By Spencer Raley
The Hill, September 28, 2017
The majority of the costs to taxpayers, $89 billion (66 percent), are borne at the local and state level. This means that American taxpayers are forced to bear the costs of the federal government’s failure to secure our borders every time they pay school taxes, local tolls, sales and excise taxes. It also means that illegal migrants get a lot of benefits that they don’t pay for.
Conversely, by a 5-to-1 ratio, the taxes paid by illegal immigrants wind up in federal coffers. Despite states bearing most of the costs associated with illegal immigration, the federal government receives 15.4 billion of their tax receipts, compared to $3.5 billion received by states and localities.
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/352869-the-cost-of-illegal-immigration-to-taxpayers-is-growing#.Wc1zD18NRVw.twitter
U.S. Taxpayers Have Spent More Than $80 Billion on ‘Dreamers’
K-12 education, WIC, Medicaid for illegal immigrants brought as children adds up to large price tag
On his Fox News show last week, Tucker Carlson took on the illegal immigrants who shouted down House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi at her press conference, saying most are “benefiting in a lot of ways from U.S. society, which is the richest in the world.”
“I never hear a single person say thank you. Why not?” he asked his guest, an illegal immigrant activist.
DACA renewal deadline looms; concerns linger
WESH - Orlando, FL
On a Facebook page called DACA Dreamers Only, several young adults who are in DACA insist they’ve worked for everything they’ve gotten, and haven’t received any government handouts.
“All day long I hear ppl say 'illegals get free health insurance, Medicaid, food stamps, welfare.' Anyone's state gives out free welfare services? I know mine don't," one person wrote.
“It is common knowledge that we can’t take advantage of many of the programs such as welfare and Medicare, yet many believe that we do. We are not taking advantage of anyone and all we want is a chance,” another one wrote.
But illegal immigrants do get several kinds of welfare, much of it through their U.S.-born children, and a study by the Center for Immigration Studies showed that 62 percent of households headed by an illegal immigrant received some type of welfare. In addition, U.S. taxpayers have spent billions of dollars a year for K-12 education for illegal immigrants, about 690,000 of whom have qualified for DACA — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
The Trump administration rescinded the DACA program this month, but with a six-month wind-down period to give Congress a chance to pass a version of the DREAM Act, which would give legal status to all those eligible for DACA and other illegal immigrants who meet certain criteria, and allow them to apply to become citizens after a few years.
But how much have U.S. taxpayers spent on the DACA beneficiaries so far? How many benefits have DACA people collected while in the U.S. illegally?
The biggest benefit illegal immigrants in DACA have gotten by far is a K-12 education in American schools, with extra services provided to them for ELL (English Language Learner) programs, and other programs offered through schools that include school lunch, school breakfast, in many places, summer meals, and reduced or free after-care and summer camp. The total school-related benefits amount to the year-round care and feeding of hundreds of thousands of children whose parents are living and working in the country illegally.
The average per pupil cost of K-12 education in public schools in America is over $12,000, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But more is spent, on average, on immigrant children.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Enforcement, the cost to educate ELL students who have limited English-language ability is, on average, 20 percent higher than for regular students. In some school districts, it’s as much as 50 percent higher.
ELL costs nationwide totaled 59.8 billion in 2016.
“The brunt of these costs consist of providing salaries, benefits and/or training to hundreds of thousands of LEP teachers and programs, followed by additional funding for tutoring, bilingual textbooks and material, additional administrative tasks and facility enlargement/enhancement needed to incorporate the increased number of students,” wrote the authors of the 2016 FAIR report “Elephant in the Classroom: Mass Immigration’s Impact on Public Education."
As of September 4, there are 689,800 people in DACA. They are between the ages of 15 and 36. The largest group of them — 253,000 — are between the ages of 21 and 25, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. A total of 65 percent of DACA recipients are 25 or under. The great majority are originally from Mexico.
To qualify for DACA, a person had to have resided in the U.S. continuously since 2007, and had to be enrolled in either school or a training program or have graduated from high school.
