An easy example is not paying income tax. Some illegals work for cash because they’re undocumented and so pay no income tax. When that person uses public stuff like roads and local dog parks and anything that’s ultimately paid for with taxes, they’re taking benefits and not paying back into the system.
Whether or not we might want to deport someone or otherwise punish them for this “freeloading” is a separate question, but I don’t think there’s much of an argument to say that no amount of freeloading is happening at all.
Define “freeloading” for me. They don’t have access to big social services (TANF, SSI, etc) due to not having documentation, roads are funded through fuel taxes as far as I’m aware (so if they’re pumping gas, they’re paying for the roads), dog parks are usually paid out of local sales tax (again, only as far as I know, I live in GA and we’re a fucked up state a lot of times).
Income tax is a big one, but not on a small scale (like municipal level)… Hell, I haven’t ever had a local income tax that I can remember.
Hmmm yes, they can go for a walk in a park. But they can’t use TANF, Medicaid, SSI/SSDI, SNAP, or anything else that requires means testing. While they do get taxes withheld from their paycheck. So they are actually paying for that park.
Yes some are on a cash only, under the table arrangement. But 100 billion dollars worth of them are not. Banks don’t require proof of citizenship, and states that aren’t busy trying to shoot themselves in the foot aren’t checking citizenship for work. So they get taxes, the immigrants get worker protections, and life goes on as normal.