Is illegal immigration an economic burden to America?
PRO (yes)
CON (no)
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), in the section titled "Costs of Immigration" on its website (accessed Oct. 24, 2007), offered the following:
"...the net fiscal cost of immigration ranges from $11 billion to $22 billion per year, with most government expenditures on immigrants coming from state and local coffers, while most taxes paid by immigrants go to the federal treasury. The net deficit is caused by a low level of tax payments by immigrants, because they are disproportionately low-skilled and thus earn low wages, and a higher rate of consumption of government services, both because of their relative poverty and their higher fertility. This is especially true of illegal immigration. Even though illegal aliens make little use of welfare, from which they are generally barred, the costs of illegal immigration in terms of government expenditures for education, criminal justice, and emergency medical care are significant. California has estimated that the net cost to the state of providing government services to illegal immigrants approached $3 billion during a single fiscal year. The fact that states must bear the cost of federal failure turns illegal immigration, in effect, into one of the largest unfunded federal mandates. "
Jim Gilchrist, MBA, CPA, Founder and President of The Minuteman Project, in an Aug. 26, 2005 speech titled "The Crushing Economic Burden of Illegal Immigration" and delivered at an immigration conference in Beverly Hills, CA [transcript made available on Oct. 10, 2005 in FrontPageMagazine.com], said:
"I’ve tried to figure out the costs since I have this tax background. What is the cost to each of us as taxpayers to support 30 million illegal aliens, many of whom are working in the underground economy and not contributing to the tax system? And yet they’re using the system that bona fide taxpayers provide and pay for... I had to make my own estimate, since the government will not give me these numbers, nor does it care to calculate them... I’ve come up with my own numbers. And I will stand by these numbers. The annual gross cost to U.S. taxpayers to provide schooling, hospitalization, and whatever plethoric benefits are out there for the 30 million illegal aliens is approximately $400 billion per year funded by bona fide U.S. taxpayers. That’s $400 billion per year and going up."
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in its Immigration Issue Centers website section entitled "The Estimated Cost of Illegal Immigration," last updated Feb. 2004, stated:
"Illegal alien workers may increase profits for employers, but they are costly to the American taxpayer. Most illegal aliens have low educational attainment, few skills, and they work for low wages, often in the underground economy where they pay no taxes on their earnings... While the cost of outlays for illegal aliens may be shifted by legislation among the levels of government and the private sector, the fact remains that illegal immigration creates an enormous fiscal burden on America and its citizens — a burden that Congress has levied upon us through short-sighted and haphazard immigration policy and succeeding administrations have aggravated by spotty enforcement of the law."
B. Lindsay Lowell, PhD, Director of Policy Studies at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, in an Aug. 25, 2004 Center for Immigration Studies' panel discussion titled "The Costs of Illegal Immigration: The Impact of Illegal Aliens on the Federal Budget," stated:
"There is a shadow side to the population that needs to be considered. It's real. U.S. immigration policy... has, with a wink and a nod, encouraged the growth of a low-rate sector that is supplied to a large degree by unauthorized workers. And in that regard, perhaps employers and consumers benefit, but as citizens we're abetting the growth of an underprivileged class, and as taxpayers, we are subsidizing employers... 17 percent, according to best estimate, of those in federal prisons are illegal aliens and they run up a substantial cost. This isn't news at all to the states that seek reimbursement. A roughly similar cost is found in federal courts. And payment for the treatment of the uninsured may run as high as $2.2 billion."
The Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIR), in the section titled "Economic Costs of Legal and Illegal Immigration" on its website (accessed Oct. 24, 2007), presented the following:
"The economic and social consequences of illegal immigration... are staggering... Illegal aliens have cost billions of taxpayer-funded dollars for medical services. Dozens of hospitals in Texas, New Mexico Arizona, and California, have been forced to close or face bankruptcy because of federally-mandated programs requiring free emergency room services to illegal aliens. Taxpayers pay half-a-billion dollars per year incarcerating illegal alien criminals. Immigration is a net drain on the economy; corporate interests reap the benefits of cheap labor, while taxpayers pay the infrastructural cost... $60 billion dollars are earned by illegal aliens in the U.S. each year. One of Mexico's largest revenue streams (after exports and oil sales) consists of money sent home by legal immigrants and illegal aliens working in the U.S... This is a massive transfer of wealth from America - essentially from America's displaced working poor - to Mexico. The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs the states $7.4 billion annually."
