Report spotlights economic impact of immigrants in Dallas

DALLAS – The Dallas Morning News reports immigrants in Dallas contributed nearly a billion dollars in state and local taxes and had billions left in consumer spending power, according to a report released recently by the American Immigration Council in partnership with the city of Dallas. Economic Impact Report: New Americans in Dallas highlights immigrants’ role in the city of Dallas’ workforce as taxpayers, consumers, entrepreneurs and more. In 2022, immigrant households earned $10.7 billion in income, of which $1.6 billion went to federal taxes and $900.6 million to state and local taxes, according to the report. This left households with $8.2 billion in spending power. “This report sheds new light on the important role that immigrants play in the local economy,” said Nan Wu, the American Immigration Council’s research director.

“When people think about their daily lives, they are not aware of all the different ways that immigrants contribute to their local communities,” Wu said. The report, published in April, says that immigrants make up 23.2% of Dallas’s population, and approximately one-third of households had at least one immigrant resident. Immigrants represent 28.4% of Dallas’ employed labor force, and in industries such as construction, they represent 63% of the workforce, according to the report. They also represent 26.4% of STEM workers. Ricardo Martínez, originally from Durango, Mexico, arrived in Dallas in 1998 and began working in the construction industry. He was one of the nearly 10,000 workers who helped build Globe Life Field, the Texas Rangers’ home. “I started out picking up trash at construction sites, and little by little, I moved up the ranks,” he said in a 2020 interview, when he was a crew supervisor at Globe Life Field.