Should Immigrants Have Better PR?
By Gabriela Batres Salinas | March 1, 2021
There are many different stereotypes that go around the immigrant community, especially around undocumented immigrants. But I want to focus on the facts of how much money immigrants actually contribute to the United States economy.
A 2019 data report on the newamericaneconomy.org website revealed that immigrants overall paid around $405.3 billion in taxes. The same report informed that undocumented immigrants paid $30.6 billion in taxes. However, there is a lot of stigma that goes around when it comes to this community. Many think that they do not contribute at all to the economy, but many reports and research show otherwise.
Immigrants, depending on where they are from, tend to have a bad reputation and some could say that they need better PR if the numbers are different than what it is actually believed by the public. The immigrant community in the U.S. should be valued for the support that they give to their communities, local businesses, and the government as a whole.
The New American Economy website reported that as of 2019, the immigrant spending power is $1.3 trillion dollars.
So, what do all these numbers have to do with public relations? The answer is that there is not much, but it is important to know about the numbers of this group of people that are so discriminated against. Countless news reports and politicians want to inform people differently than what the numbers show.
We must remember that this group of people are most of the U.S. workforce from the ages of 16-64. Therefore, when it comes to PR, it’s important to inform the truth and keep the truth when informing the organizations that we work for, informing the public, and having morals of how far we are willing to go to satisfy the wants of our clients.
The previous administration in the U.S. were not speaking with truthful numbers about how many immigrants already reside here, whether documented or not, that contribute to the economy. So, it is important to state that immigrants should definitely have better PR due to the fact that they actually contribute a lot of money to this country, either by paying taxes or spending money.
Finally, after all this economic information, we must ask ourselves, should immigrants have a better reputation for what they contribute to this country?
About Gabriela:
Gabriela Batres Salinas is a senior student at California State University Northridge. She is expected to graduate in December 2021 as a Journalism major with an emphasis in Public Relations. One of her goals after graduation is to start her career as a public relations practitioner in the entertainment industry. Additionally, she hopes to make her family proud and become one of the best public relation practitioners in her field.