According to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 253,100 DACA recipients are 21 to 25 years old, and would have therefore attended four years at an American high school. Another 196,500 DAC recipients are now 16-20 years old and therefore would have gone to an American school for at least eight years. An additional 2,000 DAC recipients are under 16, and would have spent at least 10 years in American schools. Multiplying the numbers by $12,000 per pupil per year brings the cost to about $31.25 billion — which is the most conservative estimate — and is likely to be underestimating the amount that U.S. taxpayers have paid for schooling for DACA recipients.
Government Benefits Collected by DACA Recipients
| K-12 Education | $31.25 billion |
| School lunches | $20 billion |
| Welfare | $30 billion |
Source: LifeZette
This is not counting free school meals.
Harvard University researcher Roberto Gonzales found in a study of DACA recipients that 73 percent qualified for free lunch in high school, based on their low family income.
In 2016 the U.S. spent $18 billion on the school lunch program, double the $7.5 billion that it had spent in 2000. The dramatic increase is thought to be due largely to the increase in the number of children in U.S. schools where are either illegal immigrants or the children of illegal immigrants.
Another huge benefit the illegal aliens now in DACA have collected is in-state tuition at public universities and colleges in the 21 states that now offer in-state tuition for undocumented students.
DACA recipients might not consider that a benefit — but on average, people paying in-state tuition are only paying about a third of the total cost of their education, with the rest paid for by the state.
“If you’re only covering about a third of the tuition yourself, then somebody else is paying for the rest. Taxpayers,” said Ira Mehlman, spokesman for FAIR.
“It’s a huge government benefit,” he told LifeZette. “Most government benefits don’t come in the form of a check with your name on it.”
And setting aside education, a lot of illegal immigrants are receiving actual welfare, often through their children. But not always.
WIC, the food program that provides coupons for free food to women and their children, does not require a person to be a U.S. citizen to qualify.
A study by Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies showed that 62 percent of all households headed by an illegal immigrant got some kind of welfare. Almost 23 percent of them got WIC and more than 22 percent of them got food stamps (EBT) — most through their U.S.-born children.
In addition, almost all pre-natal care and births by illegal immigrants in the U.S. are covered by Medicaid, as the beneficiary is considered to be the future U.S. citizen who is to be born.
Jason Richwine and Robert Rector estimated in a 2013 report for the Heritage Foundation that in 2010, the average household headed by an illegal immigrant household received close to $25,000 in government benefits and paid, on average, about $10,00 in taxes, a deficit of about $14,000 per household.
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So how much have DACA recipients collected in welfare and other benefits paid for by U.S. taxpayers? Likely more than $100 billion in benefits, including K-12 education, school lunches and actual welfare (WIC, food stamps, Medicaid, etc.).
But as government numbers are not available, it is almost impossible to know exactly how much illegal immigrants who now have DACA have benefited from being in the U.S. illegally.
“They should be looking at it, but they’re not,” said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, referring to the federal government.
An email query to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for information about government expenditures on DACA recipients was not answered on Monday.
(photo credit, homepage and article images: Molly Adams,
According to Pew Research, illegal immigration has flooded America’s labor market with at least 12 million new workers. This has dramatically, and rapidly increased the labor supply and therefore decreased wages for American workers. Ample evidence supports this claim. For example, before Hurricane Harvey, President Trump’s crackdown on illegal aliens had already caused wages for construction workers to rise by 30 percent in Texas (half of Texas’ construction workers were illegal aliens). Likewise,businesses in Maine were forced to hire American workers after the availability of visas for temporary foreign workers were restricted. As a result, unemployment decreased, wages increased, and working conditions improved in order to attract American workers. Illegal labor has distorted America’s labor markets, and hurt American workers in the process.
October 4, 2017
Illegal Immigration: An Economic Poison Pill
The conversation surrounding illegal immigration is deeply personal for many people -- it is emotionally-charged and politically divisive. Debates often devolve into mud-slinging contests, and arguments morph into feigned outrage, even violent protests. But from an economic perspective the question is settled science: illegal aliens cost taxpayers billions, impoverish American workers, and are completely unnecessary for America’s economic success.
