What is the Midwest's role in the great immigration debate?

• The Trump administration says Chicago's 40-year-old sanctuary city policy hinders the federal government's enforcement of immigration laws. The administration also is suing Illinois and Cook County.
• "The Midwest is the least affected region by immigration generally and illegal immigration specifically," says one think tank's research director.

(Editor's note: This is the first in a series of stories examining the immigration debate and its impact in Midwestern states. A second story will be published online Tuesday, and a third on Wednesday. On Thursday, we'll publish a story examining how the immigration issue is affecting your community.)

It seemed unlikely to Genna Buhr that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents would raid the public library she directs in East Peoria, Illinois — population 22,012 — but she warned her staff anyway.

"ICE can enter the library to look for people in areas of the building open to the general public, just as any person or officer of the law can enter the library to look for someone in public areas," Buhr emailed staffers on Jan. 31.

"If an officer presents you with any kind of legal document, get me."

But Tazewell County, home to East Peoria, had barely more than 3,000 immigrants pre-pandemic — naturalized citizens, green card holders, temporary visa holders, refugees, asylees, and yes, undocumented immigrants, according to analyses of census datasets by the American Immigration Council.

This doesn't mean undocumented immigrants aren't an issue in Midwestern states such as Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan and Wisconsin. It doesn't mean there are no concentrations of them in specific industries in cities and towns. Like most other states, the highest concentrations of undocumented immigrants in Midwestern states are in urban centers where "sanctuary" policies may offer a perception of welcoming and protection from immigration enforcement.

Chicago, the nation's third-largest city, is the one most people know.

The city is the target of a lawsuit from President Donald Trump's administration alleging that its 40-year-old sanctuary city policy hinders the federal government's enforcement of immigration laws. The administration also is suing Illinois and Cook County over their sanctuary law and policies.

There is no legal definition of a “sanctuary city,” but according to Global Refuge, a Maryland-based non-profit that helps immigrants and refugees, it is a term often assigned to a municipality or community “with a policy, written or unwritten, that discourages local law enforcement from reporting the immigration status of individuals unless it involves investigation of a serious crime.” 

Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), which supports less immigration and more enforcement, listed Illinois as the only Midwestern state among 13 it calls sanctuary states.

In testimony before a congressional committee on March 5, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson acknowledged Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance and a companion state law, known as the Illinois TRUST Act, that he said do “not permit our local law enforcement" to cooperate with ICE.

“With a criminal warrant, our city and state will cooperate. But without a criminal warrant, our local law enforcement focuses” on fighting local crime, Johnson said.

Johnson told the congressional committee that sanctuary policies promote public safety.

“When there is trust between residents and police, undocumented immigrants come forward to report crimes and provide information to solve crime,” he said.

But congressional Republicans argue that sanctuary city policies violate the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause, which holds that federal law trumps state laws. One of them pressed the Democratic Chicago mayor on how much money the city has spent managing the 50,000-plus migrants who have arrived there since 2022. Johnson said it accounted for about 1% of the city's budget over four years.

Chicago's 2025 budget amounts to more than $17 billion. One percent of that is $170 million.

The legal wrangling over enforcement against undocumented immigrants in Chicago could continue throughout Trump's term.

Chicago attorneys with the National Immigrant Justice Center and ACLU of Illinois filed a motion in U.S. District Court in March accusing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and ICE of violating immigration law and the constitutional rights of at least 22 people who were arrested and detained in the Midwest since January.

But Chicago is an outlier in the Midwest, albeit the largest one.

"The Midwest is the least affected region by immigration generally and illegal immigration specifically," said Steven A. Camarota, director of research for CIS. "All the research shows that outside of Illinois, there aren’t that many illegal immigrants in the Midwest."

A new CIS analysis of U.S. Census Bureau raw data through February indicates the Midwest accounts for the smallest share of the nation's foreign-born population, which CIS said includes both immigrants who are lawfully present and those who are undocumented. The Midwest's share was 11.9%. The South had the highest share at 37.4% and also the fastest rate of growth since 1990.

"Of course, there’s always more uncertainty about estimating illegal immigrants," Camarota said. "But since illegal immigrants live with legal immigrants all the time, as a generalized statement, where there’s lots of legal immigrants, there’s lots of illegal immigrants, too. Because illegal immigrants come often from the same countries as legal immigrants. Or vice versa."

The data wars

The uncertainty illustrates an issue confronting researchers, activists and others seeking data about undocumented immigrants: Ideological differences between research and policy analysis organizations mean their competing data sets require context.

Two numbers speak volumes: As of March 2025, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates about 18.6 million undocumented immigrants reside in the United States. The American Immigration Council's number: 11.8 million.

One reason for the difference may be that the Council's number is based on the 2023 American Community Survey (ACS) one-year sample. FAIR argues the ACS data dramatically undercount the foreign-born population, including undocumented immigrants.

Another explanation: FAIR asserts many groups part of what it calls the "open-borders lobby" misclassify Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) beneficiaries and other immigrant subsets as being in the United States legally.

