The Real Cost of Immigration
| AR Articles on Immigration |
|---|
| Fade to Brown (May 2003) |
| Waging War on America (Jun. 1998) |
| Halting the Flow (Aug. 1995) |
| Search AmRen.com for Immigration |
| More news stories on Immigration |
Immigration: As some experts tell Congress to fight a possible recession with more immigrants, a respected economist warns that immigration’s costs are grossly underestimated—because the government won’t study them.
Set for release Tuesday is a report published by Social Contract magazine, “The Fiscal Impact of Immigration: An Analysis of the Costs to 15 Federal Departments and Agencies.”
The 70-page study was conducted by Manhattan Institute adjunct fellow Edwin S. Rubenstein. As senior economist at W.R. Grace & Co. in the 1980s, he directed in-depth studies of government waste for the Grace Commission that sparked much popular outrage against Washington’s spendthrift habits.
Rubenstein found that each immigrant costs taxpayers more than $9,000, while every immigrant household of four costs $36,000 in taxes. That’s far more than the $3,408 in 2007 dollars the National Research Council’s 1997 “New Americans” study of federal, state and local government expenditures found immigrants to cost.
“The federal government has never produced a comprehensive study of this issue,” Rubenstein noted. “Executive agencies are not required to do Fiscal Impact Statements for new immigration policies. Even the immigration reform legislation sent to Congress last year contained not one word on its potential budgetary consequences.”
So Rubenstein looked across the government at departments and agencies that include Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Interior, Justice, Labor, HHS, HUD, Transportation, Treasury and the State Department, as well as Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.
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Looking at education alone, Rubenstein found that about “3.8 million public school students—7.9% of total K to 12 enrollment—are enrolled in classes for English language learners,” according to Department of Education statistics. These classes are significantly more expensive than mainstream English classes.
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Rand Corp. researchers discovered back in 1981 that added costs for language assistance instruction ranged from $100 to $500 per pupil. Added to that are program administration costs, staff development and functions such as student identification and assessment.
Rand found that “the total additional per pupil costs for language assistance instruction was estimated to be in the range of … $460 to $1,600 in 2007 dollars,” according to Rubenstein’s extrapolations, making “the total cost of providing English Language Learning instruction to the 3.8 million students enrolled in those programs … about $3.9 billion ($1,030 times 3.8 million).”
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Turning to the Department of Justice, the study found criminal aliens to be “an increasing burden on U.S. prison systems.” In 1980, federal and state facilities held fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens, Rubenstein said. But at the end of 2004, about 267,000 noncitizens were incarcerated in U.S. correctional facilities.
Of all prisoners in federal prisons, 27% are criminal aliens, he found, with a total cost of $1.5 billion. But that may be low-balling it. “A shortage of available prison capacity has forced federal authorities to release criminal aliens prematurely. Nationally an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 illegal immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes still walk the streets,” he said.
On top of that are the private costs criminal aliens impose on their victims. Analyzing the rap sheets of 55,000 incarcerated illegal aliens in 2003, the Government Accountability Office found that the average criminal alien was arrested for 13 prior offenses, 12% of which were cases of murder, robbery, assault and sexually related crimes; only 21% were immigration offenses, the rest being felonies.
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(Posted on April 7, 2008)
Comments
By firing American citizens and hiring illegal aliens or desperate, recent immigrants, a businessman can cut costs and make a big, big profits. The best thing is that all the social costs (education, welfare, police, medical, prisons, etc.) are picked, up not by the businessman, but by the taxpayer. It is all about greed, but marketed as “the Christian thing to do,” or “We’re a nation of immigrants,” or “It’s good for the economy,” or “Doing a job Americans won’t do.” Lies, lies, lies!
Posted by at 6:32 PM on April 7
Large corporations and the government see things differently. In their view, every third-worlder who immigrates to the U.S. will likely become subsidized by the tax dollars of responsible citizens, thus enabling each one to become one more shopper at Wal-Mart, one more patient at the local clinic, and one more commuter pumping gas at ExxonMobil.
The same is true for the American Blacks who are nurse-fed and kept dependant during their entire lives from the cradle to the grave.
Posted by at 6:56 PM on April 7
Illegals are most of the problem we have in a full blown recession….they (our own government) lies to us left in right. They don’t care about us, the real taxpayers, all they want is our tax dollars….well guess what….what with the stupid ass government sending our jobs overseas and they dole out benefits to illegals…what do you expect???? Our economy to thrive…..how stupid do they think we are that we don’t have it figured out what has happened and what will continue to happen to our once great nation….the more they come, the worse it gets for decent hard working Americans!!!! Take the mexican prisoners up in a helicopter….go over the mex border and push them out in their own dessert…see how far they can bounce….most deserve the death penalty anyhow….I know you won’t print this, but hey at least I got if off my chest!!
Posted by lydia at 7:53 PM on April 7
How much do our politicians think we can bear?
Posted by Whiteplight at 8:36 PM on April 7
It’s only a matter of time. Groups like NumberUSA have had great success over the last 3 years or so in FORCING politicians to see and admit the truth. If anything, the cause is building momentum. There will come a time, soon I think, when it is taken for granted that immigration is a very negative thing for our country and political suicide for politicians.