Francine J. Lipman, MBA, LLM, Professor of Law, Business and Economics at Chapman University, in a Spring 2006 Tax Lawyer essay titled "Taxing Undocumented Immigrants: Separate, Unequal and Without Representation," wrote:
"Americans believe that undocumented immigrants are exploiting the United States' economy. The widespread belief is that illegal aliens cost more in government services than they contribute to the economy. This belief is undeniably false... [E]very empirical study of illegals' economic impact demonstrates the opposite...: undocumenteds actually contribute more to public coffers in taxes than they cost in social services. Moreover, undocumented immigrants contribute to the U.S. economy through their investments and consumption of goods and services; filling of millions of essential worker positions resulting in subsidiary job creation, increased productivity and lower costs of goods and services; and unrequited contributions to Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance programs. Eighty-five percent of eminent economists surveyed [according to the Dec. 1995 study by Julian L. Simon, "Immigration, the Demographic & Economic Facts," of the Cato Institute and the National Immigration Forum] have concluded that undocumented immigrants have had a positive (seventy-four percent) or neutral (eleven percent) impact on the U.S. economy."
Raul Hinojosa, PhD, Associate Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, in a July 18, 2005 BusinessWeek interview titled "A Massive Economic Development Boom," wrote:
"First and foremost, [illegal immigration] it's a source of value added. The total goods and services that they consume through their paycheck, plus all that they produce for their employers, is close to about $800 billion. They're also producing at relatively lower costs because the undocumented population typically gets about 20% less in wages than if they were legalized. That leads to lower prices for us and higher profits to employers. In addition, they're obviously a huge consumer base. We've seen that 90% of the wages that the undocumented population gets are spent inside the U.S. Remittances are sent abroad, but that only represents about 10% of immigrants' income. The numbers are becoming quite huge. We estimate about $50 billion dollars in remittances this year. That means that total consumptive capacity remaining in the U.S. is $400 billion to $450 billion. If you took away the undocumented population, it would be the worst economic disaster in the history of the U.S."
The Washington Post, in a June 4, 2007 editorial article titled "Immigrants Equal Growth... Reform Isn't Just Humane. It's Self-Interest," offered the following:
"Amid the blizzard of data concerning immigrants' effects on wages, welfare and municipal budgets, the essential point is this: The latest wave of immigrants -- legal and illegal, skilled and unskilled -- has stimulated enormous economic activity and wealth generation in this country, and it is implausible that the American economy would fare as well without them... Since most immigrants come when they are young and working... they tend not to collect Social Security or Medicare for many years -- even while paying into the systems with payroll taxes, in many cases with phony Social Security numbers (meaning they will contribute but not collect). In fact, illegal immigrants do not get federal welfare benefits of any kind. At the same time they often pay income tax (through paycheck withholdings) and sales tax, thereby helping directly or indirectly to underwrite transportation, health care, education and other services. And while immigrants surely have contributed to some extent to the ranks of the poor, that was also true of previous waves of immigrants; the point is, most of those immigrants didn't stay poor."
The Wall Street Journal, in its "Monthly Economic Forecasting Survey: April 2006," conducted from Apr. 7-11, 2006, obtained the following answers from 46 economists:
It has benefited more than it has been harmed
It has been harmed more than it has benefited
Illegal immigrants often benefit businesses by filling low-wage jobs that are difficult to fill with Americans. But illegal immigrants can add to the costs of U.S. social programs. On balance, has the U.S. economy benefited more than it has been harmed by its current population of undocumented workers?
Randolph Capps, PhD, Researcher at the Urban Institute, in a Nov. 1, 2005 Urban Institute presentation titled "Undocumented Immigrants Myths and Reality," wrote:
"Undocumented men come to the United States almost exclusively to work. In 2003, over 90 percent of undocumented men worked—a rate higher than that for U.S. citizens or legal immigrants. Undocumented men are younger, less likely to be in school, and less likely to be retired than other men. Moreover, undocumented immigrants are ineligible for welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits."
