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

June 19, 2024 By D.A. King

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

 

Filed Under: Older Entires

AMNESTY

Barbara Jordan on illegal immigration – Audio from CIS.org ‘Who Was Barbara Jordan and Why Does Her Work Still Matter Today?’

“ILLEGAL ALIEN”

Image: Dreamstime.com

Know the media

Immigration amnesty education

MEDIA WATCH

BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP

BLACK LIVES MATTER * ANTI-ENFORCEMENT

May Day rally in San Francisco, CA, 2017. CREDIT: Pax Ahimsa Gethen (CC).

The Illegal Alien Lobby

THE ILLEGAL ALIEN LOBBY

11th Circuit Appellate Court: DACA: NO LAWFUL PRESENCE, NO LEGAL STATUS

Image: Wikipedia

The Dustin Inman Society Blog

D.A. King, 1 April 1952 – 5 March 2025

March 23, 2025 By Fred

We are sorry to inform you that D.A. King, President and founder of the Dustin Inman Society, has left us.

Donald (“D.A.”) Arthur King, 1 April 1952 – 5 March 2025.

D.A. King left this life and his work for the nation that he loved, confident that he has done his best. D.A. passed on peacefully after a private battle with cancer.

“Once a Marine, always a Marine” – D.A. was always visibly proud of his service and his honorable discharge from the U.S. Marine Corps (1970-1976).

D.A. described himself as “pro-enforcement” on immigration and borders, an issue on which he dedicated the last 21 years of his life as an expert activist, writer and public speaker.


D.A. King talks amnesty, “hate” and “immigrants” with Jorge Ramos on Univision

https://youtu.be/w6FPMn0h4fk

Illegal immigration is not healthy for Americans

Brian Kemp’s first TV campaign ad, 2018

https://youtu.be/Gx7TsHCH35w

Dustin Inman Society page A-1, New York Times

Photo: New York Times/Twitter

Feb. 21, 2023 National Press Club Panel: OVERRUN – “The Greatest Border Crisis in History” From the Center for Immigration Studies

https://youtu.be/seND4qGrvxY

John Stossell: The Southern Poverty Law Center is a scam

https://youtu.be/k41PI54ExFc

The Great Terry Anderson (RIP) on illegal immigration in Los Angeles. – 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUEl8WYDDus

Terry Anderson video, part 2 – Birthright Citizenship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SS-5u8CMB4

RECENT BLOG ENTRIES

Open records request to TCSG Dec 2, 2024 – “We anticipate having the documents you are requesting to you no later than Friday the 13th of December. “- “At this time, the requested records do not exist.”

Welcoming Illegal immigration to Georgia with special treatment on college tuition

Retraction demand letter to Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper (updated, Nov. 2, 5:55 AM)

Media request sent to Technical College System of Georgia – OCGA 50-36-1 – Employers in Apprenticeship program — Updated with response

Open records request of Sept. 24, 2024 to TCSG, Re: HDAP, employer docs and response OCGA 50-36-1 – SB 497

COBB COUNTY SHERIFF CRAIG OWENS IS A DANGEROUS MAN

The AJC was the ‘Dinner Chair’ for the 2004 Atlanta MALDEF fundraiser

Response from Senior Admissions Counselor at the College of Coastal Georgia to inquiry regarding Dual Enrollment, illegal aliens and no-cost classes

Open records request sent to TCSG on July 8, 2024 Re: Compliance with new language added to OCGA 56-36-1 in 2024 SB 497

Media request sent to the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) Re: Comment on the Addition of “Apprenticeships” to list of public benefits, OCGA 50-36-1 *Updated with reply

Open Records request sent to the Cobb County Sheriff’s office 4:56 AM, Thursday, June 6, 2024. 287(g) – Updated with response(s)

Biden violates federal law to give millions of migrants work permits

The Dustin Inman Society on the CIS podcast with Jessica Vaughan: HB 1105 and SB 354 – “Enforcement works!”

Why Are the Charities Enabling Illegal Immigration Still Tax-Exempt?

Tyler O’Neil: SPLC Fought Reforms That Might Have Helped Prevent Laken Riley’s Death, Immigration Activist Says

GALEO Inc. donors include the SPLC – $100,000

D.A. King in The Federalist this week: Laken Hope Riley’s Murder Outs Georgia As Largely A Sanctuary State

We remember: Candidate Brian Kemp’s 1st TV campaign ad, 2018 GOP Primary “Conservative candidate Brian Kemp will …enforce the ban on sanctuary cities.”

Illegal Immigration in GA: Dustin Inman Society Statewide Poll of Georgia GOP primary voters – Conducted by Landmark Communications Feb 13-15, 2024

It’s not 1859 – Let’s raise the pay for farmworkers who are here legally

Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) released into GA, 2020-2023 – data from U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

The SPLC is funding “Latinx” groups to advance foreign language voting

‘Terrorist Entry Through the Southwest Border’ – audio interview with expert Todd Bensman of CIS

Open records request GADOL (#3) – Affidavits/EADs *Updated

List of media members to whom we sent a “news tip” on GA Gov. Brian Kemp ignoring Dem sheriff’s open violation of state law, OCGA 42-4-14

Dustin Inman Society featured in Breitbart story: “For example, King is now trying to get the GOP governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, to enforce a Georgia law that requires sheriffs to report jailed illegals to the federal government”

We have serious compliance problems in Georgia OCGA 42-4-14

Illegal alien captured in Gwinnett County, GA, detected by 287(g): Aggravated child molestation by sodomy, from ICE report


OLDER ENTRIES


REMEMBERING BARBARA JORDAN ON IMMIGRATION

Barbara Jordan. (Biography.com) "Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave." - Testimony of the late Barbara Jordan, Chair, U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform on February 24, 1995.

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ACCUSED KILLER OF DUSTIN INMAN WILL NOT BE RETURNED TO THE U.S.

Associated Press: “Some illegal immigrants can get Georgia driver’s licenses”

Georgia drivers license issued to non-citizens. Photo DDS

GEORGIA LAW REQUIRES JAILERS TO REPORT ILLEGAL ALIEN PRISONERS TO DHS

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