To address the problem of juvenile delinquency in our communities and conserve resources in this system that are needed to handle its traditional caseload, Congress should start by fixing the parts of the immigration law that add to the problem by enticing citizens of other countries to hire smugglers to bring families and minors to cross our border illegally.

Millions of illegal immigrants have Social Security numbers, potentially allowing them to receive cash payments from the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Additional Child Tax Credit. We estimate that illegal immigrants may receive between $3.8 and $4.5 billion from the two programs. This is in addition to the $4.4 billion we have previously estimated illegals likely received in stimulus checks this year.

Parsing Immigration Policy, Episode 3

The Biden administration recently increased the H-2B visa cap, allowing more low-skilled, non-agricultural seasonal workers into the country. Jessica Vaughan, the Center’s director of policy studies, discusses this guestworker visa program, which creates the false impression of "jobs Americans won't do" by incentivizing employers to use a business model that is reliant on temporary worker programs.

In this report, we explore how the proposed economic assistance funds could be best used to target the root causes of illegal immigration, emphasizing the need for a data-driven plan that would include a Covid-19 vaccination program, an export-expansion program, crime control and family-planning efforts, and a cash payment program for people who agree, on pain of imprisonment, not to go to the U.S.

Under current law, illegal immigrants are net contributors to Social Security and Medicare because they partially pay in to entitlement programs but cannot legally receive benefits. By granting eligibility for benefits, however, amnesty would transform illegal immigrants from net contributors into net beneficiaries, imposing steep costs on the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.