Posted by at 9:09 PM on April 7
As I have been saying for a couple of years now, as well as others on AR, we are an event away from the spark that puts our country into civil war. This impending Recession (Depression) could well be the spark that ignites nation wide rioting by the blacks and Latinos.
Since we know the Elites, like Allan Greenspan and George Soros, along with a bunch of pawns in our government, can pull the strings in our economy to keep it from collapsing, at least for while. It is my belief that there could be a financial reprieve to prevent the Depression that will be upon us. Since I know the Elites, who have all the money and power, are aware that 3rd World Immigrants are a detriment to the USA. This Immigration has been allowed by the citizens out of fear of being called Racist due to the PC propaganda.
I believe that IF there is a temporary reprieve to the collapse of our economy, it is because it must be “absolute”, with NO possibility of recovering. Once the transformation is complete, the Elites can implement their “change”, which will be a Communist Police State to protect the citizens … the USA dollar will collapse, as it is now doing, and will be replaced by a new currency (Amero ?), which will be valued at a fraction of the USA dollar. Those who think they are going to live off the interest of the million dollars setting in the bank, will be forced to return to work until the day they die of old age.
~Rande
Posted by Rande at 11:46 PM on April 7
What do we do about all these illegal immigrants, especially since the government still wants to give them amnesty? And where do our current presidential candidates stand on this issue? They send mixed messages, and yet our country is sagging under the weight of illegal immigration.
The big question is why are we giving so many concessions to those who have knowingly broken our laws? Think a merger between the U.S, Mexico and Canada is just a pipe dream? Our nation’s sovereignty is under attack like never before.
President Bush is obviously pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration’s true open borders policy.
Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.
Posted by Jake at 11:20 AM on April 8
GO to-
The cost is $338.3 billion a year. This is only the financial cost. The ramifications of cultural damage is incalculable. Not to mention, the inevitable loss of freedom, to the current populace.
Posted by at 11:33 AM on April 8
LYDIA’s post is on the mark. The immigrants, legal OR illegal, are rapidly forcing AMERICAN WORKERS out of jobs — by undercutting them wage-wise. The business and corporate entities WANT this — ensuring more profits — at the expense, of course, of the American Middle-Class! Our cheating whores in Congress and the White House are in hock to the corporations and businesses (campaign contributions) and thus have no choice other than to go along with the demands by the corporate moguls.
Thanks to our greedy capitalists, the destruction of our cherished way of life is a virtual certainty. Not only for America, but for Europe, Canada and Australia.
Posted by Fed Up at 12:55 PM on April 8
The costs of massive immigration are 1) lowering wages for Americans, sometimes below the level at which we can afford to hold a job. Moreover, there is 2) a cultural cost - the loss of American culture, the loss of hearing English, and progams for those who speak English, replaced with espanol, foreign holidays, churches, gangs, drunkards, drugs. Americans are to earn less, have fewer chances for college and promotion (thanks to affirmative action), and be pushed out of our old neighborhoods, our old cities, our old nation. The cost of immigration a not only heavy, it is intolerable.————-HM
Posted by at 1:05 PM on April 8
Importing millions of disenfranchised and illiterate wretches to stimulate the economy by flooding the unskilled labor market is such a brilliant idea. What could possibly go wrong!?
I wonder why nobody thought of it sooner…
Posted by Wikitopian at 1:07 PM on April 8
“Rubenstein found that each immigrant costs taxpayers more than $9,000, while every immigrant household of four costs $36,000 in taxes. That’s far more than the $3,408 in 2007 dollars the National Research Council’s 1997 “New Americans” study of federal, state and local government expenditures found immigrants to cost.”
This one paragraph says it all. Why, pray tell, would we allow ANY immigration into this country that costs taxpayers one red cent? All immigrants should have an immediate net BENEFIT to existing American taxpayers, not cost them. Otherwise, what is the point of expanding our population, with all the negative impacts it brings, and diluting the common culure and language of the host country, if it does not benefit us in some measurable way? The benefits accrue ONLY to the immigrants themselves. Especially, those from 3rd world who can’t read or write in their own language much less English. What rational thinking person would employ such a ridiculous policy and waste of our limited resources? We are not running a charity flop house here. Our nation, defined by a limited land mass, is all we have in the end to leave our children. And we should not leave them an over-crowded, polluted, low quality of life nation in massive debt, all so some do-gooders and groups profiting/exploiting immigraiton policies (Catholic church, democrats, La Raza, etc) can pocket a few more dollars or increase their power/member base. We have lost our collective minds. Afterall, aren’t we preached to constantly be the powers that be that immigration is an asset to our nation? Well, tell me how if this study is true? Or refute the numbers laid out. I won’t hold my breath.
Posted by at 4:36 PM on April 8
The article doesn’t it clear. The $9,000 cost of an illegal immigrant to taxpayers is what—the yearly cost? The cost over his lifetime?
Posted by Duscany at 12:37 AM on April 9