Newcomer Power: D-FW Immigrants Pay $10 Billion in Taxes and Fill Half the Construction Jobs

A new study says that North Texas would be a smaller, poorer, less dynamic place without immigrants. With nearly 1.4 million foreign-born residents, immigrants accounted for 18.7% of the region’s population in 2017 — and almost half the jobs in construction — according to the study by the New American Economy that details the impact of local immigrants on the Dallas-Fort Worth economy.In hard-to-fill STEM jobs, which use science, technology, engineering and math, immigrants held over 29% of the positions. They started almost 103,000 businesses and generated $2.9 billion in profits.They paid $10.5 billion in taxes and had $33 billion in annual spending power, the report said. “This new report details how critical immigrants are to the North Texas economy and emphasizes the need for common sense federal immigration reform,” Jeremy Robbins, executive director of the immigration advocacy group, said in a release. The report was released Wednesday morning at a panel discussion in Grapevine hosted by the North Texas Commission. The panelists included Laura Collins, a director at the George W. Bush Institute; Francisco Hernandez, an immigration attorney; Juan Carlos Cerda, a DACA recipient and part of Texas Business for Immigration; and Jim Baron, CEO and co-owner of Blue Mesa Grill.  Continue reading...