A deep dive into the (financial) cost of illegal immigration

The Cost of Illegal Immigration

National Affairs

Summer, 2024

The chaos at the border in recent years, along with even Democrat-run cities complaining about its impact, have cast into stark relief one of the central issues surrounding illegal immigration: its fiscal costs. Unfortunately, most discussions on the subject tend to be filled with misconceptions, half-truths, and at times even outright falsehoods. A fair read of the evidence indicates that illegal immigrants are almost certainly a net fiscal drain, but not because they are illegal per se. Nor is it because they are freeloaders or welfare cheats, or because they don’t pay any taxes.

The reason is that a very large share of illegal immigrants have modest levels of education, which results in modest incomes and tax payments, even when they are paid on the books. Their generally low incomes also allow many of them to qualify for means-tested welfare programs, which they often receive on behalf of native-born children. In other words, illegal immigrants are a net fiscal drain on public budgets for the same reasons that legal immigrants and native-born Americans with low levels of education are: They receive more in benefits from the system than they pay into it.

These realities do not neatly satisfy either side of the contemporary immigration divide, so they are routinely ignored or even denied. Any serious and informed immigration-policy debate will have to confront them.

THE ILLEGAL-IMMIGRANT POPULATION

Whatever the fiscal impact of the average illegal immigrant, it would not matter much if there were relatively few in the country. But the illegal-immigrant population has been large for decades. We can arrive at reasonable estimates of that population primarily because, contrary to what is sometimes asserted, illegal immigrants do not live in the shadows.

It’s not just that illegal immigrants have appeared at press conferences with sympathetic politicians or prominent activists: The Census Bureau makes it clear that illegal immigrants respond to the decennial census and its various surveys. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which uses census surveys, is also clear on this point. Numerous researchers over the last four decades have used data from these two agencies to study illegal immigrants living in the United States.

Much of the pioneering work in this area was performed by Robert Warren — formerly at the Immigration and Naturalization Service and now at the Center for Migration Studies — and Jeffrey Passel at the Pew Research Center. In the 1980s, both Warren and Passel realized that they could estimate the number of illegal immigrants residing in the country through census data. Since researchers can discern the characteristics of immigrants in the country legally based on administrative data, by comparing their survey profile to the characteristics of the entire foreign-born population, they can figure out who the likely illegal immigrants are. This basic insight allows us to study illegal immigrants in a systematic way.

Prior to the border-crossing surge during the Biden administration, analysis of Census Bureau data showed roughly 10 or 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. When adjusted for undercount, it produced estimates of 10 to 12 million. This does not include the roughly 5 million native-born minor children of illegal immigrants who were all awarded American citizenship at birth.

Many Americans doubt the number was this “low,” or that it remained relatively constant before the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s certainly true that hundreds of thousands of new illegal immigrants crossed the border surreptitiously or overstayed a temporary visa every year before the pandemic, even during the Trump administration. But their numbers were offset by all those who left on their own, were deported, died, or gained legal status (e.g., by being granted asylum or marrying an American citizen) every year. Warren estimates that between 2010 and 2019, 5.9 million illegal immigrants left the illegal population in various ways.

Another likely reason that Americans believe the illegal-immigrant population is larger than those estimates suggest is that they underestimate the number of legal immigrants allowed into the country. Despite out-migration and natural mortality, the legal-immigrant population has roughly tripled in size since 1980. To the extent that the media report on legal immigration, they often leave the public with the impression that it is highly restrictive. This leads many Americans to assume that the huge increase in the foreign-born population they see around them must be due to illegal immigration.

While we can be reasonably certain that the pre-pandemic estimates of illegal immigration were accurate, there is not an absolute consensus. In 2018, several researchers at Yale University published an article purporting to show that the illegal-immigrant population was closer to… HERE

—>UPDATE: The liberal AJC prints a lengthy correction after demand letter from the Dustin Inman Society. More news on this coming soon.

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Daily Signal News report (‘DEFAMATORY’: Conservative Demands Swing-State Newspaper Retract ‘Hate Group’ Smear’)
on the recent AJC attack here by the great Tyler O’Neil.

