Washington, D.C. - Last week the Immigration Policy Center, together with the Center for American Progress, released a report conducted by Dr. Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda of UCLA titled, Raising the Floor for American Workers: The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The report finds that comprehensive immigration reform that includes a legalization program for the roughly 12 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. and enables a future flow of legal workers would benefit U.S. workers and generate much needed economic growth.

• Immigration reform would increase U.S. GDP by at least 0.84%. This would translate into at least a cumulative $1.5 trillion in added GDP over 10 years, which includes approximately $1.2 trillion in consumption and $256 billion in investment.
• The benefits of additional GDP growth would be spread broadly throughout the U.S. economy, but immigrant-heavy sectors such as textiles, electronic equipment, and construction would see particularly large increases.
• The higher earning power of newly legalized workers would mean increased tax revenues of $4.5 billion to $5.4 billion in the first three years.
• Higher personal income would also generate increased consumer spending-enough to support 750,000 to 900,000 jobs in the U.S. in the first three years.
• Experience shows that legalized workers open bank accounts, buy homes, and start businesses, further stimulating the U.S. economy.

• Mass deportation would reduce U.S. GDP by 1.46%, amounting to a cumulative $2.6 trillion loss in GDP over 10 years, not including the actual costs of deportation. The Center for American Progress has estimated that mass deportation would cost $206 billion to $230 billion over five years.

• CSPAN: Immigration and the Economy (January 7, 2010)
  http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/id/217725
  
  
• CNN: Legalizing unauthorized immigrants would help economy, study says (January 7, 2010)
  http://edition.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/07/immigration.economy/
  
  
• LA TIMES: UCLA study says legalizing undocumented immigrants would help the economy (By Anna Gorman - January 7, 2010)
  http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-immig7-2010jan07,0,5871672.story
  
  
• PODER360: Report Extols Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform: Comprehensive immigration reform that creates a pathway to legalization would help American workers and the U.S. economy (By David Adams - January 7, 2010)
  http://www.poder360.com/article_detail.php?id_article=3386
  
  
• SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Legalization would boost U.S. economy, study says (By Gary Martin - January 8, 2010)
  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/07/MNTQ1BF6LR.DTL
  
  
• MIAMI HEARLD: Immigration reform's economic impact is debated (By Alfonso Chardy - January 12, 2010)
  http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/1420073.html