"It is important to note that 'legal status' is not the same as 'lawful presence,'" stated FAIR's March report. "For example, recipients of deferred action, deferred enforced departure, Temporary Protected Status (TPS), or parole do not have legal status. These programs (some of which are authorized by statute and some of which are not) do not give illegal aliens visas or green cards. They merely defer deportation for a period of time."

The American Immigration Council codes a list of foreign-born individuals as legal U.S. residents, including individuals "working in occupations where immigrants are likely to be on H-1B or other visas, including computer scientists, professors, engineers, and life scientists" and "international students residing in the United States on temporary visas."

Both leading research organizations make their sympathies clear.

The American Immigration Council works with the American Immigration Lawyers Association, it says, "to increase access to legal counsel by leveraging a nationwide network of volunteers and training lawyers to vigorously defend immigrants facing removal."

The Council's "Map the Impact" page offers national and state-by-state estimates of taxes paid by immigrants, their spending power and the number of immigrant entrepreneurs. The page does not mention costs, but the Council did publish a report last year on "the cost of immigration enforcement and border security," saying hundreds of billions had been spent in lieu of "a more balanced approach that provides the resources necessary to build a functional humanitarian protection system while balancing security interests."

FAIR? It "seeks to reduce overall immigration to a more normal level," the organization states, to "allow America to manage growth, address environmental concerns, and maintain a high quality of life."

In an 85-page study released in March 2023, FAIR asserted that federal, state and local taxes paid by undocumented immigrants — more than $31 billion, by the study's count — were far outstripped by such costs as education, healthcare, justice enforcement and welfare programs, which it pegged at more than $182 billion.

The American Immigration Council's estimate of total taxes paid by undocumented immigrants — $89.8 billion based on 2023 ACS data — is about $60 billion off FAIR's number.

"While politicians continue to debate what to do about illegal immigration, millions of undocumented immigrants are working across the country, contributing billions of dollars to the U.S. economy," the Council states.

Taxes paid by undocumented immigrants?

Everyone in the country pays some sales tax and user fees. CIS acknowledges undocumented immigrants have high rates of work and do pay some taxes, including income and payroll taxes — but argues that those tax payments are low given their low education levels. It can be argued that renters pay property taxes indirectly with their rent.

"They do contribute greatly to taxes, the undocumented," said the American Immigration Council's senior data scientist, Dr. Steven Hubbard. "They often are not receiving those benefits. They don’t get Social Security, they don’t get Medicaid, they don’t get Medicare. So they are often paying into these programs while they are not receiving those full benefits."

Camarota, who takes an opposing view, conceded that nearly all undocumented immigrants are blocked from receiving Social Security and Medicare, so the taxes they pay do constitute a net benefit to both programs.

"However, the positive effect on these programs would become negative if (undocumented immigrants) were legalized and allowed to receive benefits," Camarota said in testimony before a congressional committee last year. "This is because both programs have progressive benefit structures that give lower-earning and shorter-career workers a greater return on their contributions."

However out of date and disputed their numbers may be, FAIR's 2023 report and 2023 data provided by the American Immigration Council do provide estimates of undocumented immigrants for each state:

• FAIR estimates Illinois has the nation's sixth-highest estimated population of undocumented immigrants at 628,000; the Council's number is 527,400.
• FAIR puts Michigan at 185,000; the Council's number is 110,700.
• FAIR's number for Indiana is 154,000; the Council's number is 122,400.
• FAIR puts Wisconsin at 111,000; the Council's number is 93,000.
• FAIR pegs Missouri's count at 77,000; the Council's number is 67,900.

They may both be wrong about Missouri, or their data aren't as current as the state's. Announcing last year that he was filing suit to "prohibit Obamacare from funding illegal immigrants," Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey estimated there were 77,000 to 104,000 undocumented immigrants living in the state, costing taxpayers between $342 million and $462 million annually.

'The simple answer is job growth'

No matter which organization's data you parse through, the numbers of undocumented immigrants in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Wisconsin and Michigan together don't equal those posted by California or Texas. Why? The easy answer is that no Midwestern state shares a border with Mexico.

But there's more to it than that, said CIS's Camarota.

"The simple answer is job growth," he said. "The Midwest, because of the structure of its economy and other things, just experienced less job growth than most parts of the country.

"It was an area most dependent on manufacturing in the last 50 years and, as manufacturing declined as a share of U.S. GDP (gross domestic product), especially the share of employment — employment growth in the Midwest was not zero. It’s not nothing. It just lagged the other regions."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), manufacturing as a percentage of GDP nationally shrunk from 16.1% in 1997 to 10.2% in 2023. Midwestern states saw similar drops, with Michigan dropping nine percentage points and Wisconsin dropping eight, according to state-by-state BEA data.

Year-to-year data paints much the same picture.

National Business Capital, a New York State-based national fintech lending platform for business owners, ranked Indiana 50th in the nation in 2023, with "the worst prospect for job growth" in 2024. Michigan ranked 48th and Missouri 44th. It's the most recent data the organization has.

The conflicts over immigration data, academic as they seem, only hint at the ferocity over immigration policy that roils the Midwest.