Migrants in the United States sent about $103 billion in mostly untaxed remittances to six foreign countries last year — including about $19 billion to China.
A World Bank report, detailed by the Wall Street Journal, reveals the extent to which foreign nationals living in the U.S. drain mostly untaxed money from the nation’s economy to send to relatives overseas.
In 2019, migrants sent close to $40 billion to Mexico and nearly $20 billion to China. Only one state in the U.S., Oklahoma, taxes remittances. Last year, the state raked in more than $13 million from its one percent remittance tax.
Migrants in the U.S. also sent about $14 billion to India, another $14 billion to the Phillippines, $10 billion to Guatemala, and $9 billion to Vietnam — almost all of which is untaxed.
Three years ago, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) introduced legislation to place a two percent tax on all remittances, but the plan was never prioritized by the White House or the Republican Congress and was not included in the GOP’s 2017 overhaul of the tax code.
Last year, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reported that legal immigrants and illegal aliens in the U.S. had sent $150 billion in untaxed remittances to their native countries. The FAIR report stated:
It is bad enough that American taxpayers are being asked to provide welfare for foreign nationals in the United States. It only adds insult to injury when our state, local and federal governments allow income that could be taxed to reduce some of the costs associated with unchecked mass migration to simply flow out of the U.S. economy and into foreign pockets.
The latest U.S. Census Bureau data finds that the foreign-born population will rise to nearly 70 million by 2060, as Breitbart News reported. Already, there are about 45 million foreign-born residents in the nation, making up almost 14 percent of the total population.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.