Anisha Steephen
Ex-U.S. Treasury, always economic justice. Banking / Tax / Housing / Climate. They/Them.
📍NYC
- 🧵 1/ New Cato white paper (yes, Cato) finds immigrants paid more in taxes than they received in benefits every year from 1994–2023 across federal, state, and local budgets:
- 2/ Cato estimates immigrants reduced deficits by ~$14.5T over 1994–2023 (in real 2024$). So IRS/ICE data-sharing, employment raids, fear campaigns, and violent deportation tactics push people into the shadows and reduce tax filing. I wrote about this for NY last week, and now Cato confirms it:
- 3/ Every state and city should run the numbers: Trump’s cruel immigration policies don’t just harm people—they shrink the tax base and push costs onto working families. We must protect immigrants, ensure safe filing + raise progressive revenue from concentrated wealth.
- @mayor.nyc.gov @governor.ny.gov NYC faces a $12B budget hole for FY26-27. Undocumented NYers contribute ~$3.1B/yr in NY state & local taxes. Trump’s cruel ICE tactics will shrink revenue by pushing immigrants into the shadows & off the books. We must #TaxTheRich now to pay their share. My op-ed:
