Amnesty Would Be Expensive

By Matt Hurley for the TIB Network:

A new study out from the Center for Immigration Studies that looked at the impact illegal immigration on the federal budget has concluded that illegals cost the taxpayers $10 billion (with a B!) a year. Furthermore, the study indicates that an amnesty program would triple that figure.

Here are some interesting numbers:

-- Illegal alien households are estimated to use $2,700 a year more in services than they pay in taxes, creating a total fiscal burden of nearly $10.4 billion on the federal budget in 2002.

-- Among the largest federal costs: Medicaid ($2.5 billion); treatment for the uninsured ($2.2 billion); food assistance programs ($1.9 billion); the federal prison and court systems ($1.6 billion); and federal aid to schools ($1.4 billion).

-- If illegal aliens were legalized and began to pay taxes and use services like legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual fiscal deficit at the federal level would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total federal deficit of $29 billion.

-- With nearly two-third of illegals lacking a high school diploma, 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 their unwillingness to work.

-- Amnesty increases costs because illegals would still be largely unskilled, and thus their tax payments would continue to be very modest, but once legalized they would be able to access many more government services.

-- The fact that legal immigrants with little schooling are a fiscal drain on federal coffers does not mean that legal immigrants overall are a drain. Many legal immigrants are highly skilled.

-- Because many of the costs are due to their U.S.-born children, who are awarded U.S. citizenship at birth, barring illegals themselves from federal programs will not significantly reduce costs.

-- Although they create a net drain on the federal government, the average illegal household pays more than $4,200 a year in federal taxes, for a total of nearly $16 billion.

-- However, they impose annual costs of more than $26.3 billion, or about $6,950 per illegal household.

-- About 43 percent, or $7 billion, of the federal taxes illegals pay go to Social Security and Medicare.

-- Employers do not see the costs associated with less-educated immigrant workers because the costs are spread out among all taxpayers.

Why is legalization so costly? It comes down to the fact that making these people legal isn't going to change the fact that they tend to be poorly educated and the American economy doesn't offer that much opportunity to the unlearned. However, legalization would give these folks access to more programs and that means more cost associated with those programs.

To the extent that policy makers have considered the fiscal costs of illegal immigration, they have generally tried to reduce the costs while allowing illegals to remain. But this strategy has not been effective because the average illegal already receives less than half as much in services from the federal government as do other households. Moreover, many of the costs are due to their U.S.-born children, who are awarded American citizenship at birth under current law. Other programs are simply too politically sensitive to cut, such as the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program. And others costs are unavoidable, such as incarcerating illegals who have been convicted of crimes. Conversely, enforcing immigration laws is both popular with voters and administratively more feasible. There are really only two options: either we begin to enforce the law, significantly reducing the number of illegals in the country, or we accept the costs created by the presence of a large pool of unskilled workers.

Sounds about right to me.

This should be an issue that gets some attention in this election season. Like national security and homeland defense, immigration and border security are issues that need to be explored, discussed, debated, and decided.

It won't get the time of day so long as John Kerry continues to refuse releasing his military records so we can MoveOn...

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John Kerry Delenda Est!