To begin with, illegal immigrants are expensive. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s 2017 report, illegal immigrants, and their children, cost American taxpayers a net $116 billion annually -- roughly $7,000 per alien annually. While high, this number is not an outlier: a recent study by theHeritage Foundation found that low-skilled immigrants (including those here illegally) cost Americans trillions over the course of their lifetimes, and a study from the National Economics Editorial found that illegal immigration costs America over $140 billion annually. As it stands, illegal immigrants are a massive burden on American taxpayers.
Although border control is a federal responsibility, state and local governments shoulder two-thirds of the costs associated with illegal immigration. Unsurprisingly, this costs California more than any other state: California spends$30.3 billion on illegal aliens annually -- 17.7 percent of the state budget. Texas is next: illegal immigration costs the State of Texas $12.4 billion annually, or roughly 10 percent of the state's budget. In third place is New York, which spends $7.4 billion on illegal immigration.
Of course, the tax burden is only part of the story: illegal immigration also distorts the labor market, hurting American workers. Ever hear of the law of supply and demand? It is how the free market determines prices: when demand increases, prices increase (more people bid-up the price); conversely, when supply increases, prices decrease (less scarcity means less urgency), and vice versa. Supply and demand underpins the price of everything from gasoline, to apples, to the value of a person’s labor -- surgeons command high prices because there is a limited supply of surgeons, whereas store clerks make minimum wage because anyone can be a store clerk.
According to Pew Research, illegal immigration has flooded America’s labor market with at least 12 million new workers. This has dramatically, and rapidly increased the labor supply and therefore decreased wages for American workers. Ample evidence supports this claim. For example, before Hurricane Harvey, President Trump’s crackdown on illegal aliens had already caused wages for construction workers to rise by 30 percent in Texas (half of Texas’ construction workers were illegal aliens). Likewise,businesses in Maine were forced to hire American workers after the availability of visas for temporary foreign workers were restricted. As a result, unemployment decreased, wages increased, and working conditions improved in order to attract American workers. Illegal labor has distorted America’s labor markets, and hurt American workers in the process.
Finally, America’s economy will not collapse without easy access to illegal labor.
The standard refrain can be summed up as: “we need illegals to do the jobs Americans won’t do.” This is nonsense for two reasons. First, the claim is predicated upon the false assumption that America’s labor market is saturated and requires more workers to continue growing. This could not be further from the truth: right now fewer that 150 million Americans (out of 320 million) are employed, likewise there are 23 million Americans currently looking for work -- twice the number of illegal aliens in the country. Even assuming that every illegal aliens was employed, replacing them with American workers would still leave 11 million Americans unemployed.
Second, the claim is undermined by actual labor statistics. According to theBureau of Labor Statistics, millions of Americans -- of all races -- currently work as janitors, laborers, and agricultural workers. In fact, only four percent of American agricultural workers are illegal aliens, according to a report in theNational Review, putting to bed the myth that we would starve without illegal laborers. Clearly Americans are willing to work any job, provided they are compensated at fair market value -- this is not currently happening precisely because many illegals work under-the-table.
Believe it or not, states without illegal immigrants, like Montana or Ohio, are not economic backwaters with exorbitantly high costs of living -- people in Idaho can still afford McDonald’s and Starbucks, they just pay teenagers to work the drive-thrus. In fact, the cost of living in said states is often cheaper, because their governments do not require high taxes to subsidize legions of illegal aliens.
It is also worth mentioning that America is the only developed nation, until very recently, that imports millions of illegal immigrants to work in its service sector -- other rich nations like Japan and Canada, do not. Yet despite this, the GDP per capita of Japan has actually grown faster than America’s during the same period. The same is true of Canada and Australia. If illegal immigration is such an economic bonanza, why are Americans being left behind by nations without this “advantage”?
University professors, Silicon Valley CEOs, and politicians are not losing their jobs to illegals -- ordinary folk are. Illegal immigration is a contentious issue, but it remains important to couch policy discussions in facts -- not just abstract principles.
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