Illegal Immigrants' Cost To Government Studied
By Mary Fitzgerald
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 26, 2004; Page A21
A report that found that illegal immigrants in the United States cost
the federal government more than $10 billion a year -- a sum it
estimated would almost triple if they were given amnesty -- has drawn
criticism from immigration advocacy groups.
For its report, the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington-based
group that advocates tougher immigration policies, used Census Bureau
figures to compare the revenue that illegal immigrants contribute
through taxes with the cost of government services they use.
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Illegal immigrants create a fiscal deficit because they have low
incomes, Steven A. Camarota said.
"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 $10.4 billion, or $2,700
per illegal household," said Steven A. Camarota, author of the study.
The costs outlined in the report include government services such as
Medicaid, medical treatment for the uninsured, food assistance
programs, the federal prison and court systems, and federal aid to
schools.
The study acknowledged that, on average, the costs that
illegal-immigrant households bear on the federal government are less
than half that of other households, and that many of those costs
relate to their U.S.-born children. It also pointed out that tax
payments by illegal-immigrant households constitute one-fourth those
of other households because of low-income jobs.
"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," Camarota said.
The report estimates that granting legal status to illegal immigrants
would dramatically increase their cost, causing the net fiscal deficit
to rise to nearly $29 billion because, the author argues, unskilled
immigrants would have access to more government services while
continuing to make modest tax payments.
Camarota concluded in his report that the fiscal impact could be
lessened only by stringently enforcing immigration laws, a view that
drew criticism from some immigration specialists and advocacy groups
that also accused him of not coming up with constructive
recommendations.
"Implied within this study's findings is the sense that if these
people could suddenly be made to disappear, the federal government
would be $10 billion to the plus, and that is almost certainly not
true once you look at the numbers," Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer
at the Urban Institute, said in an interview.
"Should you charge up to undocumented aliens the cost of
small-business loans that they don't get or the cost of civil
litigation, among other things? This report does that," he said.
Frank Sharry, director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant
advocacy group, took issue with the report's treatment of illegal
immigrants' U.S.-born children, who are American citizens.
"The costs of the children of immigrants are accounted for [in the
report], but not their contributions to the economy as workers and
taxpayers," he said in a written statement, adding that the report's
conclusions were not helpful to the debate on immigration reform.
"There is a growing consensus in both political parties that our
immigration system needs to be comprehensively reformed," Sharry said.
"Our current system of haphazard laws, spotty enforcement, border
chaos and unfair restrictions needs to be replaced by a regulatory
regime that makes immigration safe, legal and orderly."
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