of skills available and leads to

more efficient specialization.

The impact on U.S.-born workers depends partly

on how we as workers respond. When we discrim-

inate against immigrants, it makes the entire

working class weaker in relation to our bosses. A

unified workforce can improve life for all workers.

MYTH: They could come here legally,

if they’d just “get in line” and wait

FACT: For most foreigners there isn’t any

line to get into. Entering legally usually requires

1) a U.S. employer who will “sponsor” you, 2) a

close relative with U.S. citizenship or perma-

nent legal status, or 3) a demonstrated threat of

extreme persecution in your home country.

Even then, it can take years or even decades to

obtain “legal” status.

But most people from

other countries do not meet any of these three

requirements.

These requirements were only enacted in the

century. Prior to World War I, there were

almost no restrictions on immigration. The

ancestors of most white U.S. citizens were thus

free to enter. Today’s immigrants face a much

harsher legal climate.

MYTH: The U.S. has historically

welcomed immigrants and refugees

FACT: Most immigrants, especially non-

whites, have encountered hostility. In the 19

century, the Irish and Italians were accused of

stealing jobs, using public resources, and

committing violent crimes. The Chinese had it

even worse: they suffered segregation and

intense racism, and in 1882 — the year of the

first federal anti-immigration law — Chinese

workers were prohibited from entering the U.S.

altogether. Almost all non-whites were barred

from entering by the 1924 Johnson Immigration

Act. When immigrants have been welcomed in,

it’s usually to serve as a cheap labor source with

few rights.

U.S. policy toward refugees has been just as

cruel. Even as the U.S. government was waging

a war against Nazi expansionism, it was barring

Jewish refugees from obtaining asylum. The