| Cost of illegal immigration in
california estimated at nearly $9
billion
by: edward sifuentes - staff writer
california's nearly 3 million
illegal immigrants cost taxpayers
nearly $9 billion each year,
according to a new report released
last week by the federation for
american immigration reform, a
washington, d.c.-based group that
promotes stricter immigration
policies.
educating the children of illegal
immigrants is the largest cost,
estimated at $7.7 billion each
year, according to the report.
medical care for illegal immigrants
and incarceration of those who have
committed crimes are the next two
largest expenses measured in the
study, the author said.
pro-immigrant groups and latino
researchers dispute the
federation's findings, calling
them biased and incomplete.
jack martin, who wrote the report,
said thursday that the $9 billion
figure does not include other
expenses that are difficult to
measure, such as special english
instruction, school lunch programs,
and welfare benefits for american
workers displaced by illegal
immigrant workers.
"it's a bottom of the
range number," martin said.
the federation is one of the
nation's leading lobbying
groups aimed at curbing immigration
into the country.
authors of the report say it culls
information from the u.s. census
and other studies addressing the
cost of illegal immigration into
the country to draw its
conclusions.
gerardo gonzalez, director of cal
state san marcos' national
latino research center, which
compiles data on latinos,
criticized the report. he said it
does not measure some of the
contributions that immigrants make
to the state's economy.
"beyond taxes, these
workers' production and
spending contribute to
california's economy,
especially the agricultural
sector," gonzalez said.
immigrants, both legal and illegal,
are the backbone of the
state's nearly $28
billion-a-year agricultural
industry, gonzalez and other
researchers say.
more than two-thirds of the
estimated 340,000 agriculture
workers in california are
noncitizens, most of whom are
believed to be illegal immigrants,
according to a 1998 study on
farmworkers prepared for the state
legislature.
local farmers say migrant
farmworkers are critical to their
businesses, and without them they
would have to close their farms or
move their operations overseas.
martin disagrees. he said illegal
immigrants displace american
workers by taking low-skilled jobs,
keep wages low by creating an
overabundance of workers and stifle
innovation by reducing the need for
mechanized labor.
"the product of the illegal
immigrant is not included (in the
report) because if that is an
essential product it will get done
one way or another," martin
said. employers "would have to
pay better wages or invest money on
mechanization."
martin's study looks
specifically at the costs of
educating illegal immigrants'
children, providing medical care to
illegal immigrants and jailing
those convicted of committing
crimes. the report estimates the
total cost at $10.5 billion each
year, but that is offset by about
$1.7 billion in taxes that illegal
immigrants pay.
the study assumes that there are
about 1 million children of illegal
immigrant parents in california, or
about 15 percent of the
state's k-12 school enrolled
population. the estimate is based
on a 1994 study by the urban
institute that concluded there were
307,000 illegal immigrant children
enrolled in the state's public
schools.
martin also added an estimate of
597,000 u.s.-born children whose
parents are illegal immigrants
arriving at a total of 1,022,000
children. multiplying the number of
children by the estimated $7,577
the state spends on average per
pupil, the study arrived at the
$7.7 billion figure.
including the number of u.s.-born
children in the study is one of the
reasons pro-immigrant groups said
the study is biased.
"i think fair is without doubt
an extremist organization that
tries to portray itself as a
mainstream group," said
christian ramirez, director of the
san diego office of the american
friends service committee, an
advocate group for legal and
illegal immigrants.
the study's author defended
the report, saying that the
children were born in the united
states as a result of their
parents' illegal entry into
the country.
"in no way does the report
identify them as different kinds of
citizens, because they would not
have been born in the u.s. had
their parents not come into the
country illegally," martin
said.
to arrive at the cost of providing
health care to illegal immigrants,
the federation's study used an
earlier 2000 analysis of health
expenses paid by border counties
that concluded the state spent $908
million on medical care for
immigrants.
martin said he adjusted the 2000
figure for increases in the
population and inflation on the
cost of providing health care and
estimated that the state will spend
about $1.4 billion in 2004.
the report also estimated that the
state will spend another $1.4
billion to jail the 48,000 illegal
immigrants in state prisons.
california is compensated by the
federal government to offset the
cost of housing this population,
but the federal payments were a
fraction, about $111 million, of
the total cost, martin said.
to figure out the contributions
that this immigrant population
makes in taxes, the
federation's study said it
adjusted the urban institute's
study estimates of $732 million for
population increases and concluded
that they contribute about $1.7
billion in sales, income and
property taxes.
a similar study conducted by the
center for immigration studies in
washington, d.c., and released in
august, said that illegal
immigrants cost the federal
government $10 billion more than
they pay in taxes.
the federal government pays about
$2.2 billion in medical treatment
for uninsured immigrants, according
to the report. it pays $1.9 billion
in food assistance programs, such
as food stamps and school lunches,
for low-income families. and it
pays $1.4 billion in aid to schools
that educate illegal immigrant
children.
martin said states bear most of the
cost of illegal immigration.
"state costs are much higher
on a per capita basis because of
the fact that the largest expenses
are medical care and education and
those are borne at the local level,
not the federal," martin
said.
the federation's full report
is at: www.fairus.org.
contact staff writer edward
sifuentes at (760) 740-5426 or
esifuentes@nctimes.com.
source:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/200
4/12/06/news/top_stories/19_56_5812
_5_04.txt
erin, obvioulsy you didn't
read the article or you missed this
small fact that illegals like to
forget about to, let me remind you
here it is again... the report
estimates the total cost at $10.5
billion each year, but that is
offset by about $1.7 billion in
taxes that illegal immigrants pay.
wow, i gained a"
negative" $9billion.
and the difference between me and
an illegal is guess what? i'm
legal!!!!
why zapata, because you "say
so"? where are your stats?
just because you "say no"
doesn't make it true. i hope
you don't have any money
because you would be dangerous
seeing you did not provide any
stats which indicates your the one
without brains!
jose, i've seen it first hand!
you speak the truth.
very good point craig! truth!
rownawagner, maybe you should visit
this website for a little more
enlightenment and tell us what you
think, i'd like to know...
http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050
324_nd.htm
iceman, i give to you words of
wisdom borrowed from lucky:
not all that wander are lost, not
all that answer know, not all that
know understand.
akita-lo;
i have a belief that anyone that
has the balls to answer a question
and lacks the courage to leave open
the lines of communication via
e-mail on this forum, is just a
plain ignorant coward. all i have
to say to you is remember the
alamo! i hope to god this message
reaches you somehow someway
somewhere!
Also did you know that the white people of California are now the minority, and Latinos are the majority. do you think we could get special benefits and handouts now that we are the minorities, I think not in fact we (the minority) are still carrying the weight of what is now the majority. |
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