Immigration: The Math Is Clear. The Politics Are Not.
By Kamalakar (Kam) Shenai
Every election cycle, immigration tops the list of issues Americans say they care about. And every cycle, the debate produces more heat than light. Neither party is honest about what is actually at stake. And neither starts where the conversation should start—with the facts.
Fifty years ago, I arrived in the United States with $208 in my pocket. I went through the legal process. I built a life here. I know what this country asks of immigrants. And I know what immigrants give back. So let me share the part of this debate that rarely gets mentioned: the workforce math.
The U.S. economy runs on around 169 million workers and produces nearly $29 trillion a year. Immigrants generate 18 percent of that output while representing only 15 percent of the population. Of the 169 million workers, nearly 31 million are foreign-born. The American-born workforce is barely growing. Birth rates are down. Baby boomers are retiring at 10,000 per day. We already face shortages of more than 100,000 healthcare workers and 500,000 construction workers—and those gaps are widening. Remove immigrant workers, and you do not have the same economy. You have a smaller one. That is not a political opinion. It is arithmetic.
You find them in every part of the economy. Nearly 30 percent of all construction workers are immigrants. One in six nurses. One in four nurses’ aides. More than a quarter of all farm workers. And immigrants don’t just fill jobs—they create them. Nearly half of all Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children, collectively employing over 15 million people. These are not fringe contributions. They are foundational ones.
You cannot promise a growing economy while shrinking the workforce that runs it. Those two things cannot be both true.
Then there is the accusation that immigrants are a financial drain. All 50.2 million immigrants in this country collectively paid nearly $652 billion in federal, state, and local taxes—the most recent figures available—directly funding our schools, roads, and public safety. Even more striking: an estimated 11 to 14 million undocumented immigrants contributed nearly $97 billion in taxes, including payments into Social Security and Medicare. Programs they are legally barred from collecting. Ever. They pay in. They never take out.
These are not strangers passing through. Nearly 8 in 10 undocumented immigrants have lived here for more than a dozen years. These are our neighbors, coworkers, people sitting next to our children in school. A deportation policy is not a news story to them. It is a family crisis.
And the legal system meant to manage all of this is broken. Courts are backlogged for years. There are not enough judges or caseworkers. The H-1B backlog for skilled workers from India can stretch longer than a human lifetime. Family petitions can take twenty to thirty years. Miss one deadline and you can lose everything—even after doing everything right. Telling people to come legally means nothing when the legal line barely moves.
A serious approach requires both parties to be honest: secure the border with enough personnel to actually process people, not just turn them away; fund the courts so cases move in months, not decades; align visa programs with where workers are genuinely needed; and create a clear, earned path for the millions already here who have worked hard and stayed out of trouble.
Democracy works best when policy is grounded in truth. Right now, our immigration debate is not. The math on immigrants—what they contribute, what they pay, what they build—is not in dispute. The only question is whether our political system has the will to act on it.
I have been here fifty years. I am still waiting for that honest conversation to start.
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Authors Bio
Kam Shenai is Co-Founder of AAPI Coming Together (ACT Florida). He currently serves as Chair of the Myrtle Creek District Board and on the Board of Trustees for HCA UCF Lake Nona Hospital. He is a patient advocate with the National Kidney Foundation. Kam is also a member of the League of Women Voters of Orange County