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I added educational hyperlinks to the below letter – dak.

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October 18, 2024

VIA U.S. REGULAR MAIL & E-MAIL

Leroy Chapman, Jr., Editor in Chief THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION 223 Perimeter Center Pkwy NE Atlanta, Georgia 30346

Re: Demand for Retraction and Apology

Dear Mr. Chapman, Jr.:

I write on behalf of my client, the Dustin Inman Society (DIS), to demand an immediate retraction and apology for the defamatory statements published in your October 7, 2024, article titled “Democrats in this Georgia district are backing a write-in candidate” by Tia Mitchell.

Through use of internet links, the AJC article wrongfully characterizes the Dustin Inman Society as a “Marietta-based anti-immigration hate group.” This characterization is false, defamatory, and published with actual malice. The Dustin Inman Society pushes for secure borders, is not “anti-immigration” and its proprietors do not hate anyone. Rather, DIS advocates for enforcement of U.S. immigration laws and actively opposes unlawful immigration. This distinction is crucial and well-known to staff at your publication.

I paste the offending paragraph from the AJC story:

“A search of activity under her birth name, Karen Sacandy, which Stamper legally changed in 2019, showed that she previously was aligned with a Marietta-based anti-immigration hate group. The group’s website often linked to Sacandy’s activities, like a letter seeking information about the state’s Immigration Enforcement Review Board and a copy of a letter to the editor supporting legislation to prevent immigrants claiming asylum from obtaining driver’s licenses.”

HEMMER WESSELS MCMURTRY PLLC
250 Grandview Drive, Suite 500, Ft. Mitchell, KY 41017 ● Phone 859.344.1188 ● Fax 859.578.3869

October 18, 2024 Page 2

We note the AJC informs readers that the Dustin Inman Society “often” linked to Karen Sacandy/Kate Stamper activities — but produces only two occasions.

Your story, for which DIS founder and president D.A. King was not contacted, informs readers that Sacandy/Stamper “was aligned” with the Dustin Inman Society. We note that polls show that a majority of Americans oppose the federal offense of illegal immigration. Since the letter posted on the DIS site was a published missive to the editor at the Cherokee Tribune, we must ask: does this make that newspaper a “Cherokee County-based anti-immigration hate group”?

Your characterization demonstrates a reckless and vindictive disregard for the truth, rising to the level of actual malice as defined in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan. Actual malice in defamation law refers to publication of a statement with knowledge that it is false or with reckless disregard of whether it is false or not. Your repeated mischaracterization of the Dustin Inman Society, despite having been corrected on numerous occasions, clearly meets this standard.

The Dustin Inman Society’s position on immigration is clear and public:

1. It supports sustainable levels of legal immigration through established channels.

2. It opposes unlawful immigration due to various societal concerns, including: – Strain on public resources and services
– Potential and real public safety issues
– Economic impacts on low-wage American workers and America’s poor

– Challenges to the rule of law

3. The Dustin Inman Society defends legal immigrants when media attempt to blur the difference between them and illegal aliens.

Moreover, the Dustin Inman Society’s board includes lawful immigrants who have navigated the proper channels for authorized immigration. This fact alone should dispel any notion that the organization is “anti-immigration.” As he has informed you multiple times over much of the last two decades, D.A. King’s sister is a real, legal immigrant.

While we acknowledge that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the Dustin Inman Society as an “anti-immigrant hate group that denigrates all immigrants,” your article presents the “anti-immigration hate group” characterization as the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s independent assessment and statement of fact.

This smear is not only demonstrably false and ignores Mr. King’s many communications to you advising you of the truth, but also demonstrates an exceedingly unprofessional failure to fact-check and verify information before publication.

We demand that the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

October 18, 2024 Page 3

1. Immediately publicly retract the defaming statement in the October 7, 2024, article.

2. Publish a prominent apology, equal in visibility and placement to the original defamatory article.

3. Cease and desist from further defamatory characterizations of the Dustin Inman Society.

Failure to comply with these demands may result in further legal action. We expect your prompt attention to this matter and await your timely response.

Sincerely,

Todd V. McMurtry

cc: James Abely, Esq.