Pro

“Taxes paid by immigrants and their children—both legal and unauthorized—exceed the costs of the services they use… Many government expenses related to immigrants are associated with their children. From a budgetary perspective, however, the children of immigrants are just like other American children… Both the immigrant children and children of U.S.-born citizens are expensive when they are young because of the costs of investing in children’s education and health. Those expenses, however, are paid back through taxes received over a lifetime of work. The consensus of the economics literature is that the taxes paid by immigrants and their descendants exceed the benefits they receive—that on balance they are a net positive for the federal budget.”

Sep. 2010