August 18, 2006

CIS: The costs of illegal immigration

On July 26, Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies testified before Congress, and his prepared testimony is in "Immigration's Impact on Public Coffers":

There is general agreement that the fiscal impact of immigration depends largely on the education level of the immigrants in question. Immigrants with a lot of education pay more in taxes than they use in services, while those with little education tend to have low incomes, pay relatively little in taxes and often use a good deal in public services. In the case of illegal alien, the vast majority have little education, and this is the key reason they create fiscal costs. Illegal families often receive benefits on behalf of their US-born children. As a general proposition, the large scale immigration of less-educated immigrants (legal or illegal) creates significant funding problems for social programs, including those for retirees, even though the immigrants work...

A detailed description of the costs follows. Obviously, these findings will be disputed. A much better way to deal with this issue is described here.

Posted to Immigration at August 18, 2006 11:35 AM

Comments

And illegal-dominated Santa Ana is in first place, as the least educated city in the US!

Posted by: Pat at August 19, 2006 09:43 AM

I find it interesting what Camarota left out. He cites the short-term effect from the NRC study. He conveniently leaves out the long-term effects. The NRC assumed that as the immigrants age, they will have fewer children in public schools as well pay higher taxes. Their children, having been educated, will pay more taxes.

Over the long-term, the NRC calculation is quite different. Camarota doesn't want you to know this.

Posted by: Dave at August 19, 2006 03:29 PM