Illegal Immigrants Cost $10 Billion at the Federal Level
- From: "Golden State Poppy" <GoldenStatePoppy@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 30 Mar 2006 14:49:52 -0800
Illegal Immigrants At Least $10 Billion Net Cost At Federal Level
The Center for Immigration Studies has a new study on the costs to the
federal government of illegal aliens written by Steven A. Camarota. The
net cost of illegal immigrants to the US government is conservatively
at least $10 billion per year.
This study is one of the first to estimate the total impact of illegal
immigration on the federal budget. Most previous studies have focused
on the state and local level and have examined only costs or tax
payments, but not both. Based on Census Bureau data, this study finds
that, when all taxes paid (direct and indirect) and all costs are
considered, illegal households created a net fiscal deficit at the
federal level of more than $10 billion in 2002. We also estimate that,
if there was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the net fiscal deficit
would grow to nearly $29 billion.
Among the findings:
· Households headed by illegal aliens imposed more than $26.3 billion
in costs on the federal government in 2002 and paid only $16 billion in
taxes, creating a net fiscal deficit of almost $10.4 billion, or $2,700
per illegal household.
· Among the largest costs are Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for
the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs such as food
stamps, WIC, and free school lunches ($1.9 billion); the federal prison
and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4
billion).
· With nearly two-thirds of illegal aliens lacking a high school
degree, the primary reason they create a fiscal deficit is their low
education levels and resulting low incomes and tax payments, not their
legal status or heavy use of most social services.
· On average, the costs that illegal households impose on federal
coffers are less than half that of other households, but their tax
payments are only one-fourth that of other households.
· Many of the costs associated with illegals are due to their
American-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth.
Thus, greater efforts at barring illegals from federal programs will
not reduce costs because their citizen children can continue to access
them.
· If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use
services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same
education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would
increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net
cost of $29 billion.
· Costs increase dramatically because unskilled immigrants with legal
status - what most illegal aliens would become - can access
government programs, but still tend to make very modest tax payments.
· Although legalization would increase average tax payments by 77
percent, average costs would rise by 118 percent.
A few points to note about this study:
They do not appear to have factored in costs and revenues at the state
and local levels of government. So, for example, most of the costs of
educating the children of illegal aliens are not included. Higher law
enforcement costs for the local commuities due to higher crime rates
among illegals are similarly not included.
The costs that victims pay (emotional, financial and from loss of loved
ones) from crime is not factored in.
The need to build more public infrastructure such as roads and schools
due to immigrant population growth does not appear to be included. Los
Angeles is currently in the middle of a $10 billion school building
project due to illegal immigrant-caused population growth.
The cost of racial preferences is not factored in. The bigger the
Hispanic population gets the higher the costs that Caucasians and East
Asians and South Asians will have to pay for racial preferences.
Businesses and governments will run less efficiency as larger portions
of their work forces are hired to satisfy quotas and so-called
"diversity" goals.
Environmental costs are not considered. The higher the population
density gets the higher the costs must be per person to keep total
pollution down.
The problem caused by illegal immigration does not last only until
descendant generations get educated to American levels. As Steve Sailer
points out the Hispanic-white achievement gap is going to prevent
Hsipanics as a group from ever rising to white levels of education,
income, and tax paying.
Recently, while browsing Tom Wood's new "Right on Race" blog, I had a
chance to ask Stefan Thernstrom what the NAEP data actually showed. He
graciously provided the following raw data, to which I've added some
straightforward calculations. (Number fans click here for table).
Conclusion: overall, the white-immigrant Hispanic achievement gap is
actually 14% worse than the notorious white-black disparity.
But for American-born Hispanic children (not just second generation, as
many might assume, but the second up through the seventh generation),
the gap is 67% as large as the white-black variance.
Exactly as I predicted!
(It's interesting that the gaps between whites and blacks and
native-born and foreign Hispanics are widest among 8th graders and
narrowest among 12th graders. Presumably this narrowing is partly
caused by differing high school dropout rates, which remove more of the
lowest-scoring minorities from the ranks of the test-takers.)
The good news: if we cut off all immigration from Latin America
tomorrow, the total white-Hispanic achievement chasm would narrow over
the next, say, 30 years, from more than 90% of the white-black
difference down to 67%.
Steve's numbers above are consistent with Hispanic high school
graduates across generations from first generation immigrants all the
way through 4th generation descendants. We pay for the first generation
and we keep paying for the later generations.
We should stop the influx of illegal aliens and deport the illegals
that are already here. We should also change legal immgration
qualifications to make college level education as the minimum required
for prospective immgrants.
By Randall Parker at 2004 August 25 02:29 PM Immigration Economics |
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