picture posted on Facebook

I've run across thisa half dozen times now, and I wanted to do a little research to fact check it's claims. Many Americans have the impression that most illegal immigrants are here just to live off our welfare system. So I wanted to check, are these "facts" true?According to estimates by Pew Research Center, there are currently 11.3 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., which has stabilized after decades of massive growth. According to the Department of Agriculture, 46.5 million Americans are on food stamps . Right there we can easily see that the first claim cannot possibly be true. Mathematically there aren't enough illegal immigrants in the U.S. to equal 43% of food stamp users. several groups have fact checked this claim and found it to be only half true. Illegal immigrants are more likely to flee jurisdiction before being arrested, so warrants would remain open indefinitely but we don't have accurate statistics on what the most recent data is.Politifact found this claim to be mostly false. While only 2 percent of illegals are involved in picking crops according to a 2007 report , it is far from reasonable to even consider that as many as 41% are on welfare. Politifact continues:This was found to be a false skewing of data which focused just on Los Angelos and included all births to hispanics.Politifact found that "The closest but unverified estimate we could find for illegal occupants in HUD housing is less than 1 percent nationwide. The claim of 60 percent is ridiculously false."A Center for Immigration Studies report (2011) gives the percentage of school age “illegal and U.S. born children of illegals” in California as 14% . The math on this one just does not add up, and is rated false.According to the LA Times (to which many of these facts were first falsely attributed), the LAPD, states this is simply not true.This one seems to come from a 2008 study funded by the Justice Department. The Center for Immigration Studies found that 25 to 50 percent of gang members arrested in northern and western Virginia were removable, and usually illegal aliens. We simply do not have the data available to determine the validity of this claim. However since there are around 1.4 million gang members in the U.S, it seems unlikely that the claim would hold up nationwide.The total U.S. economic output in 2014 was just over 17 trillion dollars . While illegals do make up 5.1% of the U.S. labor force , it seems unlikely that they would drive that much economic growth. Legally however, companies are required to check to see if their workers are here legally.Currently 43% of all Americans aren't paying federal taxes, but all of us (illegals included) are paying taxes. We all pay sales tax, and if we own property we pay property tax, (even if we're renting, our landlords pay property tax). I'm sure many illegal immigrants would love to be here legally and wouldn't mind paying back taxes just to have that right.Overall this internet meme is rated false. Some of the claims have half truths. Others were flat-out lies. If you see your friends post this meme, please refer them to this article.